Peace being thus established in the province of Bayamo, Velasquez sent orders to Narvaez that he should advance into the province of Camague with all the force he had, which, united to that of Grijalva, amounted to about one hundred men, and that Las Casas should accompany the expedition. The spiritual and martial forces seemed to work in harmony; Grijalva was obedient to the counsels of Las Casas, and Narvaez, although a hardened campaigner and a man of violent temperament, was not indifferent to the priest’s influence, backed as he knew it to be by the warm personal support of his Governor, Velasquez. Some thirty leagues from Bayamo, and before entering the province of Camaguey, the expedition arrived at a town called Cueyba, where they were well received by the Indians and where they found, in a sort of chapel, a statue of the Blessed Virgin which had been presented to the cacique some time before by Alonso de Ojeda who, after shipwreck and untold hardships, had reached that place and been cared for by the natives. Ojeda had carried this image for many weary days, confiding in its protection to rescue him from the dangerous plight in which he found himself, and some of his companions who were now with the Narvaez party praised its beauty so highly to Las Casas that he conceived the idea of offering to trade for it a very good Flemish statue of his own. His proposal, however, was not agreeable to the cacique, who had, on his part, become much attached to his own image, and the next morning when Las Casas went to the little chapel, which the Indians kept nicely adorned with cotton hangings and flowers, he was surprised to see that the statue was missing from its customary place above the altar. Upon inquiry he was told by the Indians that their chief, fearing that he would be forced to accept Las Casas’s offer to exchange, had taken his statue and fled into the forests to save it. There was even a fear that a general uprising might result to defend the cherished statue, so Las Casas at once sent messengers to the cacique to assure him that he not only no longer wished to make the exchange but had decided to make him a present of his own Flemish statue as well. Twenty leagues beyond Cueyba the expedition entered the province of Camaguey, and, at the entrance of the various towns, the Indians came out to welcome the Spaniards, offering them provisions of fish, game, and cassava. Las Casas called together the children everywhere and baptised them, concerning which he afterwards said that many were thus destined for glory in good time, for shortly afterwards there was hardly one of those children left alive.