372 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 102 



troubles is added the care with which one must proceed on the river, 

 covered as it is with fierce alHgators, many of which are man eaters, 

 having already devoured human beings, horses, and cattle. There 

 are such numbers of them in this great river that on its banks I have 

 seen great troops of them stretched out in the sun, in places more 

 than 500 together. From a distance they look like very large beams 

 or timbers, being of a dark gray color, much like rotten wood. 

 They breed in great numbers in all these rivers ; this is the one that 

 has the most, except for the Rio Grande de La Magdalena. The 

 females come out of the water onto the banks [and] dig in the sand, 

 making a hollow in it, in which they lay 30 or 40 eggs, larger than 

 those of geese or ducks, [and] the same color ; they cover them over 

 [at once] with sand and [as it is hot country, and natural,] in 15 

 days they hatch out. [The females leave, and it is Divine Providence 

 that as they are lazy in digging out the sand with their paws, they 

 kill many ; the little alligators.] They are now about 6 inches long 

 (un jeme), and run down to the water, many dragging their eggshells 

 along ; and as they enter the water, the big alligators being in the 

 habit of eating and swallowing fish, eat and swallow them too ; but 

 even so the rivers are covered with them, looking like timbers floating 

 on the water ; these are merely those which escape the jaws of their 

 parents or other alligators [when they emerge from the egg], for 

 they are so bestial that they do not even have the instinct to see and 

 appreciate that these are their own offspring [and they eat them up.] 

 If Heaven had not so ordained it, it would be impossible to live 

 in those regions, or they would eat each other up. This Rio de 

 Guayaquil is joined near the city by the Rio de Daule and the Rio 

 de Vola, both very large and of the same nature with it ; thus near 

 the city it becomes a mighty river, very pleasant to look at. On its 

 banks there are a few Indian villages, like Pimocha and Daule, from 

 which the other mighty river takes its name, passing under it ; it is 

 built above the attractive river bank on a high plateau covered with 

 fruit trees — ^bananas ; aguacates ; a sort of plum dififerent from those 

 in New Spain in taste and color, [being less juicy and mealier, and] 

 with two stones ; oranges and other kinds of fruit. In these huge 

 rivers there are great quantities of fish. [This brief account must 

 suffice.] 



Chapter XII 



Of the City of Santiago de Guayaquil and Its District. 

 1118. The city of Santiago de Guayaquil is /"/ leagues from San 

 Francisco del Quito. It was founded by Commander Sebastian de 



