nd they are very black. One may now consider the vigilance it
must have cost to attract those brutes, in order to make them live a
social life in accordance with reason, in peace and quiet--things that
were never seen among them until our religious undertook to tame them
and to bring them into rational intercourse. The jurisdiction of that
convent has extended fourteen leguas, and it has ten visitas which are
villages. The missionaries generally go to those villages to care for
their souls, and do not allow them to continue their former wickedness.

It happened in that village of Masinglo that, an Indian woman finding
herself at the end of her days, they summoned father Fray Bernardo de
San Lorenco so that he might baptize her, for she was then asking for
it. He went to her house, and as he thought that she was but slightly
sick, he judged that it would be well to delay the sacrament until
she knew her prayers well and the other mysteries that any Christian
must know in order to be confessed. He began to instruct her, and
to persuade her with efficacious reasons to hate her idolatries and
to have sorrow for her sins. He tried to leave her in this way until
next day, but she, crying out and moaning, said to him: "Baptize me,
Father, baptize me, immediately; do not leave me or permit me to die
and lose the blessings which thou hast told me that I will obtain by
becoming a Christian." The religious consoled her and answered that
he would baptize her in due time. She continued to urge him to wash
away her sins without delay. Consequently, seeing so much faith,
he baptized her, and left her and her children very happy. And,
although she did not appear sick, she died shortly afterward without
anyone having any warning of it. Upon another occasion another woman
also came to the convent, and urgently requested the same father for
baptism. He asked her why she desired it so urgently. She answered
that one of her eyes pained her, and that she was very much afraid of
dying suddenly without having the health to save herself. The father
performed his duty in catechising her as well as he was able, and
immediately administered the sacrament; she was very glad of this,
and returned to her house, where they shortly afterward found her
dead, without knowing that she had other illness or cause for death
than the above mentioned pain in that eye.

Thus when a beginning was given to that convent, the religious
discussed, as was unavoidabl