116 DISCOVERIES OF THE PORTUGUESE. 
joined them ; and at length the men " completed 
" the dismal harmony.' ' The father thought this 
a favourable opportunity for reminding them of all 
their iniquities. It was no more, he remarked, 
than they well deserved, for the ill example which 
they daily set to the new converts. The chief 
cause, however, of the present distress, was doubt- 
less the wrath of the Blessed Virgin, which had been 
justly excited by their having given her name to the 
end of a rope, with which they were wont to chastise 
the negroes ; and he appealed to themselves whether 
such an application of it had any tendency to evidence 
their belief in her as the mother of God. The ma- 
riners on having their sins thus clearly pointed out, 
burst into the most doleful lamentations, and im- 
plored the missionary to point out the means, if there 
were any, of appeasing our Lady, for so little re- 
spectful an use of her appellation. After some dis- 
cussion, the father compounded for the repetition 
of a number of hymns in her honour, and the ce- 
lebration of eighty masses. No very visible conse- 
quence followed ; but they luckily discovered the 
coast of Brazil, before any considerable proportion 
of the crew had fallen victims to the privations un- 
der which they laboured. 
In 1682, Francis da Monte Leone, a Capuchin 
friar, and a native of the kingdom of Sardinia, de- 
termined to undertake a mission to Congo. He 
