26 
AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION. 
ceivecl by thousands the rite of baptism. They were 
not, however, on this account, prepared to renounce 
their ancient habits and superstitions. The Inquisition, 
which was speedily instituted among their ecclesiastical 
arrangements, caused a sudden revulsion ; and the mis¬ 
sionaries thenceforth maintained only a precarious and 
even a perilous position. They were much reproached, 
it appears, for the rough and violent methods employed 
to effect their pious purposes ; and though they treat 
the accusation as most unjust, some of the proceedings 
of which they boast with the greatest satisfaction tend 
RIVER SCENE. 
not a little to countenance the charge. When, for 
example, they could not persuade the people to renounce 
their idols, they used a large staff, with which they 
threw them down and beat them in pieces; they even 
sometimes stole secretly into the temples, and set them 
on fire. A missionary at Maopongo having met one of 
the queens, and finding her mind inaccessible to all his 
instructions, determined to use sharper remedies, and 
seizing a whip, began to apply it to her majesty’s 
person. The effect he describes as most auspicious ; 
every successive blow opened her eyes more and more 
to the truth, and she at length declared herself wholly 
