352 HALL’S EXCURSIONS. 
servants collect the offerings. This lasts all the month of 
November. It is customary to make an offering of wine; 
but as this, in many places, is not to be had, the curate hires 
out a bottle of his own, which is passed on from grave to 
grave, at a real or two for each. By these and similar 
extortions, a curacy, the legal rent of which is 700 or 800 
dollars, is made to produce 5000 or 6000, and often more."— 
p. 335. 
* It may be supposed that after the curates have extracted 
all the gain they can from the Indians, they do the same by 
their wives and children. For this purpose, while the curate 
devizes on his part (for this is the name they give to tyran- 
nizing), he recommends his concubine to do the same on 
hers. The female, known as such in all the parishes, takes 
charge of the Indian women and children, and assigns to 
each a task of cotton or wool to spin; while to the oldest 
and most useless, she distributes fowls, which they must breed 
and maintain, and should any die or be lost, make good the 
deficiency. On feast days the Indians must work on her 
farm with their oxen, if they have them: they plough, sow 
and reap with no expense but the order; and the curate 
dispenses with the duty of rest and religious worship on the 
days set apart for them to serve himself and his mistress."— 
p. 339. 
* As they treat the Indians while alive, so do they use 
them when dead; for rather would they leave their bodies 
to be devoured by dogs and vultures, than inter them without 
receiving the burial fees, though these should be collected by 
begging; but should the deceased leave any property, the 
curate, however the relatives may oppose it, makes him a 
pompous funeral and carries off for his dues everything he 
possessed, leaving his children and family to beggary."— 
p. 341. 
It may be imagined, as the Ulloas observe, with such 
treatment and such examples, what kind of Christians the 
Indians make. Just as good as would be an equal number 
of parrots taught to repeat the same creed as is taught to the 
