DISCOVERIES OF THE PORTUGUESE. 71 
dour of the ceremony of baptism was abridged, by 
the intelligence which arrived, that an insurrection 
had broken out among a people inhabiting the 
islands of the Great Lake, from which the Zaire 
derives its source. For this reason, on the same 
day that the foundation of the church was laid, 
the king was baptized, with all his nobles, and a 
hundred thousand of his subjects. Ruy de Sousa 
then presented to him a standard with a cross, 
which would certainly secure victory, as being the 
same which Innocent VIII. had granted to the 
holy crusade, for the war against the infidels. 
Nothing, it appears, could thus be more pro- 
mising, than the original establishment of the 
Catholic faith in Congo. After the first cere- 
monies, however, had passed, the missionaries 
thought it incumbent on them to intimate to 
the king, as a part of his new profession, that he 
must dismiss the numerous wives whom he now 
maintained, and confine himself to one. This re- 
striction appeared so intolerable to the aged mo- 
narch, that, rather than submit to it, he renounced 
Christianity, and returned, with all his nobles, to 
the practice of Paganism. The ladies, in particu- 
lar, are said to have taken a most active part in 
opposing such an innovation. Amidst this gene- 
ral defection, the only person who remained 
steady was the king's eldest son, called by the 
Portuguese Don Alfonso ; and who, it appears, 
willingly submitted to the privation which his fa- 
