124 THE PlyANT WORI.D 



their slippers and knelt upon them, each person carefully covering the 

 bare feet of her neighbor in front with her train ; this is a use to which 

 I have never before seen trains put. Church without pews ; I was led 

 to a chair of crimson and gold on the left of the aisle near the altar ; 

 everybody had a kindly look as I passed. The services were most im- 

 pressive and solemn. Father Palomo's voice was well suited to his office. 

 A feeling of reverence and awe came over me as the ceremony advanced, 

 and I envied the worshippers their faith. Two hundred and thirty-one 

 years ago this site was given to the Jesuit missionaries for a church by 

 Kipuha, the high chief of Hagadiia, as the principal town of the island 

 was then called. Under the floor of this church still rest the bones of 

 this chief, an account of whose conversion and baptism and of the impres- 

 sive ceremonies attending his burial is given in the narratives of the early 

 missionaries. 



Yesterday Father Palomo lent me a history in manuscript which my 

 secretary, Jos^ de Torres, is to copy for me : ' ' Historia de las islas Mar- 

 ianas desde la llegada de los Espaiioles hasta hoy, 15 de Mayo de 1870." 

 Late last night I read how the islands were dicovered by Magellan after 

 a passage of three months and a half across the vast Pacific Ocean. I 

 then turned to a map of the world and opened my Navarrete's history of 

 Columbus's voyages, and I was impressed with the fact that, compared 

 to Magellan's undertaking and the hardships which he and his men 

 endured on their long voyage over an unknown sea, Columbus's passage 

 of one month and three days from the Canary Islands until he sighted 

 land was merely a trip across a mill-pond, Pigafetta, the narrator of the 

 voyage, which Magellan himself did not live to complete, has told of the 

 terrible suffering of the crew — how they ate the leather off the rigging 

 used as chafing gear ; how they bought rats from those skilful enough to 

 catch them, which brought the price of half-a-crown each, and moreover 

 enough of them could not be got ' ' ; how they even resorted to sawdust 

 of wood for food ; how the water they had to drink became yellow and 

 stinking ; and the gums of nearly all were swollen with scurvy, and nine- 

 teen died, and twenty-five or thirty others fell ill " of divers sicknesses, 

 both in the arms and legs and other places, in such manner that very few 

 remained healthy." 



Then I read of the arrival of Magellan at this group of islands ; of his 

 cruel vengeance upon the natives, who were accused of having stolen one 

 of the boats riding astern of his ship ; how he went ashore at the head of 

 a landing party, burned their houses, killed women and men and brought 

 back the missing boat ; how his ships were followed by the natives in 

 their wonderful flying ' ' praos ' ' ; how the women wailed and tore their 

 hair, ' ' surely for their husbands killed by us, " and how the men in reply 

 to the shots of the arquebuses of the Spaniards showered back at them 



