WHOLE VOL. THE WEST INDIES VAZQUEZ DE ESPINOSA 683 



with numberless herds of cattle, mares, horses, deer, ostriches, and 

 many other kinds of animals and feathered game. Along the river 

 bank where the city is built there is much woods and tall timber. 

 The city has a marvelous climate, more hot than cold, although they 

 have winter and summer. Near the city there are many vineyards 

 from which excellent wine is made, and near what they call the Cruz 

 de Pantaleon there are iron mines. 



1799. In the district of this city there are 200 sugarcane grinding 

 mills to produce sugar, and a Jesuit establishment with millstones 

 to grind wheat. There are many kinds of Spanish and native fruit — 

 oranges, citrons, grapefruit, from which delicious marmalade is 

 made ; they harvest abundance of wheat, corn, barley, sweet potatoes, 

 many varieties of mandioc, whose nature I shall explain in another 

 chapter, yucca, jicamas (which they call bacucu), bananas (platanos), 

 which they call pacobas and in Brazil, bananas; pineapples (piiias), 

 which they call ananas ; ambaybas, which are a fruit the shape of 

 one's hand and tasting like a dried fig ; the tree producing this fruit 

 is larger than a fig tree, and its leaf, in color like a friar's gown, 

 is much larger than a fig leaf. There is another fruit called guambe 

 which is of the shape and size of an ear of corn, and is as sweet to 

 eat as a lump of sugar ; the plant it grows on is like an artichoke, 

 but somewhat larger, and its leaves are much larger than grape 

 leaves. There are many other kinds of wild fruit, impossible to 

 enumerate. 



1800. Round about in its neighborhood, the city has many Indian 

 villages, like Elita, a Franciscan parish with 500 Indians ; Yaguaron, 

 with 400; Los Altos, Tobati, all reasonable Indians; Tuyabacoba, 

 which means old man without a face ; Yuti, a village of over 600 

 Indians, catechized by the Jesuit Fathers ; Guarambe, and many 

 others. 



1801. Across the river and opposite the city are the tribe of the 

 Guaycurus, a degenerate and indolent people; they go naked, they 

 neither sow nor reap, they live on game and fish, and are great shots 

 with their arrows. The Jesuit Fathers have them under their charge 

 and work hard with them, but since they are such a worthless race, 

 they accomplish little, for this savage tribe, besides being so indolent, 

 have no habitations beyond a few mats, which they take along to 

 another spot when they so wish ; and though the country where they 

 live is bare, with no woods or forests, they are hard to overcome, 

 for when it rains the whole country is flooded, since it is very flat 

 and has no watercourses, so that it all becomes a sea and they travel 



