38 



village assembles on holidays before the church, 

 after the celebration of mass. The young girls 

 place at the feet of the missionary faggots of 

 wood, bunches of plantains, and other provision 

 of which he stands in need for his household. 

 At the same time the governador, the fiscal, and 

 ot her municipal officers, all of whom are Indians, 

 exhort the natives to labour, proclaim the occu- 

 pations of the ensuing week, reprimand the idle, 

 and, since it must be told, severely cudgel the 

 untractable. The strokes of the cane are re- 

 ceived with the same insensibility with which 

 they are given. These acts of distributive jus- 

 tice appear very long and frequent to travellers, 

 who cross the Llanos in their way from Angos- 

 tura to the coasts. It were to be wished, that 

 the priest did not dictate these corporal punish- 

 ments at the instant of quitting the altar, and 

 that he were not in his sacerdotal habits the 

 spectator of this chastisement of men and wo- 

 men ; but this abuse, or, if the reader prefer 

 the term, this want of propriety, arises from the 

 principle on which the strange government of 

 the missions is founded. The most arbitrary 

 civil power is strictly connected with the rights, 

 which the priest exerts over the little commu- 

 nity; and, although the Caribbees are not 

 cannibals, and we would wish to see them treat- 

 ed with mildness and indulgence, it may be 

 conceived, that energetic measures are some- ' 



