their patience amid hardships, and the fact that the fathers not only did them no harm, but came to their aid in their necessities, they began to be mollified, and to believe what the friars said. The story is told that an Indian chief went one night to a religious and said to him: 'Father, you must know that I have been watching you for two years, and have carefully noted everything that you do; and I see that you all have one way of living. If one of you does not eat, no more do the others; if one of you rises at midnight to pray, so do the rest; if one of you avoids women, all the rest of you do so too. You all of you follow one rule and one road; you strive to obtain neither gold nor silver; you are ill-treated and yet patient; you do all things for our good. Hence I have resolved to believe you, since I am persuaded people who act like you will not deceive.' So high did the good opinion of these Dominican religious rise among those people (God having ordained it thus in His goodness and providence), that the Indians actually regarded those of this habit as sinless; so much so that if the devil sometimes suggested to an Indian woman an improper dream with reference to a friar, when the woman afterwards came to confess she did not say: 'I accuse myself of having dreamed this about a friar,' but, 'about a devil in the shape of a friar.' When the leading men of the tribe began to consider becoming Christians--their headmen being already so, as well as some others--they came to the religious, and persuaded them that, in order that all of them might be converted together, they should first of all give up in a single day everything which they held in commission for the devil; these things were the instruments which they used for their sacrifices. The fathers accordingly did as they wished, and, with the assistance of these same governors of the country there were given up an infinite number of pieces of earthen ware and a great deal of very old wine--for this is regarded as the thing consecrated to the devil; and no one dares touch or go near it except at the time of the sacrifice, and then only the minister who performs it. They are accustomed to keep this wine at the head of the bed in a little earthen jar, like holy water. When they had given all this up (which they did with very good will), they all proposed immediately to become Christians, and to know and learn the things of our holy Catholic religion. After they had learned them and been instructed in them, they were directed to fast for forty days, or one month; and general baptisms took place on the eve of the feasts of the Resurrection and Pentecost. [Long before this a marvel had happened in which an Indian had been cured of a frightful rupture after his baptism. This made the Indians regard the baptism as something medicinal, and they wished to be baptized whenever they were sick, in order to be cured; but the fathers undeceived them. They made the same mistake about the