are very great in this country.  The vicar must not be niggardly in distributing them, if he has to transact any business; or he must arm himself with patience, which is very necessary.  His Majesty commands that the religious be provided there with what they need from his royal treasury for the journey which they must make to Mexico.  They allow them only ten days for the journey, and provide food only for that period.  The road is eighty leguas in length and is very rough, so that it takes a well-mounted horseman with a light load all of ten days to make it.  How much more must it take for people going in company, and with a string of pack animals (as the religious ordinarily travel), who do not expect to go more than five or six leguas a day.  Moreover, they are traveling in countries of varying climates; one of these being hot and the next cold, they often fall ill on the road, and some cannot travel farther.  It is no small achievement for those in health to reach Mexico in twenty days.  That which is allowed them for ten days’ journey is not enough, as is very certain, in this country; how, then, will it suffice for twenty?

In Mexico.  In the City of Mexico, which is the court of Nueva Espana, is the fifth stopping-place, where all of the difficulties which have been experienced at the court of our lord the king and in the city of Sevilla are renewed; because here one has to deal with royal officials in order to obtain money, and with the officials of his lordship the viceroy regarding the formalities necessary for the second embarcation.  And both classes of officials make themselves so much the owners of the poor religious who has need of them that, when they again commence their demands here, he would, even if he had the patience of a Job, need all of it because of the many occasions which are here offered for his losing it.  Although I arrived at Mexico burdened with the expenses of the journey, and had no food and no place from which to get it, the royal officials are not obliged to pay a single maravedi until all the party have passed through their registers.  This will be done when they please.  They inquire from the religious where their homes are, and who are their parents—­a very unpleasant thing.  One requires great assistance from Heaven in order not to resent it bitterly.  They put so little confidence in his word and oath that what they do not see with their own eyes it is not worth while to swear to them.  It happened, on the day when they registered me, that I did not have with me three religious, who were lying sick in the city of Los Angeles, which is on the route hither.  Although I told the royal officials of this and swore it in verbo sacerdotis, that did not avail to make them give me the subsistence which I was obliged to send to those sick men.  After this, since the stay in Mexico is long, lasting for almost a half a year, they asked money whenever they paid the tri-yearly allowance, and for every warrant they charged ten