[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]

CHAPTER VII

SANTO

THERE are hardly any natives left in the south of the
Bay of St. Philip and St. James, generally called Big
Bay. Only to the north of Talamacco there are a
few villages, in which the remnants of a once numer-
ous population, mostly converts of the Presbyterian
mission, have collected. It is a very mixed crowd,
without other organization than that which the mission
has created, and that is not much. There are a few
chiefs, but they have even less authority than else-
where, and the feeling of solidarity is lacking entirely,
so that I have hardly ever found a colony where there
was so much intrigue, immorality and quarrelling.
A few years ago the population had been kept in
order by a Presbyterian missionary of the stern and
cruel type; but he had been recalled, and his place
was taken by a man quite unable to c0pe with the
lawlessness of the natives, so that every vice de-
veloped freely, and murders were more frequent than
in heathen districts. Matters were not improved by
the antagonism between the Roman Catholic and
Presbyterian missions and the traders; each worked
against the others, offering the natives the best of
opportunities to fish in troubled waters. The result

of all this was a rapid decrease of the population and
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