140 Miscellaneous Facts and Observations. 



more than God, and performing to him their vows of 

 Masses, which in their fear and trouble they had 

 vowed, by which erroneous and idolatrous devotion 

 of theirs I got that year many more crowns than what 

 before I have numbered from the Sodalities. 



" The next year following, 'all that Country was ge- 

 nerally infected with a kind of contagious sickness, al- 

 most as infectious as the plague, which they call Ta- .\ 

 bardillo, and was a Fever in the very inward parts or 

 bowels, which scarce continued to the seventh day, 

 but commonly took them away from the world to a 

 grave the third or fifth day. The filthy smell and 

 stench which came from them, which lay sick of this 

 disease, was enough to infect the rest of the house, 

 and all that came to see them ; It rotted their very 

 mouths and tongues, and made them as black as a 

 coal before they died. Very few Spaniards were in- 

 fected with this contagion ; but the Indians generally 

 were taken with it. It was reported to have begun 

 about Mexico, and to have spread from Town to 

 Town till it came to Guatemala, and went on for- 

 wards ; and so likewise did the Locusts the year be- 

 fore, marching as it were from Mexico over all the 

 Country. I visited many that died of this infection, 

 using no other Antidote against it, save only a hand- 

 kerchief dipped in Vinegar, to smell unto, and I thank 

 God I escaped where many died. In Mixco I 

 buried ninety young and old, and in Pinola above an 

 hundred ; and for all those that were eight years old, 

 or upwards, I received two Crowns for a Mass for 

 their souls delivery out of Purgatory. See good 



