56 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 92 



him like one frantic and desperate, bursting forth in blasphemies and 

 expressions of despair. A little before he died I went for the purpose 

 that he should confess and beg God's pardon, exhorting him toward 

 His great mercy, in order that he might receive the sacrament of ex- 

 treme unction, but all was in vain, for he manifested such extreme 

 grief and displeasure, foaming at the mouth, his eyes glittering, that 

 he seemed to be truly condemned to hell, 3 men not being sufficient to 

 hold him in check. I indeed attributed all these extreme actions to the 

 violence of the disease, but when I had remained silent for a time, he 

 became calm, and someone asked him, saying : Why do you not con- 

 fess? And he answered in a tone of fury : Because I do not want to ; 

 having lived deceived, I do not want to die deceived. And in a short 

 time he expired, his body remaining so ugly and horrible that it caused 

 fright. Let the reader imagine my feelings on beholding in my pres- 

 ence that sight in which I observed to the very letter that which David 

 tells us [marginal annotation: Psalm iii, last verse]: Peccator 

 videhit et irascctur dcntibiis suis freniet et tabecet [sic], desidcrinm 

 peccatorum peribit. 



I reflect that some will probably tell me that in spite of the occur- 

 rence of the cases given above, they do not prove little faith and belief 

 on the part of all [the Indians], since everywhere rare and prodigious 

 cases occur which God permits through his inscrutable secrets, and 

 as a warning to others. This I admit and confess, but this I state : that 

 those [believing Indians] who form the exception are very few and 

 cases worthy of note, while in the general run all of them seem to me to 

 be the same, and I believe that anyone who has observed them will agree 

 with me; and the fact is that those [Indians] who appear to us to be 

 more intelligent are the very ones who leave us more deceived, for 

 since they conduct all their activities with malice [against us] while we 

 with simplicity show them trust in every matter, they deceive us at 

 every step. And this needs no proof, because we have all come into con- 

 tact with it through experience, and I believe that there is not a priest 

 in this Province who will not flatlv confess the fact. 



