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290 Whilst the two monks were thus diligently studying the language and customs of the natives their own opinions as to the best means of converting savages to Christianity were rapidly undergoing a change. Hitherto the missionaries had supposed that this object could be attained only by their following the tribe in all its wanderings, but their increasing experience now showed them that they had been mistaken, and that nomadic habits on the part of the teachers were not calculated to reclaim a race of nomads. "Nothing so easy," says Father Salvado, "as to preach a sermon to a savage; but if in the middle of it he asks for something to eat, he will, unless the preacher is able to supply the want, cut short the discourse altogether by going off to look for food in the bush."

The eagerness also with which the natives would work in return for bread added not a little to the poignancy with which the missionaries viewed their deficient means. One thing was also certain, that no religious teaching which was not combined with instruction in agriculture could be of use in a country so naturally destitute of food for man's use that, if a native cannot find game, contingencies may, and do, occur as horrible as any which are furnished by our most dismal annals of shipwreck.

A native named Billiagoro, with whom Father Salvado became intimate, told him of four families having once been reduced by sheer famine to kill and eat a child, the narrator himself having taken part in the revolting meal. There had been six successive days of heavy rain, accompanied by unusual cold, and all attempts to procure food during that time had proved unsuccessful. The victim was Billiagoro's own sister, "and had I been older, I would