TOPOGRAPHY. 



315 



that the above reverend fathers describe the apostle with the 

 staff in the hand, the black cassock girt about the waist, and 

 all the other trappings which distinguish the missionaries of 

 the society. The credit which these histories obtained at the 

 commencement, was equal to that bestowed on the cross of 

 Tarija, which remained in the predicament of being the one 

 St. Thomas had planted in person, in the continent of Ame- 

 rica. 



Since the Holy Church, our mother, has not determined 

 on the miraculous of this description, nor positively ordained 

 its belief, we have judged it necessary to explain this point, 

 as wasdndeed prescribed by the criterion of an historical rela- 

 tion. For this case, and for other similar ones, we venture 

 to repeat what has been said by an unprejudiced and intelli- 

 gent Spaniard * : De las cos as mas seguras la mas segura es dudar. 

 But it is time that we should return to the especial purpose of 

 our history, craving pardon for the prolixity of the di- 

 gression we have been induced to make, in favour of truth 

 and justice. 



Among the fifty men who accompanied Fuentes, was a Do- 

 minican friar, named Francisco Sedano, who performed th© 

 function of chaplain, administering the sacrament to the Spa- 

 niards, and efFe6ling, although with but little success, the 

 conversion of the Chirihuanos. He founded a convent of his 



tiously made, from father Geronimo, a romance of la Higuera. The .men of let- 

 ters who are acquainted with the motive which di6tated the above histories, and the 

 influence they had, in those times, on civil as well as political affairs, will justify 

 the indudlions we have been led to make on this head. 



* Of the most certain things, the surest is to doubt. — Don Pedro Montengon, in 

 his work entitled " El Eusebio." 



s s 2 order, 



