paniards were, in their
turn, dispossessed of the government of the country by the descendants
of the early settlers, who were assisted by the natives and the people
descended from natives and Spaniard. Unhappily, the Roman Catholic
religion is established throughout the whole of Chili and Peru, for the
history of the two countries is nearly the same; and the people have the
characteristics which are to be found wherever that religion prevails.
The great mass are ignorant and superstitious; their priests, of whom
there are great numbers, grossly impose on their credulity.

The mines, as from the first, are worked by the natives, who are,
however, from their delicate constitutions, so unfitted for that sort of
labour that they have rapidly decreased in numbers. The consequence is,
that many of the mines have been closed for want of hands to work them.

While the Ajax lay at Callao, Captain Bertram heard that, shortly
before, an expedition of a dozen or more vessels had been fitted out to
entrap and carry off the natives of the various islands of the Pacific,
for the purpose of making them work in the mines of Peru. What mattered
it to these wretches whether the islanders they proposed to enslave were
Christians and civilised, or cannibal savages? They would have
preferred the former as more likely to be docile under the treatment to
which they proposed to subject them. At first Captain Bertram would
scarcely believe that people professing to be civilised and Christians
could be guilty of an act of such atrocious barbarity. He remembered,
however, who these Chilians are; that in their dispositions and
education they differ in no way from Spaniards, and that the Spanish
have been to the last the most active agents in the African slave-trade.
Those who know the high state of civilisation of which the natives of
Eastern Polynesia are capable, and the remarkable fitness of their minds
for receiving the truths of the gospel, will naturally feel unmitigated
horror at the thought of their being made the victims of so abominable a
scheme. This was especially the feeling of Mr Charlton when he heard
the account, and he resolved to use every exertion to capture the
slavers, and to bring their crews to justice.

CHAPTER NINE.

ADVENTURES AMONG THE ISLANDS.

The Ajax had remained at Callao in order that Captain Bertram might
obtain more information respecting the slaving expedition of which he
had received notice. Al