THE MOJOS INDIANS. 
189 
more necessary by the fact that tbc red neophytes more than once 
peiijlexed tlic Fathers with unanswerable questions. 
While I stood tmder the portico of the old building, philosophising 
and speculating upon the term of active vitality yet reserved for the 
operations of the spirit of the age in which the rude imagery was 
executed, by hands that have long rotted away below either the green 
grass of the campos or the dark vaults of the chm’ch, I was joined by 
two Indians, who emerged from one of the straight, long streets. They 
were the sextons ; and almost im- 
mediately the bells of the campanile 
summoned the villagers to prayers. 
As in Brazil, they are not rung in 
our way; but several w(!ll-tunod ones 
are hammered on at the same tinro 
after a peculiar, usually very quick, 
rhythm. It does not sound very 
solemn ; but the lively melody of the 
peals harmonises well with the blue 
sky, the bright sxm, and the gaudily 
dressed congregation, which goes to 
church rather for diversion and for 
society than for devotion. 
It is far otherwise, however, in the 
old Missions on the Mainore, where 
both men and women approached 
silently and seriously ; the former, 
without exception, clad in the classical 
■i'HE MYSTERY OP TUE TEixTi'Y EXPI.ATKET) cauiiseta ot liomo manufiicturo , the 
RY A JESUIT ABTI.ST. hittcr already luxuriating in chemises 
of the gaudy, large- flowered cottons 
of Europe, with their long black hair flowing loose over the shoulders, 
sometimes down to the knees. Even the children, most of them lovely 
little creatures, walked as demurely as their elders, with rosaries in their 
eluibl)}" brown hands. For this auditory at least, church and divine 
service had retained all the glory and holiness wherewith the Jesuits of 
old had surrounded them. 
From the mii.sic-gallcry, facing the altar, I could ca.sily watch the 
filling of the wide hall below, wrapped at first in a mystic twilight. In 
