7^ WHITE'S JOURNAL OF A 
1787. was not very plentiful, but I was told, that at other feafons 
^P^^",'''^'^ they have a mod excellent market for that article. Their 
market for vegetables, however, abounded with fruit, roots, 
and garden ftufF, of every kind, notwithftanding it was not 
the beil: feafon for fruit, it then being too early in the fpring 
to expe£l abundance. Oranges, which we had in the 
greateft plenty, cofl: only five-pence the hundred. 
On a hill, about half a mile S. E. of the city, ftands a con^.- 
vent, named Convento de Santa Therefa; the nuns of which, 
amounting to about forty, are not allowed to unveil when 
they come to the grate : and on a plain between this con- 
vent and the city, flands another, called Convento A. de 
Juda, a very large building, governed by an abbefs and fe- 
veral nuns, all under the direction of a bifhop. Here about 
feventy young ladies are placed to be educated, who are 
fubjedt to all the reftridions of a monaflic life, only they are 
permitted to be frequently at the grate, and that unveiled. 
But what is fingular, the nuns of this convent, when they 
arrive at a proper age, are allowed either to take a hufband, 
or to take the veil, jufl: as their inclination leads. They are 
not however fufFered to quit the convent on any other terms 
than that of marriage ; to which the confent and approba- 
3 tion 
