as some virtuous dull folk may think.

--
* The Mamelucos sometimes pushed their forays right through Paraguay
into the district of the Moxos, and Padre Patricio Fernandez,
in his curious `Relacion de los Indios Chiquitos' (Madrid, 1726),
relates their adventures in that far-distant district,
and the conflicts which the Indians, led by their priests and helped
by the Spanish settlers, sustained.
--

Quite naturally, these redoubtable land and river pirates
saw in the Jesuit reductions upon the Paranapane, and generally
throughout the district of Guayra, merely an opportunity of capturing
more Indians than usual at a haul. In 1629 they first appeared
before the Mission of San Antonio and destroyed it utterly,
burning the church and houses, and driving off the Indians to sell as slaves.
San Miguel and Jesus-Maria shortly suffered the same fate. In Concepcion
Padre Salazar was regularly besieged, and he and all the people reduced
to eating dogs, cats, rats, mice, and even snakes. At the last moment,
when about to surrender, Father Cataldino, hastily arming some Indians with
any rude weapons at his command, marched on the place and raised the siege.
A worthy member of the Church militant this exploring, fighting,
intrepid Italian priest, and one the Company of Jesus should honour,
for to him, perhaps as much as to any of these first explorers
of the Upper Parana, is credit due.

But still the Mamelucos ran their course, destroying town after town,
so that in the short space of a year (1630-31) they destroyed partially
the reductions of San Francisco Xavier, San Jose, San Pedro,