1831.] The Ravim of the Unburied Dead. 6\ 



him ; and when his mandate was repeated, " Go, prostrate thyself before 

 our day-god, and pray not that thy father's pangs may be brief, but that 

 his endurance may be unshaken" — she sprang to her feet, stood for a 

 moment, as if bent on some desperste avowal, yet uncertain how to make 

 it, and then said, " Father, revered giver of my days, I cannot pros- 

 trate myself before yon bright and beauteous star, because in my cap- 

 tivity I have learned to see in the shining orb you worship, the work of 

 a greater than himself; I have learnt to believe that he shall one day be 

 blotted from the face of the heaven he now gilds, and rise no more o'er the 

 earth he now gladdens, while the Creator who kindles his beams shall 

 remain unchanged in his brightness, and immutable in his glory." — " It 

 is done," said the chief, sinking on his pallet, with a violence which 

 inade his chains resound, and startled the sentinel without — " It is done 

 — my child forsakes the god of her fathers ! O hide thy face in clouds, 

 glorious light of earth and heaven ; shroud thyself for ever, and leave in 

 darkness the land where even the race of its chiefs hath forgotten thee. 

 Fallen daughter of the sun, depart ! I have not yet the strength of soul 

 to curse thee, but thou hast not my blessing." — The daughter, with 

 bended head, and arms crossed on her bosom, moved not, but stood 

 meekly before her grieved and indignant sire, as if prepared to endure 

 whatever his displeasure might inflict ; and, when his feelings had some- 

 what subsided, she began in humble and pensive tones to plead the cause 

 of the creed she had adopted. The cazique heard her for some time with 

 the patience of sheer astonishment, and then burst forth with that fre- 

 quent, and too natural query of his Indian compatriots — " And what 

 manner of God can he be, who hath such hell-hounds for his servants 

 and children ?" — " Alas ! father," said the daughter patiently, " I have 

 learned that the possessor and not the professor of a faith, must be looked 

 to for the shining marks of its living power. It is because these Spanish 

 caziques and their followers have forgotten the laws, and cast off the spirit 

 of the God whose name they bear, that they trample on their fellow-men, 

 and worship the golden ore for which they are willing to peril their soul 

 and body. — Oh, father, the God of the children of the East is not the 

 cruel God his false and apostate sons would shew him. In my captivity 

 I have learned the language of our conquerors. I have been taught by 

 my generous captor to trace the strange mysterious characters which 

 convey the message of the true God from generation to generation of his 

 children. Yes, I have read (strange word, how shall I convey its mean- 

 ing to my sire ?), I have read his written law. O turn, gracious father," 

 she exclaimed, warming with her subject, " turn from the bright vice- 

 gerent, whose golden eye the Creator hath kindled from nothing : look 

 above him, to One who can, even in this dark hour, shine into your soul, 

 with a peace and a joy which shall make you lightly hold, even the loss 

 of a cazique's power, or the surrender of his glittering treasures." — 

 ^' And shall I," exclaimed Alpahula, scornfully, " renounce the radiant 

 lord whom my fathers adored, and who poureth his eternal and unwast- 

 ing beams on our land, to worship the God of the Spaniards, who is 

 subject to death, and who hath not the power to restrain the mad cruelty 

 of his followers ? Was it for this that the blessed children of the sun left 

 their beaming chambers on high, and descended to teach and reclaim 

 our sires ? Was it for this that the glorious Capac and his heaven-born 

 spouse brought peace and glad plenty and social union amongst us .'' Go 

 to, daughter — I have seen the miserable record which our christian 



