66 DISCOVERIES OF THE PORTUGUESE. 
i 
hostages, and who had been treated in the very 
best manner during his absence. He now sailed 
forward two hundred leagues along the coast of 
Congo, and planted two pillars, one at Cape St 
Augustin, the other at a Cape, which, from this 
circumstance, was called Cabo do Padrao. On his 
return from this voyage, he visited the king, who 
was so much gratified by the treatment which his 
subjects had experienced, and by the whole conduct 
of the Portuguese, that he knew not how to load 
him with sufficient honours. In the course of the 
conversations which this commander held, the Holy 
Spirit is said to have begun to operate, so that the 
monarch not only became himself a convert to 
Christianity, but took measures for the general 
conversion of his subjects. He proposed, both that 
priests should be sent from Europe, and that seve- 
ral young men of rank in his country should go 
over to be baptized and instructed ; who might 
thus form the most advantageous medium for dif- 
fusing religious knowledge among their country- 
men. The king sent along with them a present 
of ivory, and of cloth made from the palm tree, be- 
ing the most valuable articles which Congo afford- 
ed. These persons were received in Portugal with 
all the honours which the king uniformly bestow- 
ed on such of the African natives as came to vi- 
sit him. They were speedily instructed and bap- 
tized, the king standing godfather to the prin- 
cipal envoy, and each of his lords to another, after 
