Don Bernardino adopted none of these methods of procedure. Carrying a heavy cross, with ashes on his head and shoulders bared, followed by all his priests, he sallied out one day to discipline himself in public. This plan did not succeed with all the world, for his superiors ordered him to remain inside his convent gates. There he remained, and, as his Life informs us, profited by his retreat to study Holy Scriptures, and to such good effect that, the next time he preached, he charmed his hearers by his eloquence. Soon after this the Archbishop of La Plata held a provincial council, with the object of reforming the morals of the Indians in his diocese. Cardenas, being a fluent speaker, was chosen for the post of Apostolic Missionary. From this time dates the beginning of his fame. In those days all the Indians of the Charcas, and generally of all Peru, were sunk in misery, but little removed from slaves, and their religion was a mixture of Christianity and paganism—just the kind of folk a fluent preacher of the style of Cardenas could work upon. All through the province he made his apostolic progress, preaching, converting, and confessing, everywhere preceded by his fame as seer of visions, miracle-worker, and recipient of celestial light. He took his way, dressed like a pilgrim, on foot, carrying a wooden cross, and followed by a multitude of Indians from town to town. Religion in America (Catholic or Protestant) has always tended to revert to the original Eastern form, from which, no doubt, it sprung. The influence of the vast plains and forests, and the great distances to travel, have introduced the system of camp meetings amongst the Protestants, whereas the Catholics have often held a sort of ambulatory mission, the people of one village following the preacher to the next, and so on, in the same fashion as in Palestine the people seem to have followed John the Baptist. Soon the news was spread about that the Indians who followed Cardenas had told him of rich mines, on the condition that he would not divulge the secret to the Spaniards. At that time the search for mines was carried almost to madness in Peru. Even to-day, in almost every mining town, a mysterious, poverty-stricken man sometimes approaches you with great precaution, and, drawing from his pocket an object wrapped in greasy paper, declares with oaths that it is _rosicler_ (red silver ore), and that he knows where there are tons and tons of it. In Mexico the curious class of miners known as _gambusinos_ rove through the valleys of the Sierra Madre armed with pick and pan, passing their lives in hunting mines, as pigs hunt truffles. If they come upon a mine, they never try to work it, but sell the secret for a trifling sum, and, drinking out the money, start on again to find the mines worked by the Aztecs, till an Apache bullet or arrow stops them, their El Dorado still ahead, or they are found beside their pick and shovel dead of thirst.