DISCOVERIES OF THE PORTUGUESE. 103 
liad been assigned till a better could be erected. 
Unfortunately, a herd of goats had been dislodged 
in order to fit it for their reception ; and the scent 
of these redolent predecessors was still very pre- 
valent. The negroes, however, assisted in clean- 
ing the abode, and they were soon provided with 
an abundant supply of provisions. The people, 
as usual, came in crowds to be baptized, and a 
great part of the nation was soon outwardly Christi- 
an. The missionaries, however, when they came 
to touch on their private life, and to insist on the 
reduction of their domestic establishments, encoun- 
tered the usual obstacles. They found, in particular, 
that the favour of the monarch was thus entirely for- 
feited. That prince reproached them with disturb- 
ing the peace of the state, by introducing innova- 
tions, of which no one had ever before had the re- 
motest idea. He added, that the harshness of 
their deportment was such, as rather tended to 
frighten the people from the profession of Christi- 
anity, than to allure them to embrace it. The fa- 
thers treat this last charge as the clearest proof of 
inveterate malignity ; yet some circumstances, of 
which they themselves boast, may excite doubts in 
the mind of the reader, whether the strictures of 
the monarch were so wholly unfounded. Meet- 
ing with one of the queens, who, with a nu- 
merous train, was giving the air to an idol, and 
pinging its praise, the missionary stopped her, and 
