PORTUGUESE DISCOVERIES. 55 



moilf of spiritual illumination, and the missionaries thence 

 foilb lost all favour both with that prince and the ladies of 

 his court, being allowed to remain solely through dread of 

 the Tortuguese. In only one other instance were they 

 permitted to employ this mode of conversion. The smith, 

 in consequence of the skill, strange in the eyes of a rude 

 people, with which he manufactured various arms and im- 

 plements, was viewed by them as possessing a measure of 

 superhuman power ; and he had thus been encouraged to 

 advance pretensions to the character of a divinity, which 

 were very generally admitted. The missionaries appealed 

 to the king respecting this impious assumption ; and that 

 prince, conceiving it to interfere with the respect due to 

 himself, agreed to deliver into their hands the unfortunate 

 smith, to be converted into a mortal in any manner they 

 might judge efficacious. After a short and unsuccessful 

 argument, ifhey had recourse to the above potent instrument 

 of conversion ; yet Vulcan, deserted in this extremity by aft 

 his votaries, made still a firm stand for his celestial dignity, 

 till the blood began to stream from his back and shoulders, 

 when he finally yielded, and renounced all pretensions to a 

 divine origin. 



Farther acquaintance discovered other irregularities, 

 against which a painful struggle was to be maintained. It 

 was a prevailing practice, that before marriage the two par- 

 ties should live together for some time, and make trial of 

 each other's tempers and inclinations, before they formed 

 the final engagement. To this system of probation the 

 people were most obstinately attached, and the missionaries 

 in vain denounced it, calling upon them at once either to 

 marry or to separate. The young ladies were always the 

 most anxious to have the full benefit of this experimental 

 process ; and the mothers, on being referred to, refused to 

 incur responsibility, and expose themselves to the reproaches 

 of their daughters, by urging them to an abridgment of 

 the trial, of which they might afterward repent. The mis- 

 sionaries seem to have been most diHgent in the task, as 

 they call it, of "reducing strayed souls to matrimony." 

 Father Benedict succeeded with no less than six hundred ; 

 but he found it such "laborious work," that he fell sick 

 and died in consequence. Another subject of deep regret 

 respected the many superstitious practices still prevalent, 



