386 THE SACBF,!) DANCES. 



the festivity. The oldest and most timid of the Indians, 

 however, imbued all the rest with a superstitious dread; 

 all resolved to flee al monte, and the missionary ad- 

 journed his project of turning into derision the demon of 

 the natives. What extravagant ideas may sometimes 

 enter the imagination of an idle monk, who passes his life 

 in the forests, far from everything that can recall hu- 

 man civilization to his mind. The violence with which 

 the attempt was made to execute in public at Tomo the 

 mysterious dance of the devils is the more strange, as 

 all the books written by the missionaries relate the efforts 

 they have used to prevent the fumereal dances, the dances of 

 the sacred trumpet, and that ancient dance of serpents, the 

 Queti, in w r hich these wily animals are represented as issuing 

 from the forests, and coming to drink with the men in order 

 to deceive them, and carry off the women. 



After two hours' navigation from the mouth of the Tomo 

 we arrived at the little mission of San Miguel de Davipe, 

 founded in 1775, not by monks, but by a lieutenant of mi- 

 litia, Don Francisco Bobadilla. The missionary of the place, 

 Father Morillo, with whom we spent some hours, received 

 us with great hospitality. He even offered us Madeira 

 wine, but, as an object of luxury, we should have preferred 

 wheaten bread. The want of bread becomes more sensibly 

 felt in length of time than that of a strong liquor. The 

 Portuguese of the Amazon carry small quantities of Madeira 

 wine, from time to time, to the Bio Negro ; and the word 

 madera signifying wood in the Castilian language, the monks, 

 who are not much versed in the study of geography, had a 

 scruple of celebrating mass with Madeira wine, which they 

 took for a fermented liquor extracted from the trunk of some 

 tree, like palm-wine ; and requested the guardian of the 

 missions to decide, whether the vino de madera were wine 

 from grapes, or the juice of a tree. At the beginning of the 

 conquest, the question was agitated, whether it were allow- 

 able for the priests, in celebrating mass, to use any fer- 

 mented liquor analogous to grape- wine. The question, as 

 might have been foreseen, was decided in the negative. 



At Davipe we bought some provisions, among which were 

 fowls and a pig. This purchase greatly interested our In- 

 dians, who had been a long while deprived of meat. They 



