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54 TRAVELS
their great poverty. The anfwers they made to our queftions were
not fo frank and plain as might have been expected from fuch
fimpletons. The paflions which fo often make men of fenfe act
like fools, fometimes give art and addrefs to the moft ftupid ; and
there is none of thofe paflions fo much adapted to produce effects
of this kind as felfifhnefs, and an anxious intereft to protect pro-
perty.
When the kings of the North, animated by a fpirit of religion
and piety, fent miffionaries into thofe forlorn regions to preach
the Gofpel and propagate the Chriftian religion, the miffionaries
did not only make the poor natives pay the expences of their
journey, but alfo gave them to underftand that they were to be re-
munerated for their trouble. That wandering people had hitherto
lived without priefts, and without any kind of burthen; in fadt,
becaufe they were too poor to pay to the exigencies of ftate. They
worfhipped in their own way, juft how and when they pleafed, a
number of gods, who coft them nothing, except now and then a
facrifice, which they themfelves ate up, and of which they left
nothing to their deities but the bones and horns.
At firft, it may be prefumed, they were not a little chagrined
at being called on to fhare their wealth with ftrangers, whom they
conceived they could do very well without. Being weak from
indolence and idlenefs, as well as natural conftitution, difperfed,
difunited by their manner of life, attached only to their herds,
and incapable of combining among themfelves, in order to form
any plan of oppofition and refiftance, they fubmiffively, and with-
out
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