396 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 102 



of blankets and candlewicks ; the Spanish traders come in and buy 

 them for sale elsewhere. In this town and valley they make large 

 amounts of soap, which is exported to Lima and other points, and 

 very elaborate reed mats and palm-leaf hats, from all of which they 

 make a great deal of money. In this valley and that of Sana there 

 is much cattle, particularly goats, which feed on guaranga, which 

 is the leaf and fruit of the tree so called ; the Spaniards call it 

 algarrobo (carob). The seed is white, and of the shape and almost 

 the taste of the Spanish carob beans. Half a league from Lambayeque 

 there is another very fertile valley with the village of Chiclayo [in it] ; 

 it has an elaborate and architecturally [very] interesting Franciscan 

 convent. There is a Corregidor there, appointed by the Viceroy ; 

 the town has the same interests and products as those just mentioned. 



1172. There are many other very fertile valleys, like those of 

 Reque, Jayanca, Motupe, and others of great fertility and lively com- 

 merce. [As for the great productiveness of these valleys, they lie 

 along the river banks, and it must be borne in mind that] All this 

 country is irrigated. The villages are built in the valleys on the river 

 banks, with many trees about them ; everything else is barren sand 

 dunes and uninhabitable territory, for it does not [ever] rain there. 



1173. The village of the Olmos Indians is built in the midst of a 

 barren sandy waste, where it never rains. They get their water from 

 jagiieyes, which are wells or pools, out of which they draw it. This 

 is a rich village for all the Olmos Indians are muleteers and keep 

 mules ; and when the ships arrive from the Spanish Main, they go 

 down with their mules and load them, charging 30 or 40 pesos each, 

 or what they can get, for the trip to Lima, which is 180 leagues; and 

 they are so careful, skillful, and conscientious in their task that those 

 whose goods are being freighted, never worry about anything. As 

 all that country is sandy desert, they start traveling toward evening 

 and march all night, till they reach the jagiiey or place or valley 

 where they plan to stop, and they stay there all day resting and the 

 mules feeding, till it is time to start traveling again ; one travels with 

 more pleasure and comfort with them than with muleteers in Spain. 



Chapter V 



Of the City of Piura[llo] and Its District. 



1174. The city of San Miguel de Piura, first named San Fran- 

 cisco de Buena Esperanza, was the first founded by Marques Don 

 Francisco Pizarro, in the year 1531, in which he first entered that 

 realm ; and it was here that he dedicated and consecrated to God the 



