CHAPTER XXVII.

MY STAY AT THE CITY OF ST. IAGO. THE VISIT OF OUR CACIQUE, ALAYKIN, TO THE GOVERNOR OF SALTA.

After the customary salutations on both sides, I made my excellent friend Barreda acquainted with the state of the colony. We held continual consultations on the speediest remedies. In a few days a courier was dispatched with letters to Martinez, Governor of Tucuman, at Salta, whence the Governor sent another to Xexui, where the keepers of the royal treasury reside. In the meantime, I was obliged to remain at St. Iago, where I was by no means unemployed. Besides attending to the business of the colony, I was almost daily occupied in confessing Spanish and Negro penitents, who flocked to me from all quarters, as being a stranger, and likely soon to leave the city. The Governor Martinez had often and earnestly requested that Alaykin, and the other Abiponian Caciques, might be sent to visit him at Salta, as he was in hopes of being able to conciliate them by fair words, handsome entertainment, and liberal gifts: but the savages are of a suspicious and fearful temper, and always apprehend treachery and deceit in the friendship of the Spaniards. Alaykin, though often invited, had uniformly declined going: now, induced by what reasons I do not know, he suddenly arrived, whilst I was at St. Iago, with two of the more reputable Abipones, and after resting three days in that city, pursued his journey to Salta. The provident Barreda sent two Spaniards with him, one to act as guide, the other as interpreter, and both as defenders against assailants. This journey was little approved either by Barreda or myself; because we foresaw that should any one of the Abipones perish amongst those rocks, either from the unwonted cold of a foreign clime; or from tertian ague, which is very common there, on account of the unwholesome water; or from any other cause; the whole Abiponian nation would undoubtedly attribute it to the malignant arts of the Spaniards, and this suspicion would be the origin of an immediate war. The first day that the Abipones spent at St. Iago they were very near conceiving suspicions injurious to the Spaniards. At that time the yearly rite was solemnized of carrying about the holy wafer, some praying with a loud voice, some singing, and others dancing, to imitate David when he leapt before the ark of the covenant. To testify the public joy, very small muskets were fired up and down the streets. The Abipones, as yet ignorant of these ceremonies, would have sworn that the Spaniards were saluting them with gunpowder, had I not made them sensible of their error. At the time when the procession is passing through the streets, men dressed in a ridiculous costume like merry-andrews, and called by the Paraguayrians _Cachidiablos_, run about, and strike the common people with a whip, if they trespass upon silence or religious decorum. Suppose one of the Abipones, whilst walking about unarmed, had received a single blow from these foolish harlequins, when would they have ceased complaining of the injury done them by the Spaniards? What an argument would it have been for breaking terms with them, and renewing the war? It may be generally observed, that the savages, however friendly to the Spaniards, can never sojourn long in their towns without endangering this amicable disposition. They imagine injuries though they do not receive any, and are often offended at a shadow.

Reflecting upon these things, I would not be persuaded by Barreda to accompany the Abipones who were going to Salta, representing that if the Governor reproached them with faults of which he might have been informed by Father Sanchez, they would suspect me of having been their accuser, and pronounce me deserving of the eternal hatred of the whole nation. Alaykin was sumptuously entertained, and clothed by the Governor at great expense, but with little profit; for on his return, when he displayed his splendid dress of valuable scarlet cloth, and boasted of all the honours heaped upon him by the Governor, "See!" said they, "how we are feared by the Spaniards!" Thus acts of liberality and kindness were foolishly construed into testimonies of fear. The lower orders of Spaniards, too, were angry at beholding Alaykin bedecked in a beautiful Spanish robe, "Look!" they exclaimed, "this is the reward which a fellow who has merited the gallows an hundred times over, obtains for plundering and burning our property." Alaykin himself, however, was so little taken with the splendor of this Spanish dress, that he let it lie and mildew in the chest, never appearing in the town with it but once, and then, without shirt, shoes, or breeches, he was rather an object of laughter than of admiration.

It is worthy of remark, that at the very time when Alaykin was entertained in so friendly a manner by the Spaniards, some Abipones broke into the estates of the Cordobans to carry off horses, but were put to flight by a soldier. One of the fugitives, a hordesman of Alaykin, was taken, and detained in prison at Cordoba; but at the earnest request of Barreda and myself was suffered to return home, lest the savages should avenge his captivity by the blood of the Spaniards. About the same time it was announced that a company of Abipones had attacked the St. Iagans in the Silvas del Hierro, as I have related elsewhere. Although this incursion had been headed by Oaherkaikin, it was attributed to the fellow-soldiers of Alaykin by ill-natured people, who wished to get our colony and its founder Barreda into disrepute. But this fable was afterwards detected by means of the captives, who, when restored to liberty, declared that their comrades were slain, and themselves made prisoners by the hordesmen of Debayakaikin.