“As soon as the corregidor comes within his jurisdiction, the first act of his administration is to take a census of the Indians according to their towns and villages. Proceeding to this duty in person, and taking with him the articles of merchandise to be distributed, he goes on, apportioning the quantity and kind he selects for every Indian, and affixing to each article its price, just as suits his caprice, the poor Indians being wholly ignorant of what is to fall to their lot, or how much it is to cost them. As soon as he has finished distributing in one village, he transfers the whole assortment to the cacique, with an exact inventory of the articles belonging to each individual, from the cacique himself to the most humble of all those who are to pay tribute; and the corregidor proceeds to another village in order to continue the distribution. It is a time of anguish both for the cacique and the Indians, when they look at the quantity, quality, and prices of these goods. In vain does the cacique remonstrate, and to no purpose do the Indians raise their clamours; on the one hand, they maintain that their means are not adequate to such a quantity of merchandise as is assigned to them, being absolutely unable to pay for it; again, they urge that goods of such a description are utterly useless to them, and that the price is so exorbitant as to exceed anything they had ever paid before. The corregidor remains inexorable and the Indians are obliged to take whatever has been allotted to them, however repugnant it may be to their wishes, and however straitened they are for want of means to make the payments; for these payments become due simultaneously with the tribute money, and the same penalty is imposed for failure to meet one as the other. All the payments of the first distribution must be made within two years and a half, to make way for the second, which usually does not contain so many wares as the first” (p. 240). The statement concerning the textile works is equally positive: “In former years woollen manufacture was confined to the province of Quito; but it has been recently introduced into other districts, although the articles manufactured in the provinces south of Quito are nothing but coarse cloths of very ordinary texture. In Cajamarca there are looms for the manufacture of cotton goods.... [Sidenote: Indians in the obrajes] [Sidenote: Punishment of the Indians]