order that he might pass without bending his body; and if any of his
followers neglected to clear away a branch he paid for his carelessness
with his life. This chief became sick, and a father entreated him
with much earnestness to receive baptism. This he refused, and,
having no fear of death, said: "Father, as yet I have sufficient
strength in my eyes to see, in my hands to work, and in my feet to
walk. Leave me for the present, for, since thou art near by, I will
send one of my slaves for thee if I find that I am in distress." The
father left him, seeing that he would do nothing for us; and within
two days was told that this man was dead, having gone where he must
expiate his obstinacy as well as his pride and cruelty.

For the better understanding of the second case, we must assume that
one of the ways in which God has been best served in that mission
is in persuading the Indians who have two or three wives to abandon
them and to content themselves with one. The means used to accomplish
this end was to condemn polygamy, to the assembled natives, as a
state unworthy of the nobility of man, saying that they ought not to
make themselves beasts and brutes by having so many wives. Our Lord
granted a fortunate outcome to this effort, for the men were thus
persuaded to give up their wives. The Indians were so impressed by this
teaching that once when a swarm of locusts lit in the grain-fields
of a certain village, they accounted for it by saying that God had
sent this pest on the people of that village, because the men were
wont to keep two wives. There was an Indian chief of high rank in the
island of Leite, by the name of Umbas, one of the most prominent among
the chiefs on account of his riches and the good government which he
maintained in the villages under his rule, and the thoroughness with
which he fulfilled all his responsibilities; he was esteemed by not
only the Indians but the Spaniards. All eyes were turned to him, and