AUTHOR OF THE DELTA LETTERS. Ill 



by lot some saint to intercede for them ; whereupon the Bishop 

 Alexander Geraldinus, the Clergy, and all the citizens of St. 

 Domingo, made a very solemn and grand procession ; the 

 bishop said a solemn pontifical mass, made a most devout 

 prayer, took the catalogue of saints, wrote the names on slips 

 of paper, blessed them, shook them together, and the first 

 name drawn was that of St. Saturninus, — " the glorious St. 

 Saturninus, who was born at Rome, and sent by the Pope to 

 preach at Thoulouse on account of his great sanctity." No 

 sooner does he enter the city than — 



" The oracles are dumb ; 

 No voice or hideous hum 



Runs through the arched roof with words deceiving. 

 Apollo from his shrine 

 Can no more divine." 



This of course did not please Apollo's priests, and they per- 

 suaded the people to put the saint to death. The people, 

 therefore, tied him to the tail of a bull, and thus was he 

 dragged through the city till he was dashed to pieces, — " as 

 is written more at large in the history of his glorious mar- 

 tyrdom." 



Through the intercession of the saint, or some other cause, 

 the numbers of ants soon began to diminish : " and if they are 

 not yet all gone, it must be that all are not clear of sins." 



Oviedo especially desires two things to be noted, namely, 

 that the bishop, who was a very holy man, was, like the saint, 

 a Roman ; item, that whereas the idols of Thoulouse were by 

 the saint's presence struck dumb, his being chosen was to 

 show idolatry was soon to be destroyed in the island. This 

 actually did soon happen, because very soon the Indians were 

 annihilated, or nearly so. Previous to this time, Tarquemada 

 tells us that the priests were in the habit of passing their 

 time away in chatting with the evil spirits which the idols 

 represented, and which spoke from the lips of these images. 



But though the ants were now nearly gone, the trees and 

 plants they had attacked did not recover ; but new plantations 

 were formed to remedy the mischief, and again the plantations 

 flourished. 



" But even now," says the gallant captain, " there is no 

 want of ants, but rather, there are more than we want." 



