Then commenced the greatest felicity of that land; for our religious, having as their object the welfare of those barbarians, tried to gain their good-will by gentle measures.  For that purpose, father Fray Miguel de Santa Maria, the superior of that spiritual squadron, refused to settle in the said fortress of Tanda; for, since those heathen had a horror of it, they would not go to it.  Consequently, despising his life, and exposing it to manifest danger, he determined to enter the country one legua further, and to build a dwelling-place on the shores of a river.  His design did not succeed badly, for, attended by good fortune, he continued to attract and gain the affections of those fierce Indians by making them understand their illusions and errors.  His other associates were not idle amid so much, for, having separated among the environs (after having left a priest in the redoubt as chaplain, who was not slothful in his gaining of souls), they worked fervently in scattering the light of the faith, in the midst of the darkness of that blind people, without excusing themselves from great perils and hardships.  They chose their residence in the village of Yguaquet, [49] on the bank of another river where the country people generally met.  Those gospel workers were divided and separated from one another, in order that they might attend with greater convenience to the different districts.

One cannot imagine the toil of our religious in cultivating that wild forest of barbaric people.  They catechised, instructed, and baptized many, so that what was before a brutish wickedness, where the devil reigned, began to be a beautiful fragment of the Church.  They endured great suffering, because of the intractability and fierceness of the islanders, who were hostile to peace and to human intercourse; for they had so little affection for even their brothers and sons that they killed them or abandoned them to die, on but slight pretext.  But everything surrenders to the grace of God, and to the earnest zeal of His ministers, who consider only the honor of His Divine Majesty—­from whom those pious workers received so great strength, that great wonder is caused by the consideration that people so given to witchcraft, cruelty, and injustice should have received the worship of the true God with so great affection and devotion.  To see them so surrendered to the obedience of the Catholic Church, and so fond of the churches that were soon built by the care and solicitude of Ours, edifies and consoles one.  There are celebrated the feasts of Christ and His most holy mother, and those of the other saints, in which they show a very steadfast faith.  Finally those people learned some arts and trades, by which they live in great comfort.