air, give them all the looks of
furies, or of old witches.

I had scarcely arrived than women with very young children came in
crowds to me. In order to satisfy them I caressed their babes: but
that was not what they wanted, and, notwithstanding their gestures
and their words, I could not make out their wishes. On the following
day, the woman whom I have already mentioned as having lived for
some time among the Tagalocs, arrived from a neighbouring tribe,
accompanied by ten other women, each of whom had an infant in her
arms. She explained what I was not able to comprehend on the previous
day, and said: "We have amongst us very few words for conversation:
all our children take at their birth the name of the place where they
are born. There is great confusion, then, and we have brought them
to you that you may give them names."

As soon as I understood this explanation, I wished to celebrate
the ceremony with all the pomp that the circumstances and the
place allowed. I went to a small rivulet, and there, as I knew the
formula for applying the baptismal water, I took my two Indians as
sponsors, and during several days baptised about fifty of these poor
children. Each mother who brought her infant was accompanied by two
persons of her own family. I pronounced the sacramental words, and
poured water on the head of the child, and then announced aloud the
name I had given to the child. Therefore, as they have no means of
perpetuating their recollections, from the time that I pronounced
the name,--Francis, for instance,--the mother and her accompanying
witnesses repeated it very often, until they learned to say it
correctly, and commit it to memory. Then they went away, and were
constantly repeating the name, which they were anxious to retain.

The first day the ceremony was rather long; but the second day the
number lessened, and I was allowed to pursue my examination of the
character of my hosts. I had retained the woman who spoke Tagaloc,
and in the long conversations which I held with her, she initiated
me thoroughly in all their customs and usages.

The Ajetas have no religion; they do not adore any star. It
seems, however, that they have transmitted to, or received from,
the Tinguianes, the practice of adoring, during one day, a rock or
a trunk of any tree on which they find any resemblance whatever of
an animal; they then abandon it, and think no more of an idol until
they meet with a strange form, which, for a sho