ildren were fattened for their sacrifices and feasts. In the same
way they butchered and devoured all the prisoners they took during war
time. Sons committed incest with their mothers, fathers with their
daughters, brothers with their sisters, and uncles with their nieces.
They were addicted to the vice of drunkenness to a most terrible degree,
and the inhabitants of Panuco had the most filthy and unheard-of custom,
of injecting the wine of their country, by means of hollow canes, into
their bodies, in the same way we should take a clyster. Various other
vices and abominations were practised among them; and every man took as
many wives as he liked.

We, the few veteran Conquistadores who escaped alive from the battles
and perils we encountered, succeeded, with the aid of God, to turn these
people aside from their abominations. It was through our exertions they
began to lead a more moral life, and that the holy doctrine was
introduced among them. We were the persons who made this good beginning,
and it was not until two years later, when we had made the conquest, and
introduced good morals and better manners among the inhabitants, that
the pious Franciscan brothers arrived, and three or four years after the
virtuous monks of the Dominican order, who further continued the good
work, and spread Christianity through the country. The first part of the
work, however, next to the Almighty, was done by us, the true
Conquistadores, who subdued the country, and by the Brothers of Charity,
who accompanied us. To us and them are due the merit and praise of
sowing the first seeds of Christianity among these tribes: for when the
beginning is good, the continuation and completion are sure to prove
praiseworthy!

But enough of this; I will now speak of the great advantages which the
inhabitants of New Spain derived from our exertions in their behalf.

CHAPTER CCIX.

_How we introduced the Christian religion among the Indians; of
their conversion and baptism; and of the different trades we taught
them._

After we had abolished idolatry and other abominations from among the
Indians, the Almighty blessed our endeavours and we baptized the men,
women, and all the children born after the conquest, whose souls would
otherwise have gone to the infernal regions. With the assistance of God,
and by a good regulation of our most Christian monarch, of glorious
memory, Don Carlos, and of his excellent son Don Philip, our mo