280 FROM OONALASIfKA 



celebration of the festival ; they conducted us to 

 a large, dirty room, plainly furnished, where we 

 were received with mucli respect. Precisely at 

 ten we entered the church, which is spacious, 

 built of stone, and handsomely fitted up, where we 

 already found several hundred half-naked Indians 

 kneeling, who, though they understand neither 

 Spanish nor Latin, are never permitted after their 

 conversion to absent themselves from mass. As 

 the missionaries do not trouble themselves to learn 

 the lanffuao-e of the Indians, I cannot conceive in 

 what manner they have been instructed in the 

 Christian religion ; and there is probably but little 

 light in the heads and hearts of these poor creatures, 

 who can do nothing but imitate the external cere- 

 monies which they observe by the eye. The rage 

 for converting savage nations is now spreading 

 over the whole South Sea, and causes much mischief, 

 because the missionaries do not take pains to make 

 men of them before they make them Christians^ 

 and thus, what should bring them happiness and 

 tranquillity, becomes the source of bloody wars ; as 

 for example, in the Friendly Islands, where the 

 Christians and heathens reciprocally try to exter- 

 minate each other. I was surprised at observing, 

 that those who were not baptized were not suffered 

 to rise from their knees during the whole ceremony ; 

 they were afterwards indemnified for this exertion 

 by the church-music, which seemed to afford them 

 much pleasure, and which was probably the only 



