French Scientific Mission to the Pampa del Sacramento. 123 
manist missionaries among the Indians; and when these 
Indians have turned on their alleged benefactors and killed 
them, it has been regarded as the most conclusive evidence 
of a nature so incurably savage as to be almost past hope of 
improvement. It appears from M. de Castelnau’s report, 
that in the Pampa del Sacramento alone, comprising but a 
small portion of the Selva, no fewer than sixty-seven mission- 
aries had been murdered ; but we apprehend that the zeal of 
which they were the victims was evangelical only in name. 
“ The conquest of souls,” as understood by the missionary 
fathers, was very far indeed from being that of the Gospel. 
To prevent their missions from dwindling away, they made 
hostile incursions, called itrcedos, into the villages of the in- 
dependent Indians; the natives were usually attacked in the 
night, and their children seized and carried off, to be distri- 
buted among the Indians of the missions as serfs. Hum- 
boldt relates a heart-rending story of the sufferings under- 
gone by a poor heathen Indian mother, in her almost super- 
human efforts to recover a child thus mercilessly kidnapped 
from her. In these circumstances, it can be no matter of 
surprise that the Indians have been slow to adopt the Chris- 
tianity of the religious orders that have been labouring so 
long, and with so little success among them ; or, that they 
look upon the missionaries with abhorrence, and are looked 
upon by the latter in return as ferocious savages ; in short, 
that while the Protestant missions at Otaheite, the Sand- 
wich Islands, and New Zealand, have, within the last twenty 
or thirty years, produced the happiest results, far otherwise 
have been the state of things resulting from the labours of 
three centuries spent by Roman Catholics in South Ame- 
rica. 
M. Castelnaw’s Report. 
You are aware that we went to Cuzco, with the view of penetrat- 
ing into the Pampa del Sacramento, and surveying the river Ucayali 
(one of the higher branches of the Amazon.) That whole region is 
now regarded by the Peruvians, as it formerly was by the Spaniards, 
as one of wonder and terror. Sixty-seven missionaries had succes- 
sively found a martyrdom in it; and but a few years ago, some de- 
