“For in these matters,” said the Father, “I do not interfere, and in fact, I have no power or authority whatever within my own church. The Indians come and go as they please, light their candles, hold their own services before the altar, and frequently take one of the saints out of the church, and carry it away to some hut where, for several days, they will perform musical ceremonies before it, and then the saint will be brought back to its proper altar.” Padre Hernandez, although he had lived many years with these Indians, had not been able to obtain the slightest positive knowledge of what they really believed. All that he knew about the subject was, that they were very superstitious and devotional. He said that in many cases in the sierras, they had their places of worship where they kept idols, and at certain seasons of the year went to make offerings, and also to sacrifice animals to them. After a stroll through the village, I went to the Plaza, in the centre of which were assembled the Alcaldes and other parish dignitaries. They were sitting round a wood fire, discussing some urgent matters of local interest. As I had not hitherto stopped in a populous district or village entirely peopled by Indians, and controlled by native Alcaldes, I decided to join the group. I received an Indian welcome from these Quichés, by not being noticed and was given a place in the circle in silence. I soon became interested in listening to their extremely harsh and guttural language, and in observing the types of the men, all of whom were Indians of leading families. It was a fine night. The new moon was low in the horizon. The planet Venus was just beneath it, and immediately above was Jupiter, a rare and beautiful conjunction, looking bright and sharply defined in the clear atmosphere of this elevated table land. When the discussion came to an end I left the Alcaldes engaged in toasting tortillas over the embers of the fire, and returned to my host at the convent. It had been the fate of Padre Hernandez to have passed the best years of his life in the vain endeavour to get these Indians to understand the tenets of his faith, but he had latterly given up, as useless, all these attempts and left them to follow their own wills. One great and unexpected difficulty he had found impossible to overcome, in consequence of the imperfection of the Quiché language, was his inability to convey in equivalent terms the ideas he wished to explain. He also experienced another serious hindrance in the execution of his duties. His parish was extensive and contained several villages which lie amongst the sierras, remote from each other; and as the Quiché is an unwritten language, and there are consequently no grammars or dictionaries to create a fixed standard, words are forgotten, sometimes their meaning becomes changed or they are differently accented or applied; and thus, in the course of time, the dialect of one village differs from another.