WHOLE VOL. THE WEST INDIES — VAZQUEZ DE ESPINOSA 653 



Chapter XXIV 



Continuing the Description of This City, and in Particular, of 

 the Foundation of Its Hospital and the Income It Enjoys. 



1707. The city keeps as its own the brokerage fees (correduria) 

 of the Exchange (Lonja), the gauging fees (mojoneria) and the 

 office of Commissioner of Weights and Measures (Fiel de Peso y 

 Medidas) ; the public announcement (pregoneria) of all the offices 

 which are auctioned ofif (se arriendan), and the slaughterhouse (carne- 

 ceria), which is leased out. It is the owner also of some shops and 

 houses (solares) and plots of land, which are rented out. This all 

 brings the city in each year 7,000 current pesos, 500 more or less. 



The leases it has on houses and shops are because the land was 

 given to it, for when the city was founded, they were designated 

 as the city's own by the Council for leasing ; the same is true of the 

 land it lets out on lease ; as for the brokerage fees of the Exchange, 

 the gauging fees, the announcements, and the fees for weights and 

 measures, they are a gracious gift of His Majesty to the city; the 

 slaughterhouse was built with the city's own funds. The city is 320 

 leagues from Lima. 



1708. The founding of the hospital took place in the year 1554; 

 Bartolome Hernandez, a native of La Mancha in the Kingdom of 

 Toledo, established it in the following manner. This Bartolome 

 Hernandez with great charitableness used to take in poor sick Span- 

 iards and Indians and keep and nurse them in his home. In that 

 year of 1554, it pleased God to take this holy man into His rest; 

 in his will he left 2,000 current pesos from his property for his 

 executors (who were Father Pedro Calero of the Dominican Order 

 and Father Leonardo de Valderrama, curate and vicar of the holy 

 church of this city, which then was a town) to invest, and with the 

 income to continue the care of the indigent sick. The executors 

 invested it, and from this beginning and with other contributions and 

 bequests which were made, this income kept growing, and was still 

 more greatly increased when in the year 1573 the Viceroy, Don 

 Francisco de Toledo, designated a mine on the Potosi range, two- 

 thirds of the profit from which was to go to the poor patients in the 

 Potosi hospital, and the other third to those of this hospital. These 

 mines were leased to Alonso de Torrejon for 4,866 assay pesos, and 

 the third accruing to this hospital was leased out in 1576; and with 

 this and other contributions and bequests, its annual income was 

 increased by the figure of 4,250 current pesos in the year 1610, 

 raised by an annual tax on the income of the residents of the city. 



