118 DISCOVERIES OF THE PORTUGUESE. 
for the repetition of a number of hymns in her 
honour, and the celebration of eighty masses. 
No very visible consequence followed ; but they 
luckily discovered the coast of Brazil, before any 
considerable proportion of the crew had fallen vic- 
tims to the privations under which they laboured. 
In 168^, Francis da Monte Leone, a Capuchin 
friar, and a native of the kingdom of Sardinia, de- 
termined to undertake a mission to Congo. He 
readily obtained the sanction of the Holy See, 
and was allowed to take with him Jerome Me- 
ROLLA of Sorrento, a person animated with similar 
zeal. After a residence of several years, Merolla 
returned to Europe, and published a narrative of 
his adventures and observations.* He is very far 
from being an enlightened traveller ; in credulity 
and superstition, indeed, he is equal to any of his 
predecessors. His narrative, however, contains 
some information, and presents curious pictures 
of the manners, and, above all, of the supersti- 
tions which prevail in this part of Africa. 
Merolla, after touching at Brazil, and at the 
Cape of Good Hope, arrived at the mouth of the 
Zaire. Here the vessel encountered so violent a 
swell, as placed the missionary in extreme dread 
* Originally published in Italian. A translation follows 
lhat of Carli in Churchill and Pinkerton. 
