398 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 102 



guide who had been considering this and had come to meet a friend 

 arriving from Spain, on noting his discomfiture said to him : "Don't 

 be cast dovi^n ; you're in the best country God has created on earth ; 

 you see these poles and bamboos stuck in the sand; they look as if 

 they were worth nothing, but they're all made of gold and silver ; 

 go and look at them and you'll see I'm not fooling you" — thus cheer- 

 ing him up by making him understand he should not be troubled 

 by what was the custom of the country, which required nothing more ; 

 that the country was the best and richest in the world. Everybody 

 who can disembarks at this port, so as not to endure the tedium of 

 the ships beating to windward with the bowlines hauled, one tack 

 to sea and one to landward ; and with Olmos or Catacaos Indians 

 they continue over the plains and their valleys to Lima. 



1176. There are alligators in the Rio de Colan, but those are the 

 last, for there are none in all the rivers and valleys of Peru, even 

 though it is hot country ; I understand that the reason is that they 

 need not merely a hot but a damp climate, as is the case at Guayaquil, 

 and in all the rivers under the Equator, and in the New Kingdom 

 of Granada, Honduras, and a large part of New Spain. 



The clothing of the Indians of the plains has become entirely 

 Spanish, and the Indian women wear a big black cotton Mother 

 Hubbard (saco grande) ; the well-to-do or the chief tainesses drag a 

 train a yard long after them, like canons in Seville or Toledo, the 

 wealthier, the longer, for that is their index of authority ; in general 

 they are very dirty, though all of them are good people and have taken 

 firm hold on the tenets of our Holy Faith. 



1177. The Corregidor of Piura appoints two representatives in 

 the sierra, one in Ayabaca, which is on the border of the Province 

 of Los Calvas in the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court and Diocese of 

 Quito ; he governs all that province, and that of Frias. He puts the 

 other in Huancabamba, which borders on the Province of Los 

 Huambos in the Corregimiento of Cajamarca. 



In the Piura valleys there are excellent ranches and herds of 

 merino sheep, which live on guaranga or algarroba ; they are the 

 fattest and best-flavored mutton in the world, and a sheep sells there 

 for 8 reals. In the sierra there are cattle and mule ranches ; in the 

 Piura district they raise wheat, corn, and other cereals and fruit. 

 This wliole country is very attractive. 



1178. The Diocese of Trujillo extends along the sierra as far 

 as the farthest bound of the Province of Huamachuco, where it 

 borders on La Pallasca in the Province of Los Conchucos of the 

 Archdiocese of Lima; to the S. it extends to Ayabaca; and it runs 



