TOPOGRAPHY. 339 



offer, on the part of the Indians, to assist in the construction 

 of a chapel, an undertaking which, by the means of the wood 

 of an excellent quahty the country afforded, was executed on 

 a large scale. The chapel having been beautified and adorned 

 in a manner which, in a similar situation, surpassed every 

 reasonable conje6ture, and opened for divine worship, Bezares 

 was utterly negligent of his own immediate interests. He 

 ceded to the Indians, without binding them by any agreement, 

 the implements of husbandry he had brought with him, and 

 supplied them with seeds for the esculent crops that might 

 enable them to secure to themselves a comfortable subsistence, 

 on which the ulterior arrangements were to depend. These 

 good offices, and the affability of their benefadlor, drew down 

 the acclamations of all : they made him a voluntary tender of 

 their services ; and their loud expressions of gratitude pene- 

 trated to the mountains, whence many of those who inhabited 

 them like wild beasts having been allured, partook of the la- 

 bours, and recognized the God who had already been banished 

 from their remembrance. 



Enamoured with the extent and fecundity of this unex- 

 plored country, and highly flattered by so propitious a com- 

 mencement, Bezares resolved to make a further sacrifice of his 

 property, and was solely deterred by the difficulty of the 

 access, which was such, that if the mule on which he was 

 mounted succeeded in penetrating, it was not without infinite 

 trouble and perplexity, at the same time that the novelty of 

 the sight occasioned the Indians of Chicoplaya to flee, as if 

 they had encountered a ferocious beast. Leaving them at 

 length to prosecute their labours, he retrograded on foot in 

 search of a track by which the herds and flocks might be con- 



X X 2 du6ted ; 



