them continuing these futile and exhausting exercises for more than six hours without the least rest.

When people are invited by heralds' proclamation to the residence of an important cacique, the latter's servants clean and sweep the roads, clearing them of all grass, pebbles, thorns, straw, and other rubbish. When necessary they even widen the road. As soon as they are within a stone's throw from the cacique's house, the guests halt and form in orderly ranks in the open country, striking their war javelins and arrows against one another, singing and dancing incessantly. Presently they intone a measure in a low, quavering voice, and begin to advance. As they approach, they raise their voices, giving greater intensity to their song, which is always some such refrain as this: "The day is fair; fair is the day; the day is fair." In each village there is a leader who sets the measure of the dance or song; and so harmoniously are the people trained, that although they are numerous, one would believe he heard one sole voice and saw a single movement. One of the cacique's servants precedes the procession walking backwards as far as the dwelling. As they enter the house, the chanting ceases while some of the people pretend to fish and others to hunt; one of them then steps forward and delivers a eulogy of the cacique and his ancestors, in the form of a speech. Another of them imitates the gestures of a buffoon, rolling his eyes and staring about. Afterwards they sit crosslegged on the ground in silence. Then they begin to eat to the point of nausea and drink till they are drunk.

The more intemperate a man is, the stronger is he reputed to be. The women, however, drink more moderately, for they have to look after their husbands prone on the ground from drunkenness. These orgies last so long that a woman is charged to take care and look after each man. The women also bring the stores of food and drink to the place appointed for the meeting. They

serve drink to the men in the following manner: They begin by presenting a man who is sitting with a cup from which they have drunk. The man rises and the cup passes from one to another until each one of the assembly has drunk in turn. The monks report that they have seen one of these natives so swollen with drink that he looked like a pregnant woman.

They are not slow at quarrelling, complaining, and recalling old injuries. Hence duels, provocations, single combats, budding hatreds, and the revival of ancient feuds follow. As soon as they are able to get up and go home, they begin singing again and in a minor key, the women more melancholy than the men.

They practise magic, as we shall later explain, and are instructed therein by masters. They affirm that they have relations with demons and speak with them, especially when their minds are intoxicated. It is for this reason that, without mentioning fermented liquors, they make use of the fumes of an intoxicating herb which renders them completely insensible. They also drink the juices of certain herbs, which act as emetics, thus permitting them to prolong their gluttony and drunkenness. Young girls are present at these banquets. They wrap the calves of their legs and thighs with skeins of yarn, binding them so tightly that they swell. They actually imagine that this stupid practice renders them more beautiful in the eyes of their lovers. The rest of their bodies is naked, though married women wear short cotton trousers.

These natives have different kinds of military musical instruments, with which they sometimes rouse themselves to mirth, sometimes to sadness, sometimes to fury. They are made of large sea-shells across which strings are stretched, or else they are flutes made of stags' bones, or from river rushes. They also make little drums, decorated with different kinds of paintings, either out

of gourds or from a piece of hard wood thicker than

a man's arm.

Almost every night they shout from the tops of the highest houses in the village, like public criers, and from the neighbouring village the answer quickly comes back. When asked why they so exerted themselves, they answered that it is to prevent their enemies from surprising them by a sudden descent, for internal wars are incessant amongst them.

Their languages are difficult to understand, for their words are too abbreviated, after the manner of poetic licence which permits using deum for deorum. They bathe every day, before sunrise if it is warm, after sunrise if it is cold. To beautify themselves they rub their bodies with a sort of slimy ointment, upon which they stick birds' feathThis is the punishment meeted out in Spain to wantons and witches when they are taken out of prison to be publicly exposed.

ers.

The natives of Chiribichi, who live along the coast, fear neither excessive cold or heat; although they are near the equator, they are hardly under the tenth degree of the arctic pole; the continent extends towards the antarctic pole as far as the fifty-fourth degree south of the equator, where the days are the shortest when with us they are the longest, and vice versa. The man whom the natives consider the most powerful and the most noble, is he who possesses the most gold and boats dug out of tree-trunks; or whoever has the largest number of relatives and may boast of the brave deeds of his ancestors and of his family. Whoever injures one of his compatriots must look to himself, for they never forgive, and use treachery to revenge themselves. They are boastful beyond measure.

They like to use bows and poisoned arrows. They poison their arrows with the stings of scorpions, the heads of certain ants, poisons which they manufacture, and

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those little plums I have mentioned, as well also as the juice they distil from certain trees in which they dip But everybody is not permitted to make

their arrows. this mixture. There are certain old women skilled in the art, who are shut in at certain times and furnished with the necessary materials; during two days these women watch and distil the ointment. As soon as it is finished the house is opened, and if the women are well and not found lying on the ground half dead from the fumes of the poison, they are severely punished, and the ointment is thrown away as being valueless; for the strength of the poison is such, that the mere odour of it, while compounding almost kills its makers.'

Whoever is wounded by one of these poisoned arrows dies, but not instantly, and no Spaniard has yet found a remedy for such wounds. The natives know some, but the remainder of one's life, after being cured, is sufficiently disagreeable; for it is necessary to abstain from many things one likes. First of all, from sexual pleasures for two years, and afterwards, during a lifetime, from liquors, excessive pleasures of the table, and all exertion. Otherwise death quickly follows. Our monks have seen many wounded Indians, for they live in a state of perpetual war,-but they assisted at the death of only one woman, who was unwilling to undergo the cure; the women fight by their husbands' sides. Nobody has been able to extort from them the secret of this antidote.

From childhood they practise archery with wax or wooden balls instead of arrows. When navigating their boats one of them stands in the prow of the boat singing, the oarsmen following the cadence and keeping time with their oars.

The women are usually sufficiently well-behaved in their youth, but as they grow older they become more inconstant. They follow the common usage of their 'Supposed by some to be the fatal poison, curare.

sex in preferring foreigners, and hence they love the Christians better than their compatriots. They run, swim, dance, and indulge in all exercises as actively as do the men. Childbirth is easy, and they show no suffering. They do not go to bed, nor take any care of themselves. They press the head of the new-born child between two cushions, one on the forehead and the other at the back, squeezing it until the eye emerges from the socket, for they admire flat faces. When the young girls become marriageable their parents shut them up for two successive years in dark rooms, during which time they never go into the open, so as not to tan. During this period they never cut their hair. Guarded thus jealously, these women are much sought after as wives, and if they are the first wives of their husbands they exercise a sort of direction over the other women, of whom a cacique may have as many as he chooses. Generally a man is content with one wife; the young girls of the common people give themselves to anybody who asks them. Adultery after marriage is forbidden, and if committed it is not the woman but the man who is punished. The wife may be repudiated.

All the people in the neighbourhood are invited to the wedding of young girls of high birth, and the female guests arrive, carrying provisions of food and drink on their shoulders. All the men bring bunches of straw and thatch to build the house of the new couple, which is constructed with beams set upright in the shape of a tent. When the house is finished the bride and groom adorn themselves, according to their means, with the usual jewels and necklaces and different kinds of stones. Those who possess none, obtain them from their neighbours. The bride then sits outside with the young girls, and the bridegroom is surrounded by the men. A dance is performed around them, the young girls encircling the bride, and the men the bridegroom. Then a hair-cutter approaches and cuts the bridegroom's hair up to the tops of his ears, while a