seen how completely deceived I was in this notion. However, it is as well that all those who concern themselves with this business should be so deceived at the beginning, for if they were not they would give up this work, pious as it is. _The smallness of the allowance for conducting the religious to Sevilla._ Further, the amount which your Majesty commands to be granted in Valladolid for conveying the religious from their convents to Sevilla, is insufficient by far for the expense thus incurred. I conducted the religious who accompanied me to Sevilla in the greatest poverty, for many of them went on foot, and he who was best equipped rode an ass. Yet I arrived in Sevilla burdened by a debt of more than two hundred ducados, merely from the expenditure which I was obliged to make on their account. _In Sevilla._ In Sevilla, which is the second stopping-place, another troop of difficulties are encountered. In general, it is customary at the House of Trade to make some additions to the decrees of his Majesty; in order that these be accepted a great number of requirements must be fulfilled, the lack of any one of which is sufficient to invalidate the documents. Usually some one of these is lacking, from which it is easy to understand the embarrassment in which he must be who has charge of this matter, when he finds himself and his companions already in Sevilla without sufficient means for their support. This happened to me, and I am certain that I was not the first, and that he who follows me will not be the last, thus situated. I found myself in such embarrassment as the result of this that I was almost on the point of abandoning the enterprise at that time.