WHOLE VOL. THE WEST INDIES — VAZQUEZ DE ESPINOSA 66l 



1733. These rivers confer benefits in having many gristmills on 

 their banks for wheat and corn, and in supplying the irrigation 

 ditches for the numerous vineyards, gardens, and chacras, or fields 

 of wheat, corn, chickpeas, and other crops, in the valleys through 

 which they flow. Both the Cachimayo and Pilcomayo Rivers have 

 stone bridges on the King's Highway running from this city to the 

 town of Potosi, and there is no other crossing except by fording 

 them. The Rio de Mojotoro has no bridge over it, being a variable 

 stream ; although it has great floods at times, one can cross as soon 

 as they subside. There is another river, lo leagues from this city 

 on the highway to the towns of Salinas and Oropesa in the Cocha- 

 bamba Valley, which also has no bridges, although it is a considerable 

 stream ; in the winter it is crossed by a boat kept there by a Spaniard, 

 and in the dry season it is forded without risk. 



Chapter XXIX 



Of the Variety of Bees Which Make Honey, in the District of 

 This City, and of the Different Kinds of Birds and Game To Be 

 Found There. 



1734. This city and its neighborhood are well provided both with 

 syrup, through having nearby some sugar mills and crushing plants 

 where quantities of sugarcane are ground, and with honey, since 

 there are five species producing it. Some are black and round, called 

 linchupa by the Indians ; they deposit their honey a stade underground, 

 first building a layer of yellow wax on the bottom, about a finger 

 thick, on which they heap many small olive-shaped wax cells in 

 which they deposit the honey. These bees sting so that the wound 

 hurts and festers. 



1735. There are other bees, larger than the last, and called tocto 

 by the Indians, black and yellow in color. These deposit their honey 

 in holes they make in trees ; this is better than the other ; these sting 

 like the last. There are other black bees, as large as the last, which 

 the Indians call yao. These build hives as large as Peruvian wine 

 jugs, of a dark gray pulp which looks like brown paper, on the 

 ground at the foot of bushes or small trees ; they deposit more honey 

 than the others, but it is not as good. These sting a great deal. In 

 the State of Caracas and Guiana, the Indians call these bees matehey; 

 they work the same way there. 



1736. There are other yellow and black bees longer than the pre- 

 ceding; the Indians call them lichiguana. These build their hives 

 in the top of the highest trees, the size and shape of a man's head, and 



