“In this first letter that I have the honour to address to your Excellency on the state of this Comarco, which is at present tranquil, I have to lay before your Excellency the most extraordinary, terrible, and cruel circumstance ever heard of, and one which is almost past belief. It is now more than two years since a man, called Joäo Antonio, an inhabitant of Sitio de Pedra Bonita, a place about twenty leagues from this town, surrounded by woods, and near which are two large rocks, called together the people, and told them, that within those rocks there was an enchanted kingdom which he was about to disenchant, and that immediately afterwards King Don Sebastian would make his appearance at the head of a great army, richly adorned, and that all who followed him would be happy. He went on beautifying this place till the month of November of last year, when at the recommendation of the Missionary Francisco José Correa de Albuquerque, he made a journey to the desert (Sertäo) of Inhamon, whence he sent back one Joäo Pereira, a man of the worst passions, who on his arrival at Pedra Bonita proclaimed himself King, and began to instil superstitious notions into the minds of the people, telling them that for the restoration of the enchanted kingdom it would be necessary to immolate a number of men, women, and children; that in a few days they would all rise again, and remain immortal; that riches would abound among all classes, and that all those who were either black or of a dark colour, would become as white as the moon herself. In this manner he brought over many of the ignorant people to believe in his false assertions and evil doctrine, so much so that some fathers delivered over their children to the knife of the sanguinary tiger.