I have now brought my narrative as far as the buildings of Tumebamba, and it is necessary that I should describe the cities of Puerto Viejo and Guayaquil, although I would rather go on, both because I have not been much in the latter districts, and because the natives are deficient in intelligence, and it is difficult to get information from them. Also because it seemed to me sufficient that I should conduct the reader along the royal road; but my obligation to satisfy the curious obliges me to give a true account of everything that has come within my observation; and I feel certain that this will be agreeable to all learned, benevolent, and judicious readers. Thus I make the following statements with all the truthfulness and exactness that I am master of. Having said so much concerning these provinces, I will then return to the royal road.

To go, then, to these cities of Puerto Viejo and Guayaquil, it is necessary to take the road from Quito to the coast of the South Sea, and I will commence my account at Guaque, which is the beginning of the one region and the boundary of the other. From Tumebamba there is no direct road to the coast, except in the direction of the city of San Miguel, the first settlement made by the Christians in Peru.