EXCURSION TO MAUHES AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD. 309 
part of the church is wholly unfurnished, except for the 
rough wooden font standing just within the door. But 
the farther end is partitioned off to make a neat chancel, 
within which several steps lead up to the altar and niche 
above, where is placed the rude image of the Mother and 
the Child. Of course the architecture and the ornaments 
are of the coarsest description ; the painting consists only 
of stripes or lines of blue, red, and yellow, with here and 
there an attempt at a star or a diamond, or a row of 
scalloping ; but there is something touching in the idea 
that these poor, uneducated people of the forest have 
cared to build themselves a temple with their own hands, 
lavishing upon it such ideas of beauty and taste as they 
have, and bringing at least their best to their humble 
altar. None of our city churches, on which millions have 
been expended, have power to move one like this church, 
the loving work of the worshippers themselves, with its 
mud walls so coarsely painted, its wooden cross before the 
door, and little thatched belfry at one side. It is sad 
that these people, with so much religious sensibility, are 
not provided with any regular service. At long intervals 
a priest, on his round of visitations, makes his way to 
them, but, except on such rare occasions, they have no 
one to administer the rites of burial or baptism, or to 
give religious instruction to them or to their children. 
And yet their church was faultlessly clean, the mud floor 
was strewn with fresh green leaves, and everything about 
the building showed it to be the object of solicitude and 
care. Their houses were very neat, and they themselves 
were decently dressed in the invariable costume of the civ- 
ilized Indian, the men in trousers and white cotton shirts, 
the women in calico petticoats, with short, loose chemises. 
