the South -Sea. 187 



I was there, at the time when the Mulattoes kept a Fe- Feaft ^ m 

 ftival in Honour of Our Lady of Mount Car m el : Thofe Sca P ular - 

 poor People, like all the other Creolian Spaniards ,that is, the 

 mix'd Races, are fo much infatuated with a thoufand Ap- 

 paritions, either true or falfe, that they make them the 

 principal Objed of their Devotion. This Abufe is occa- 

 sion 1 d by the Ignorance of the Friers, who having neither 

 Literature nor Criticifm, to difcern between Truth and 

 Falfliood, give themfelves up to a Tradition, and Cuftoms 

 eftablifh'd before their. Time, by thofe of their Order, for 

 their private Intereft, There being no Carmelites through- 

 out all Peru and CM/, the Mercenarian Friers have taken to 

 themfelves the Direction of the Brotherhood of the * Sca- 

 pular ; and becaufe they have no Monaftery at Pifco, one of 

 them comes from Lima to be prefent at that Feftival. 



On Thurfday the 14th of September, the Mulatto's began Scandalous 

 the Solemnity with a Play call'd El Principe Poderofo, or, p/ ^'* 

 T%e Powerful Prince written by a Spaniflo European Poet, 

 The depraved Tafte of that Nation leading them to mix in 

 their Shows, Things Sacred with Prophane ; 1 obferv'd, 

 th*t in this they had indulged their Natural Genius, beyond 

 the Bounds of good Senfe and Decency : In fliort, nothing 

 could be feen more ridiculous than the Decoration of the 

 farther Part of the Stage, the Point of Perfpective thereof 

 terminating in an Altar, on which was the Image of our 

 Lady of Mount Camel, with lighted Candles about it ; and 

 all the A&ors began their Prologue kneeling, with a De- 



B b 2 dication 



* See Monlieur de LarinoyV Treatife, De Vifione Simonis SiolH 8c Ori- 

 gine Scapularii, where he makes it appear, that very long after the Death of 

 Simon Stock, two Carmelites, whofe Names were Gregory of S. Baiil, and 

 Mark Anthony de Cazamate, contrived to Jet up the Scapular upon an Appa- 

 rition of the Bleffed Virgin to Simon, and upon wo Bulls, the one of Pope John 

 the XXII. quoted in their Writings after fo different a Manner, not only as to 

 the Expreffions, but alfo as to the Inequality of the Length of the Difcourfe, thdt 

 it plainly appears to be Counterfeit ; not to mention other Reafons which male it 

 plain, the fecond of Pope Urban V. date.d at Rome, where that pope who died 

 at Florence had never been fwee his Coronation, 



