y, which were very generally
admitted. The missionaries appealed to the king, respecting this
impious assumption, and that prince conceiving that it interfered
with the respect due to himself, agreed to deliver into their hands
the unfortunate smith, to be converted into a mortal in any manner
they might judge efficacious. After a short and unsuccessful
argument, they had recourse to the same potent instrument of
conversion, as they had applied to the back of the queen. The son of
Vulcan, deserted in this extremity by all his votaries, still made a
firm stand for his celestial dignity, till the blood began to stream
from his back and shoulders, when he finally yielded, and renounced
all pretensions to a divine origin.

A more intimate acquaintance discovered other irregularities amongst
the natives, against which a painful struggle was to be maintained.
According to the custom of the country, and it were well if the same
custom could be introduced into some particular parts of Europe, the
two parties, previously to marriage, lived together for some time, in
order to make a trial of each other's tempers and inclinations,
before entering into the final arrangement. To this system of
probation, the natives were most obstinately attached, and the
missionaries in vain denounced it, calling upon them at once either
to marry or to separate. The young ladies were always the most
anxious to have the full benefit of this experimental process; and
the mothers, on being referred to, refused to incur any
responsibility, and expose themselves to the reproaches of their
daughters, by urging them to an abridgment of the trial, of which
they might afterwards repent. The missionaries seem to have been most
diligent in the task, as they called it, of "reducing strayed souls
to matrimony." Father Benedict succeeded with no fewer than six
hundred, but he found it such "laborious work," that he fell sick and
died. Another subject of deep regret, respecting the many
superstitious practices still prevalent, even among those who
exhibited some sort of Christian profession, was, that sometimes the
children, brought for baptism, were bound with magic cords, to which
the mothers, as an additional security from evil, had fastened beads,
relics, and figures of the Agnus Dei. It was a compound of paganism
and Christianity, which the priests turned away from with disgust;
but still the mothers seemed more inclined to part with the beads,
relics, and