teeth and horns just like the images. This devil sought to untie the young man who was acting as his champion, but at the first invocation of the Comendador the Virgin appeared. The judges, with wide open eyes and attentive minds, waited to see what would happen. She touched the devil with the wand she was carrying and put him to flight, afterwards causing the bonds of her champion to transfer themselves to the body of his adversary. This miracle struck terror into the Comendador's enemies, and they recognised that the zemes of the Virgin was more powerful than their own. The consequence of this event was, that when the news spread that Christians had landed in Cuba, the Comendador's neighbours, who were his bitter enemies, and had often made war upon him, sent to Enciso asking for priests to baptise them. Enciso immediately despatched two priests who were with him, and in one day one hundred and thirty men of the Comendador's enemies were baptised and became his firm friends and allies. We have in another place noted that chickens had greatly increased in the country, owing to the care of our compatriots. Each native who had received baptism presented the priest with a cock or a hen, but not with a capon, because they have not yet learned to castrate the chickens and make capons of them. They also brought salted fish and cakes made of fresh flour. Six of the neophytes accompanied the priests when they returned to the coasts, carrying these presents, which procured the Spaniards a splendid Easter. They had left Darien only two days before the Sunday of St. Lazarus, and Easter overtook them when they were doubling the last promontory of Cuba. In response to the petition of the Comendador they left with him a Spaniard, who volunteered for the purpose of teaching the cacique's subjects and their neighbours the Angelic Salutation, their idea being that the more words of the prayer to the Virgin they knew, the better disposed she would be to them. Enciso agreed, after which he resumed his course to Hispaniola, which was not far distant. From thence he betook himself to the King, who was then in residence at Valladolid, where I talked intimately with him. Enciso seriously influenced the King against the adventurer Vasco Nuñez, and secured his condemnation. I have wished, Most Holy Father, to furnish you these particulars concerning the religion of the natives. They reach me not only from Enciso, but from a number of other most trustworthy personages. I have done this, that Your Beatitude might be convinced of the docility of this race, and the ease with which they might be instructed in the ceremonies of our religion. Their conversion is not to be accomplished from one day to another, and it is only little by little that they will accept the evangelical law, of which you are the dispenser. Thus shall you see the number of the sheep composing your flock increased each day. But let us return to the story of the envoys from Darien. BOOK VII