Page:Tale of Paraguay - Southey.djvu/177

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NOTES.
171

guilty of such a crime, it was owing to their weakness under the torture; and so they suffered for an offence which they had never committed."

Father Grijalva, however, holds with his Father S. Augustine, who has said concerning such things, hœc ad nos non quibuscunque qualibus credere putaremus indignum, sed eis referentibus pervenerunt, quos nobis non existimaremus fuisse mentitos. "In the days of my Father S. Augustine," he says, "wonderful things were related of certain innkeepers in Italy, who transformed passengers into beasts of burden, to bring to their inns straw, barley, and whatever was wanted from the towns, and then metamorphosed them into their own persons, that they might purchase, as customers, the very commodities they had carried. And in our times the witches of Logrono make so many of these transformations, that now no one can doubt them. This matter of the Nahuales, or sorcerers of Tututepec, has been confessed by so many, that that alone suffices to make it credible. The best proof which can be had is, that they were condemned to death by course of justice; and it is temerity to condemn the judges, for it is to be believed that they made all due enquiry. Our brethren who have been ministers there, and are also judges of the interior court (that is of the conscience) have all held these transformations to be certain: so that there ought to be no doubt concerning it. On the