[275] José Barreda, the Father Provincial of the missions, in a curious letter under date of August 2nd, 1753, tells the Marquis of Valdelirios that he fears not only that the 30,000 Indians resident in the seven towns may rebel, but that they may be joined by the Indians of the other reductions, and that it is possible they may all apostatize and return to the woods. Brabo, in the notes to his ‘Atlas de Cartas Geograficas de los Paises de la America Meridianal’ (Madrid, 1872), gives a synopsis of this letter, which formed part of his collection, and contained the greatest quantity of interesting papers on the Jesuits in Paraguay and Bolivia which has ever been brought together. In 1872, after publishing his ‘Atlas’, his ‘Coleccion de Documentos’, and his ‘Inventarios’, he presented his papers (more than 30,000 in number) to the Archivo Historico Nacional of Madrid. There they remain, and form a rich mine for dogged scholars who have not passed their youth on horseback with the lazo in their hands. [276] Archivo de Simancas, Legajo 7,378, folio 146. [277] _Ibid._: ‘Que toda la polvora que tengan los curas y misioneros se queme o se inutilize y pierda hechandola al rio, y que en los pueblos donde se fabrica, cese luego este labor.’ [278] In another letter, also preserved at Simancas, and dated at Yapeyu, he complains bitterly of his own suffering on the journey: ‘Me moli tanto con el traqueo violento del carreton que no he podido volver sobre mi.’ The roads to the missions seem to have been as bad as those which produced the historical exclamation, ‘O dura tellus Hispaniæ!’ It is certainly the case that Ibañez, in his ‘Republica Jesuitica’ (Madrid, 1768), gives a very different version of the doings of Altamirano; for he says that Rafael de Cordoba, Altamirano’s secretary, ‘embarked in a schooner called _La Real_ a great quantity of guns and lead for balls, packing them all in boxes, which, he said, were full of objects of a pious nature. . . . This,’ says Ibañez, ‘was told me by the master of the schooner _José el Ingles_, a man worthy of credence.’ This is pleasing to one’s national pride, but, still, one seems to want a little better authority even than that of ‘Bardolph, the Englishman’. [279] Dean Funes, book v., cap. iii., p. 54. [280] In a most curious letter (preserved at Simancas, Legajo 7,447), the mayor and council of the reduction of San Juan write to Altamirano upbraiding him with being their enemy, and tell him that ‘St. Michael sent by God showed their poor grandfathers (_sus pobres abuelos_) where to plant a cross, and afterwards to march due south from the cross and they would find a holy father of the Company.’ This, of course, turned out as the saint had foretold, and after a long day’s march they encountered the Jesuit and became Christians.