270 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



charity or modesty of the monks, were called wid- 

 owers and widows. 



The first baptisms are on the twentieth of No- 

 vember, 1594, when considerable business seems to 

 have been done. There are four entries on that 

 day, and, in looking over the pages, from my ac- 

 quaintance with the family I was struck with the 

 name of Mel Chi, probably an ancestor of our 

 Chaipa Chi. This Mel seems to have been one of 

 the pillars of the padres, and a standing godfather 

 for Indian babies. 



There was no instruction to be derived from 

 these archives, but the handwriting of the monks, 

 and the marks of the Indians, seemed almost to 

 make me a participator in the wild and romantic 

 scenes of the conquest ; at all events, they were 

 proof that, forty or fifty years after the conquest, 

 the Indians were abandoning their ancient usages 

 and customs, adopting the rites and ceremonies of 

 the Catholic Church, and having their children 

 baptized with Spanish names. 



