648 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I02 



serve it like olives ; it tastes very good. There is another fruit called 

 obos ; the tree is like an orange tree and the fruit like limes, v^ith 

 a smooth sweet taste having just a touch of sour. Pineapples, mam- 

 mees, bananas, and papaws grow in abundance. There is another 

 fruit called guaparii which grows on large, tall trees, higher than 

 plum trees ; this fruit grows out of the trunk of the tree in bunches 

 with the same taste and appearance as grapes. They have coconut 

 and date palms, oranges and other unusual fruit impossible to 

 enumerate. In the woods there are countless monkeys ; many sorts 

 of pheasants (pavas), with handsome and highly prized feathers in 

 their crests ; large quantities of deposits of wax and honey in the 

 trees in honeycombs they call lichiguanas ; they have quirquinchos, 

 which are armadillos, and much else. This Diocese lies inland, as 

 has been stated, between the Dioceses of La Paz and La Plata ; on 

 the E. it is bounded by the Diocese of Paraguay ; there are however 

 many hostile Indians in between. 



Chapter XXI 



Of the City of La Plata and Its Founding. 



1695. The city of La Plata, called Chuquisaca in the language of 

 the Indians native to the site, was founded by Capt. Peranzules on 

 April 16, 1540, and named Villa de la Plata, under a commission 

 from Marques Don Francisco Pizarro, Knight of the Order of San- 

 tiago, explorer and conqueror of those realms ; this was authenticated 

 by Antonio Picado, Administrative Secretary of those Kingdoms, 

 under date of January 20 of that year. It kept the name of Villa 

 de la Plata up to October 19, 1555 ; on that same day it began to be 

 called the city of La Plata, as is stated in the Council records for 

 that year, without any other evident reason or patent, but rather, 

 it would seem, by provision of the Viceroy Marques de Canete, Don 

 Hurtado de Mendoza; in the documents he sent out, he called it 

 villa (town) until on March 10, 1557, ^e called it ciudad (city) and 

 the Viceroys have kept on so calling it, and so have the royal war- 

 rants. Although at the start there were only a few Spaniards here, 

 and humble buildings, it has grown in every respect. 



1696. It was established in the Province of the Charcas, so called 

 from the Indians living there ; the Spaniards called it New Castile, 

 as is shown by a writ of this Marques Don Francisco Pizarro. In 

 matters both civil and criminal it is under the Royal Chancery which 

 has its seat there, having been established in the year 1561 ; this has 

 a President who receives a salary of 5,000 assay pesos and five Asso- 



