akes 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 allowan