746 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1810. 



paganism. An epidemic disorder 

 appeared among them; they said it 

 was occasioned by the water of 

 baptism, and all the converts whom 

 Nobrega and his fellow-labourers 

 had with such difficulty collected, 

 would have deserted them and 

 fled into the woods, if he had not 

 pledged his word that the malady 

 should cease. Luckily for him, it 

 was effectually cured by bleeding, 

 a remedy to which they were un- 

 accustomed. Sometimeafterwards 

 a cough and catarrh cut off many 

 of them : this, also, was attributed 

 to baptism. The Jesuits them- 

 selves did not ascribe greater 

 powers to this ceremony than 

 they did ; whatever calamity befel 

 them was readily accounted for by 

 these drops of mysterious water. 

 Many tribes have supposed it 

 fatal to children, — the eagerness 

 with which the missionaries bap- 

 tize the dying, and especially 

 new-born infants who are not 

 likely to live, has occasioned this 

 notion. The neighbouring hordes 

 now began to regard the Jesuits 

 with horror, as men who carried 

 pestilence with them. If one was 

 seen approaching, the whole clan 

 assembled, and burnt pepper and 

 salt in his way ; — a fumigation 

 which they believed good against 

 plagues and evil spirits, and to 

 keep death from entering among 

 them. Some, when they saw 

 them coming, carried away all 

 their goods, and forsook their ha- 

 bitations ; others came out trem- 

 bling, say the Fathers, like leaves 

 of a tree which is shaken by the 

 ■wind, entreating them to pass on 

 and hurt them not, and showing 

 them the way forward. The Payes, 

 as may be well supposed, used every 

 effort against these persons who 



were come to spoil their trade, 

 and they persuaded the Indians 

 that they put knives, scissars, and 

 such things in their insides, and 

 so destroyed them ; a belief in 

 this kind of witchcraft seems to 

 have prevailed every where. The 

 farther the Jesuits advanced into 

 the country, the stronger did they 

 find this impression of fear. But 

 it yielded to their perseverance, 

 and the superstition of the natives 

 led them into tlie opposite ex- 

 treme ; they bi'ought out their 

 provisions to be blest, and waited 

 to receive theirbenediction where- 

 ever ihey were expected to pass. 

 " When the Jesuits succeeded, 

 they made the converts erect a 

 church in the village, which, how- 

 ever rude, fixed them to the spot ; 

 and they established a school for 

 the children, whom they catechis- 

 ed in their own language, and in- 

 structed to repeat the Pater-noster 

 over the sick : every recovery 

 which happened after this had 

 been done, both they and the pa- 

 tient accounted a miracle. They 

 taught them also to read and 

 write, using, says Nobrega, the 

 same persuasion as that where- 

 with the enemy overcame man ; 

 ye shall be as gods, knowing good 

 and evil ; for this knowledge ap- 

 peared wonderful to them, and 

 they eagerly desired to attain it; 

 good proof how easily such a race 

 might have been civilized. As- 

 picuela was the aptest scholar 

 among the missionaries ; he was 

 the first who made a catechism in 

 the Tupi tongue, and translated 

 prayers into it. When he became 

 sufficiently master of the language 

 to express himself in it with flu- 

 ency and full power, he then 

 adopted the manner of the Payes, 



