WHOLE VOL. THE WEST INDIES VAZQUEZ DE ESPINOSA 44I 



mysteries which Our Lord communicated to her. They were children 

 of Licentiate Orozco, Circuit Judge of the Charcas, where these 

 illustrious and sainted persons were born. This convent is a model 

 of sanctity and religious observance ; it seems like Heaven, and so 

 does its temple, in the afflux of priests who usually come here to 

 say Mass, and in the neat arrangement of its altars. 



1267. The last in order of founding, but not in size, is that of 

 Santa Catalina de Sena, of the Dominican Order and rule. Its 

 founders were the illustrious Licentiate Juan de Robles, cleric, and 

 Dofia Lucia de la Daga and her sister, widows and distinguished 

 women, of great virtue and worth. These ladies in the flower of their 

 age founded this convent with the large dowries which they had, 

 bringing after them, with their example, many women betrothed to 

 Jesus Christ. Before inaugurating their foundation, they had a fine 

 temple and house built ; it promises great increase. 



Chapter XXIV 



Continuing the Description of Lima, and of Other Features Which 

 Embellish It. 



1268. No less godly, and in fact unique in the world, is the Con- 

 fraternity of La Caridad and its hospital, which embraces and com- 

 prises within itself monuments of charity. Within its enclosure it 

 has an admirable hospital for poor sick women, and a refuge and 

 seminary beyond compare for impecunious young ladies and girls ; 

 they wear the Carmelite habit, with dark gray gowns and white 

 sashes, and the shield and insignia of the Virgin ; they have a Direc- 

 tress in charge of them. Here they are educated in great virtue and 

 in retirement ; they leave this school and nursery or planting ground, 

 to get married or become nuns ; and this noble hospital gives them 

 the dowry for that. I certify that in the presence of that nobility 

 and beautiful display of sanctity, under the most holy habit of the 

 Virgin Our Lady, when I was in that city it seemed to me the greatest 

 thing in the world. 



Besides the above, this most sainted Confraternity supports a large 

 number of distressingly poor persons in their homes by distributing 

 weekly rations and alms with the utmost charity, consoling and visit- 

 ing the afflicted poor at the same time. 



1269. This most sainted Confraternity escorts the bodies of exe- 

 cuted prisoners and buries them ; and during the octaves of All Souls 

 they gather their bones from the highways and put them in coffins 

 covered with black velvet cloth in the Cathedral in the chapel of 



