ating or speaking. When they
reached the place where the other boat had been wrecked, the captain
pointed out the spot, and the Bishop recited the prayers for the dead.
Then he ordered food to be prepared, called them all to come to the
table, and set the example by himself eating and talking cheerfully all
the time, until his companions' courage was restored.

A gale coming up, the party took refuge behind an island, where they lay
for a long time before they could go on; and then, because some of them
were still afraid, they divided into two bodies,--the Bishop, his
faithful friend and constant companion, Father Ladrada, and two other
monks, remaining on the boat, and the rest proceeding by land.

The town of Chiapa was the Indian town of the diocese; Ciudad Real, the
Spanish town. It was to the latter that the Bishop went first. The
people received him cordially and showed him every outward form of
respect. He found but few priests in the whole diocese, four of them in
and about Ciudad Real. Of these, one was quite young and had no
particular charge, one traveled about from one town to another,
baptizing the Indians for the money it brought him; one was a partner in
a sugar plantation and spent more time attending to this business than
to his clerical duties, and another collected from the owners of
plantations and slaves taxes and tribute paid to the crown. The Bishop
took all these into his house, to keep them in order, paying them a
small salary and giving them their meals at his own table.

Las Casas' manner of living as a bishop was no different from that which
he had practiced as a simple monk. His habit was rusty and patched and
he ate no meat, though it was provided for his guests: his forks and
spoons were of wood, and the dishes of plain earthenware. This simple
mode of life did not suit the priests, and two of them left his diocese.

All day Las Casas attended to the work of the diocese, and late into the
night he studied and wrote. At all times the Indians had free access to
him, coming to him with all their sorrows. Every day they would crowd
about him, their faces swollen with weeping and, kissing the hem of his
robe, would pour out to him the story of the cruelties from which they
suffered. The good Bishop suffered with them and often would be heard in
the night, sighing and groaning in his room.

Las Casas preached constantly against the enslaving of the Indians, and
rebuked the holders of slaves