them in great respect; but notwithstanding this, as may be expected, there will be some bold enough to conceive enmity against them, and for this reason military stations, or escorts, become necessary for their protection. Occasionally a mutinous disposition will be shown, and a whole multitude will declare against the fathers, from which unhappy consequences might arise, did not the different military stations scattered through the country afford a check to such disposition. By means of such cautionary, rather than splendid establishments, these islands were originally subdued, and these in many parts still exist; but the missionaries being very few in number, it often becomes necessary to make a journey of a whole day, when confession or other ecclesiastical rites are to be administered. In addition to this, they are but very poorly paid; for what is one hundred dollars, and two hundred measures of rice, for the maintenance of a Spaniard on these missions? This very small stipend is insufficient to cover their expenses, and they are exposed to every privation, without the enjoyment of any one comfort. Of all this our magistrates are the cause, many of them seeking various pretexts for withholding the stipends, and even obliging the fathers to go to the capital to receive them, as I have myself seen. Such is the misery these poor friars undergo, that at times they are compelled to subsist on what is allowed them for their escorts, and live without that protection, rather preferring to be exposed to the insults of those heathens, than to perish through hunger. The military stations are also very thinly scattered, and the loyal Indians very incapable of imposing any restraint on their countrymen. If what has been expended in vain and fruitless expeditions had been employed in these certain means of civilization, much more progress would have been made. It is true that we never can expect such rapid progress as our ancestors made in the conquest, because the Indians are more enlightened. Even the Christian converts persuade them not to be baptized, that they may avoid the payment of tribute or other imposts. The custom, too, of one tribe revenging the murder of an individual of that tribe upon the tribe of the murderer, very much impedes conversion, and consequently civilization, for from hence results the necessity of the weakest tribes changing their residence, or forming a confederacy with others. In such case Christianity must suffer, for the baptized Indians must always follow the Infidels of their tribe, and be alienated from the fathers, or be exposed to constant hostility. Nothing but the extension of protection, and the gradual dissemination of our religious tenets, will abolish this sanguinary custom. The Christian morality is so salutary in its effects, as to extract vice from every heart, in which it has not taken too deep a root.