Along with the few officers left by Du Petit Thouars were several
French priests, for whose unobstructed exertions in the dissemination
of their faith, the strongest guarantees were provided by an article
of the treaty. But no one was bound to offer them facilities; much
less a luncheon, the first day they went ashore. True, they had
plenty of gold; but to the natives it was anathema--taboo--and, for
several hours and some odd minutes, they would not touch it.
Emissaries of the Pope and the devil, as the strangers were
considered--the smell of sulphur hardly yet shaken out of their
canonicals--what islander would venture to jeopardize his soul, and
call down a blight on his breadfruit, by holding any intercourse with
them! That morning the priests actually picknicked in grove of
cocoa-nut trees; but, before night, Christian hospitality--in
exchange for a commercial equivalent of hard dollars--was given them
in an adjoining house.

Wanting in civility, as the conduct of the English missionaries may be
thought, in withholding a decent reception to these persons, the
latter were certainly to blame in needlessly placing themselves in
so unpleasant a predicament. Under far better auspices, they might
have settled upon some one of the thousand unconverted isles of the
Pacific, rather than have forced themselves thus upon a people
already professedly Christians.



CHAPTER XXXIII.

WE RECEIVE CALLS AT THE HOTEL DE CALABOOZA