Dionigi da Palacenza Carli One of a band of Franciscan friars of
the Capuchin Reform, sent out to the Congo in 1666. One of his
companions was Padre Michele Angelo Guattini da Rhegio, who
wrote an account of the voyage of the missionaries from Genoa to
Lisbon and thence to Brazil, Loanda, and the Congo, that being
the route the missionaries had to take to get to their
destination. Padre Michele Angelo died shortly after his arrival
in the Conga, leaving his manuscript in the hands of Dionigi
Carli, who, on his return to Italy a few years afterwards owing
to sickness, wrote an account of his own experiences in the
Congo and on his homeward journey. Carli gives a detailed
description of the manners and customs of the natives and of the
doings of the missionaries. He tells how the friars died in
numbers, owing to the climate, and speaks with discouragement of
the peculiar difficulties of the situation. He trusts that some
of the 2700 children he baptized will reach Heaven and be to his
credit as a missionary in