AN ACCOUNTOFTHE ABIPONES.PREFATORY BOOK ON THE STATE OF PARAGUAY.Paraguay is a vast region in South America, extending very widely in every direction. From Brazil to the kingdoms of Peru and Chili, they reckon 700 Spanish leagues: from the mouth of the river La Plata, to the northern region of the Amazons, 1,100. Some reckon more, some fewer leagues, according as they use German, French, or Spanish miles. Concerning this matter, a determinate opinion must not be expected. These huge tracts of land, receding very far from the Colonies, are not yet rightly explored; possibly, never will be.Geometry is there arara avis; and were any one capable of measuring the land, and desirous of the attempt, he would want the courage toenter it, deterred either by the fear of savages, or by the difficulties of the journey. Men of our order, seeking out savages for God and the Catholic King, examined the coverts of its forests, the summits of its mountains, and the banks of its remotest rivers, traversing, to the utmost of their ability, every part of the province, always risking, and often losing, their lives. In Peru and Mexico, there is no corner which the Europeans, attracted by the hope of gold, have not searched into; but we are still unacquainted with great part of Paraguay, a region unproductive of gold, and, therefore, wanting the requisite allurement. As for what is discovered, who can deny that it is almost entirely owing to the efforts of the Missionaries? The plains which they traversed, the rivers which they crossed, together with the distances of places, they have noted with the utmost fidelity, though not always with equal art.Paraguay is subject to the King of Spain, in whose authority it is ruled by three governours, and as many bishops. Each province has its governour; the first is that of La Plata, on the banks of which is the city of Buenos-Ayres, the seat of the royal governour, and of a bishop. It is famous for an academy, monasteries for both sexes, a port, and a citadel, which, thoughimpregnable to the assaults of savages, and even of the citizens themselves, would soon yield to the warlike engines of Europeans; the river compensates for the weakness of the walls, ships being prevented, by shoals, from approaching. It is destitute of a wall, ditch, gates, and similar fortifications; defects common to all the other cities of the province. The inhabitants are reckoned at 40,000, the dwellings at about 3000, constructed chiefly of brick, and roofed with tiles; but they are all low, excepting a few of two stories. The churches are handsome, even to the eye of an European. The finest are two of which Primoli, a Roman lay-brother of our order, and now in repute in his native city, was the architect. There are no public fountains, colossal statues, or images of the Saints in the market-place. You may count more carriages in Austrian Vienna in one street, and in one hour, than you can here, in the whole city, during a whole year. Troops of horse may be seen every moment, nor is it surprising, that even those of moderate estate should, in the Spanish tongue, be calledCavalleros. Military rank, the magistracy of the city, and similar dignities, alone confer nobility. The riches of the inhabitants consist rather in cattle, than in money. The land round about the city, for near twohundred leagues, is a well wooded plain, often destitute of water, but rich in corn and pasturage, the latter of which feeds innumerable herds of cattle, horses, and mules. Wherever you turn you meet droves of wild horses, the property of the first that catches them. Besides willows, in which the islands of the river abound, the peach tree is constantly made use of for fuel.Buenos-Ayres is one of the principal emporiums of America, merchandise being either brought from Spain, or secretly smuggled from the Portugueze. The more wealthy carry on a lucrative trade with Peru and Chili, in mules and the herb of Paraguay. The climate is moist. Tempests are equally violent at all times of the year, thunder often continuing for whole days and nights; this is common to all parts of Paraguay. Clouds, pregnant with fire and water, terrify, and often destroy, both men and cattle, either with lightning, or hail of an incredible magnitude, the like to which Europe has never seen. The city is situated in S. lat. 34° 36´, and in long. 321° 3´.On the eastern shore of the river stands Nova Colonia do Sacramento, opposite to Buenos-Ayres, which the Spaniards, as built and fortified by the Portugueze on Spanish ground, have often besieged, and as often restored by treaty; a restoration which the inhabitants ofBuenos-Ayres openly favoured, having in view their profitable traffic with the Portugueze. But the revenue of the Catholic King was grievously affected by the gains of these private individuals, from the diminution of the customary taxes. This little city, the subject of so many disputes, stands on the higher bank of the river. The houses are few and low, forming a village, rather than city, yet it is far from despicable; opulent merchants, wares of every kind, gold, silver, and diamonds are concealed beneath its miserable roofs. Surrounded with a single and very slender wall, though sufficiently stored with military engines, arms, and provisions, for the sudden occasions of war, it yet discovers neither strength nor elegance. The land under Portugueze authority is of such small circumference, that the most inactive person might walk round it in half an hour. Portugueze ships, laden with English and Dutch wares, and Negro slaves, which have a great sale in America, crowd to this port, and the Spanish sentinels, either bribed or deceived, convey the goods to Paraguay, Peru, or Chili. It is incredible how many millions are lost to the Spaniards in this forbidden traffic. Hence it is easy to guess why the Portugueze have ever determined to defend this colony, at allcosts, and the Spaniards, on the other hand, to destroy it.During my residence of two days, the appearance of the place was such, that I thought it might be taken, in one assault, by a hundred soldiers. But as the fear of war came upon them, I doubt not, that new fortifications were added to the old wall, as the siege cost so much time and trouble to the Spanish General, Pedro Zevallos, a consummate officer, and of known success, who, when he prepared to storm the city, through a breach in the wall, secured as it was with a numerous garrison and military engines, took it conditionally, October 31, 1762. Before the walls were yet repaired, twelve English and Portugueze ships of war arrived there, intending to reduce the Spaniards, then masters of the city. They conducted the affair with much noise, but little success. Chance put an end to the engagement, when it had lasted a few hours. The English Admiral's ship being burnt, the rest fled hastily to the ports of Brazil, the English throwing the blame on the cowardice of the Portugueze, and they in turn accusing the foolhardiness of the English. For the one fought under the very gates, that they might be near to strike home; the other at a distance, lest themselves shouldbe injured. This they threw in each other's teeth. Transient, however, was the advantage which Paraguay derived from this victory; for peace being ratified between the European powers, the Spaniards restored Nova Colonia to the Portugueze, that they might recover the Havanna, and Manilla, capital of the Philippines, both which places the English had taken from them. After a few years, war was rekindled; and Pedro Zevallos, having conquered the Island of Santa Catharina, took it a second time. Finally, in the last peace concluded between the courts of Madrid and Lisbon, it was ceded to the Spanish. This was a bitter loss to the Portugueze, yet by the accession of new territories, many more inlets were opened to them. Cuyaba, a place rich in gold, Matto Grosso, the little fort of S. Rosa, (called La Estacada,) and other colonies, were added to Portugal. Some think this intimate connection dangerous to Peru, hurtful to the Spaniards, and advantageous only to the Portugueze. For what should hinder the latter, accustomed, as they are, from their infancy, to arms and difficult routes, and never slothful in extending the limits of their kingdom, from going and possessing themselves of the treasures of Potosi, a mountain abounding in silver, but destitute of iron, and of men to wield it?Some years ago, when I was in Paraguay, a handful of Portugueze defended the little fort of S. Rosa, (La Estacada,) against a numerous army of Spaniards and Indians, enlisted at Potosi, the assailants being shamefully repulsed. About the same time, a very few Portugueze sallied from the same fort, and coming artfully by night, surprised S. Miguel, a Peruvian city, inhabited by Indian Christians, called Moxos. Two Jesuit priests, who had the care of the city, were dragged into captivity; one of them, an old man, fell a victim to the journey, whilst the other was thrown into prison. The Indians, except those who had escaped by flight, were driven out and dispersed, and every thing was rifled. But away with these sad memorials; for we would not tear open the newly seared wound, we would not presage ill for the future. That the happiness and safety of these flourishing estates may be confirmed by a lasting alliance, is the desire and the prophecy of every good man.Fifty leagues to the south of Nova Colonia, on the same shore, stands Monte-Video, a little city, founded in the year 1726, by D. Bruno Mauritio Zavala, Governour of Buenos-Ayres; and afterwards fortified with a wall, a castle, and, here and there, with tiers of cannon, by the labours of the Guaranies. Besides soldiersand Guaranies, it contains many men from the Canary islands. On every side the land is fertile in corn, the farms large, and the cattle and horses incredibly numerous. The produce of the farms is a provision for the colonists, and there is daily opportunity of selling cattle and hides for corn: as the ships, which frequently leave this port, need a provision for many months, scarce a single vessel sets sail without a freight of twenty or thirty thousand ox hides for Europe. Grievous it is that so rich a soil should lie open to the devastating savages, who rise up in troops from their coverts, in quest of blood or booty, always creating terror, and often inflicting death. By no arts can they be subdued, by no kindness be won to the friendship and religion of the Spaniards. Fiercer than wild beasts, they have now for two centuries mocked the toil of soldiers and of priests. The latitude of this city is 34° 48´, its longitude 322° 20´.About thirty leagues from hence lies the gulph of Maldonado, affording a commodious station for ships, even of large burden. Except sentinels, you see nothing here but a few cabins, the abodes of misery. Hard by is an island, the habitation of seals; it lies nearly in the middle of the river, and were the natural rock on which it stands defended by a double tier ofcannon, how would it guard Paraguay against its enemies! For they could not elude the fire of the cannon by taking the east side of the river, unless they preferred being buried in theBanco Ingles, or English shoal.To the government of Buenos-Ayres belong the cities of Santa Fé and Corrientes; the one on the east, and the other on the west shore of the Parana. The former is the handsomest and most opulent. From its trade in divers articles, and from its countless herds of cattle, it amasses wealth to a great amount. In former years, it was almost razed to the ground, and thus reduced to solitude, by the barbarous Abipones, Mocobios, Tobas, and Charruas. The more valuable and remoter estates were entirely destroyed; slaughters were committed, in the very market-place, at mid-day; and it was provided by law, that no one should enter the church, unless armed with a musket. But after we had founded the colonies of S. Xavier, S. Jeronymo, Concepcion, S. Pedro, and S. Pablo, this city began to take breath, and, flourishing again, returned the security it had previously received. Before, behind, and on both sides, it is bounded by rivers, which, when they overflow, threaten destruction to the inhabitants, but are, at other times, extremely beneficial to them.Its latitude is 31° 46´. From Buenos-Ayres, its distance is reputed to be an hundred leagues.The other city, which the Spaniards call De las Siete Corrientes, takes its name from seven points of the rock jutting out into the Parana, against which the current breaks with great violence, and flowing on very rapidly, carries down ships, coming up the stream, unless in full sail under a strong wind. A row-boat, in the passage of the river, must make many windings to avoid the rapidity of the current, as I have often experienced: for hard upon the city, the great river Paraguay flows into the still greater river Parana, the one changing its course, and the other its name. For the Parana, rolling on from east to west, when joined to the Paraguay, hurries down in a southerly direction with it. The Paraguay loses its name for that of the Parana after its junction with that river. It is inconceivable with what a mass of water these conjoint streams roll proudly down in one mighty channel. If you did not see the banks, you might fancy it a sea. This place, in name alone a city, and unworthy of the name, is chiefly composed of mud-hovels, with roofs of palm-leaves. The inhabitants are remarkable for their beauty, fascinated by which, many of the Europeans are entangled in marriages, which they repentfor the rest of their lives. The women destroy themselves with labour, weaving, and exquisitely embroidering garments, which they call ponchos. The men are naturally agile, lively, and expert in horsemanship; but, from their indolence and love of ease, are oppressed with poverty, when they might abound in every thing, if they but knew how to improve the fertility of the soil, and the advantages of the river. The Abipones, who had long afflicted the neighbourhood with slaughter and rapine, being at length subdued, and settled in the new colony of St. Ferdinand, the inhabitants revived after they had entertained thoughts of deserting the city, and the use of the fields and woods, on the other side of the river, was restored them. These last, being stocked with noble trees, afford excellent materials for building ships and waggons. The fields supply pasturage for cattle of various kinds. The inhabitants derive considerable profits from these sources; gains which the daily fear of assailing savages deprived them of. The lat. of the city is 27° 43´, its long. 318° 57´.In the jurisdiction of the Governour of Buenos-Ayres, are also thirty Guarany towns, on or near the banks of the Parana, the Uruguay, and the Paraguay. By geographers they are called Doctrines, or the land of Missions; but the ignorant or malicious style them, in their books,the kingdom of the Jesuits, a republic rebellious to the Catholic King, painting them in the blackest colours which envy and unbridled calumny can suggest. Let me be excused, if to manifest the falsehood of their calumnies, I mention the following facts:—That the Jesuit missionaries have ever left Europe at the expense of the Catholic King, for the purpose of founding new colonies, and preserving the old—that they are supported by an annual stipend from the royal purse—that the Guaranies pay yearly tribute to the King—that a century before as many thousands as were appointed, fought in the royal camps without any stipend, whenever they were called upon by the royal governour—that the parishes are visited by the Bishops as often as seems good—that the Bishops are honourably received, and splendidly entertained, it may be for many weeks—that the castles of Buenos-Ayres and Monte-Video were built under the direction, indeed, of the Spaniards, but by the labour of the Guaranies—that the royal army consists chiefly of the Guaranies, under our authority, which were ruled by a few Spaniards, as the body by the soul, in every undertaking against the warlike savages, against the Portugueze and their town of Nova Colonia, so often attacked and taken, or against the insurgents of the cityof Concepcion. The Guaranies were governed by the Jesuits, to whose care they were intrusted by the Catholic kings, not as slaves by their masters, but as children by their parents; and these towns were conducted in a manner precisely conformable to the royal laws.By the labours of nearly two centuries, the Guaranies, formerly wandering cannibals and obstinate enemies to the Spaniards, have been reduced to civilization, to religion, and to the sceptre of the Catholic King. With what labour, what expense of lives the Jesuits have effected this—how infinitely these thirty towns surpass the other American tribes in the number of their inhabitants, in Christian morality, in the splendour of their churches, in their prompt loyalty, in mechanical skill, in arts, and in military activity, you may learn from the letters every where published of the kings, the royal governours, and the Spanish bishops; from the works of Doctor D. Francisco Xarque, Dean of Albarrazin, an eye-witness, of the learned Abbot Antonio Muratori, and an anonymous Englishman, whose book was translated from English into German, at Hamburgh, in the year 1768. This work gave me great pleasure, though it sometimes made me smile, especially where the author says, "We Europeans doat when we blame the Jesuits of Paraguay.It were better to deliberate how we may bring about in Europe, what they effect among the Guarany Indians without violence and without money. In their towns, each labours for all, and all for each. Without needing to buy or sell, every one possesses the necessaries of a comfortable subsistence, victuals, lodging, medicine, and education. Money wanting, all is wanting, say the Europeans; the Guaranies, on the other hand, though destitute of gold and silver, though unacquainted with any kind of money, daily experience the truth of the aphorism,Dii laboribus omnia vendunt, God gives every thing to labour. Proportioning the task to their age, their sex, and their strength, they are always employed, never oppressed with labour. Of luxuries they are ignorant, superfluity they know not, yet are happier in their contentment than the wealthiest in their opulence. He is not prosperous to whom much abounds, but whom little suffices. The Jesuit priests are curates not of the souls, but of the bodies of the Guaranies." Being in subjection only to the Catholic King and the royal governours, not in dreaded slavery amongst private Spaniards, like the other Indians, the towns increase wonderfully every year in population under our care, and fresh towns were now and then added to the old ones. In the year 1732, 141,252 inhabitantswere reckoned in the thirty colonies of the Guaranies; but the small-pox breaking out soon after, cut off thirty thousand of them. Some time after it returned again, but in a milder form, and eleven thousand only were its victims. The measles, likewise, so fatal to Americans, made repeated ravages to a frightful extent. I write from experience in both, for in my office of priest, I attended the sick of the small-pox and measles, day and night, for many months. Famine, also, arising from the continued drought and consequent density of the land, filled the tombs with Guaranies. Add to these, the victims of war in the royal camps, where five, and sometimes six thousand men were detained. In 1767, when we bade America farewell, there were about an hundred thousand numbered in these towns. M. Louis Antoine de Bougainville, in his work entitledVoyage autour du Monde, printed at Neufchatel, in the year 1772, must be read with caution. He loads the Jesuits with egregious praises, but by and bye relates a thousand things as contrary to truth as dishonourable to us and the Guarany colonies.Pessimum inimicorum genus laudantes, says Tacitus, in the life of Agricola. I would not, however, willingly believe that an author, the distinguished favourite of Mars, of Neptune, and, unless I am deceived, of all theMuses, is to be classed with these knaves. True it is, he wrote falsely concerning us and the Guaranies; but rather deceived by the narrations of others, than through envy or malice. He never even saw the Guarany towns from a distance. I wish he had seen them! he would have painted the Indians and their missionaries in fairer colours. A little while, and but a little while, he remained in Buenos-Ayres, the port and threshold of Paraguay. There he drew the very worst notions, from the very worst sources, and gave them to Europe as the undoubted truth. Alas! alas! the friendliest well-wisher could not then, without danger, advocate our cause. The rising, not the setting sun is praised by the multitude, and such was then our fate. A Spaniard of no despicable authority has opened his mind in these words: "If every thing else which M. de Bougainville has written on the other provinces be as false as what he has said concerning Paraguay, let his history be carried to the spice shop to wrap pepper; yea, to a meaner office."As for Paraguay being the kingdom of the Jesuits, it is the dream—the stupid fiction of Bernardo Ybañez, a Spaniard, twice expelled from our society. It would be endless to mention all whose vile detractions have calumniated the towns and the missionaries of the Guaranies.To refute them, I oppose the histories of Father Nicolas del Techo;La Conquista Espiritualof Father Antonio Ruiz de Montoya; the history of Father Pedro de Lozano; the familiar epistles of Father Antonio Sepp to his brother; the French original of Father Francis Xavier Charlevoix, (for the German translation is wretchedly mutilated and corrupted); the annual accounts of Paraguay, printed at Rome; and the letters of Philip the Fifth—his two epistles to the Jesuit missionaries of Paraguay, dated from the palace of Buen-retiro, the 28th of December, 1743; the letter, printed with them, of the illustrious Joseph de Peralta, bishop of Buenos-Ayres, in which, himself an eye-witness, he acquaints the same Philip with the state of the Guarany colonies. These important documents translated into Latin, and published in 1745, are every where on sale:—from a perusal of them you may learn, that the Guaranies are not only obedient to the Catholic King, but especially prompt in their repulsion of his enemies, exceeding the other American nations in the extent of their services. The sedition of the Guaranies dwelling near the banks of the Uruguay, may perhaps be objected; but what was the cause? Exasperation against the royal decrees, which delivered up seven of the finest towns of Paraguay to the Portugueze,and obliged thirty thousand of their inhabitants to migrate into solitude, or seek a precarious livelihood among the other colonies. Long and vigorously did the Indians oppose the mandate, not through hatred of the king, but love of their country. What! do we think the Spaniards, French, or Germans would act otherwise, if compelled by the command of their sovereigns to relinquish their native land to enemies? For dear to every one is his country; particularly so to the Americans. Hence, though no one can approve the repugnance of the Indians of the Uruguay, who does not think it, in some measure, worthy of excuse and pardon? They erred in understanding, rather than in will; for their loyalty to the Catholic King was sound and lively. No eloquence of the missionaries could induce them to believe themselves condemned by their good king, to a perpetual and miserable exile from their native soil, in favour of the Portugueze, their enemies. "In nothing," (said they in their letters to Joseph Andonaegui, the royal governour,) "in nothing have we or our ancestors sinned against our monarch—never have we injured the Spanish colonies: how then shall we, unoffending subjects, believe ourselves sentenced to exile by the will of our gracious sovereign? Our grandfathers, great grandfathers, and in like manner all our brothershave frequently fought under the royal banners against the Portugueze—frequently against the armies of the savages. Who shall count the number of those our countrymen who have fallen in battle, or in the repeated sieges of Colonia? We, the survivors, still bear about us scars, monuments of our loyalty and courage. To extend the limits of the Spanish domains, to defend them against invaders, has ever been our first desire; nor have we spared our lives in its accomplishment. Would the Catholic King have these our deserts repaid with the most grievous punishments—with the loss of our country, our handsome churches, our houses, fields, and spacious farms? It exceeds belief. But if this be really true, what can we ever deem incredible? In the letters of Philip the Fifth, (which were read to us at his command, from the pulpits of our churches,) we were instructed never to allow the Portugueze to approach our territories—that they and theirs were our bitterest enemies. Now they cry out to us, day and night, that the monarch wills our ceding to the Portugueze those noble, those spacious tracts of land, which nature, which God, which the Spanish sovereign himself had yielded us; and which we have cultivated for upwards of a century with the sweat of our brows. Who shall persuade us that Ferdinand, so dutiful ason, will command what Philip, his excellent father, had so often forbidden? But if, indeed, these enmities be changed into friendship, (for both times and disposition do often change,) and the Spaniards be desirous of gratifying the Portugueze, let them grant them the spacious plains void of inhabitants and of colonies, with our free leave. What! shall we give up our towns to the Portugueze, by whose ancestors so many thousands of our countrymen have been either slain, or forced into cruel slavery in Brazil?—We can neither suffer nor believe it. When, embracing Christianity, we swore allegiance to God and the Catholic King, the priests and royal governours with one voice promised us the friendship and protection of the king: now, though guilty of no crime, and deserving every good return for our services, we are constrained to expatriate, a punishment most grievous, and almost intolerable. What man in his senses will believe the faith of the Spaniards, so versatile in the performance of promises—their friendship so slippery and unsound?" To this effect wrote the Indian chiefs to the royal governour, who, being a well-wisher both to the king and the Indians, when he saw their letter, could hardly refrain from tears; but suppressing pity through military obedience, he never ceased urging the execution ofthe royal decree to the utmost of his power, and threatening those who refused to obey it with all extremities.There were, (who could believe it?) among the herd of Spaniards, men of so hardened a conscience as to whisper in the ears of the Indians, that the king had never enjoined the delivery of their towns, but that the Jesuits had sold them to the Portugueze. Such convincing proofs, however, had the fathers given of their good-will towards the Guaranies, that the pestilent falsehood never gained credit; some suspicions, however, were engrafted in the minds of the least wise. Many of the missionaries, who urged the migration with more fervour than prudence, had nearly been slain by the Indians in the phrenzy of their patriotism. Father Bernardo Nusdorfer, superior, as it is called, of the Guarany towns, and conspicuous for the magistracies he had held, for his venerable age, his thorough knowledge of the Indian tongue, and lastly, for his authority and favour with the people, visited the seven cities, exhorted them again and again, with every kind of argument, to respect the injunction of the Catholic King, and thought he had prevailed; but as the Indians are of a versatile and unsteady disposition, when the time for executing the decree arrived, unmindful alike of their promisesand intentions they would not endure even the mention of the migration. When the Jesuit, Father Ludovico Altamirano, was sent in the king's name from Spain to Portugal, to hasten the delivery of the towns, the Indians would not acknowledge him as a Jesuit or a Spaniard, because they saw him differ in dress and diet. They even dared to pronounce him a Portugueze disguised in the habit of our order. Terrified at a report that the Indians were approaching him in the city of St. Thomas, he consulted his safety by flying in the night, and soon after I found him, to my great amusement, in the city of Santa Fé, out of danger, and hastening to the Abiponian colonies. Had the Indians shown as much alacrity in yielding to our admonitions, as the Jesuits evinced in endeavouring to inculcate obedience into their wavering minds, the business would have been happily effected without disturbance or delay; but we seldom gained attention, much less compliance. The public supplications in the market-place, undertaken for the purpose of persuading their minds, in which a priest of our order, crowned with thorns, in a mournful voice exhorted the by-standers, with threats and groans, to proceed with the emigration; these supplications had so good an effect, that the major part promised conformity: nor did thematter end in words. A journey was undertaken by the missionaries the next day, to mark out the limits of the new towns; but the remembrance of their birth-place soon after recurring, it was broken off.Meantime, it being reported that Gomez Freyre de Andrade, governour of Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil, and the author of all these calamities, had entered their territories with his forces, to arms was the immediate cry, and each being forced along by the common impulse, the united body rolled onwards like a mighty river; you would have thought there was a second Hannibal at the gates. Thus, while the Guaranies repelled force by force, in defence of their churches and fire-sides, they are proclaimed rebels—worthier, in fact, of pity than of punishment; for maddened by their rooted hatred of the Portugueze and the love of their country, they were hurried blindly on wherever their passions impelled them. To shake off the Spanish yoke—to injure the neighbouring colonies of the Spaniards, never so much as entered their thoughts: their ancient love towards their monarch still burnt in their breasts, but it was not powerful enough to extinguish the innate love of their country.Who, then, can wonder that the weak-minded Indian left no stone unturned, to avoid his expulsionfrom a land he could not fail to love,—a land pleasant in its situation, salubrious in its climate, wide in extent, the envy of the Spanish cities for its churches and other edifices, adorned with woods, with rivers, and with plains of the greatest fertility, and lastly, well stored with all the necessaries of subsistence? Joachim de la Viana, governor of Monte-Video, sent forward with a detachment of cavalry to explore the country, having leaped from his horse on the summit of an eminence, and examined through a telescope the city of S. Miguel, (a place inhabited by seven thousand Indians, and famous for its magnificent churches and famous row of buildings,) in his astonishment at the size of the place, exclaimed to the horsemen about him,—"Surely our people at Madrid are out of their senses, to deliver up to Portugal this town, which is second to none in Paraguay." This he said, though a strenuous favourer of the Portugueze, whose party he embraced to ingratiate himself with Barbara, Queen of Spain. The six other towns—those of S. Juan, S. Lewis, S. Nicholas, S. Borgia, and S. Lawrence, were also eminent for the number of their inhabitants and the beauty of their churches, though neither of them was fortified with wall, ditch, palisadoes, or even a gate.To defend these, the inhabitants of the Uruguay assembled on all sides. Rude and undisciplined, and without a general even tolerably versed in military knowledge, they entered the unequal lists, the ridicule rather than the terror of an European army. No time, no place was left them undisturbed by fear and anxiety, as often as they were assailed by the equestrian spearmen. This was repeatedly mentioned in Gomez Freyre's journals, addressed to the Portugueze commissioners of the demarcation. On both sides the war consisted of long marches and skirmishes, attended with various success; and thus it ended, more noise having been made by both parties than blood spilt. This, however, is agreed on all hands—that the Europeans could never have penetrated to these seven towns, had all the Guarany towns come to the aid of the Uruguayans. But those who dwelt on the banks of the Parana were happily restrained from leaguing with the insurgents, by the exertions of the Jesuits. Judge from this what opinion must be formed by those who have impudently stigmatized us as the authors of the sedition, and the leaders of the rebels. Their books are as many as they are dangerous: for although they allege nothing but falsehoods, yet, with specious arguments, and pretended testimony, they seek to extort that credit whichwould be exploded by all Europe, were the characters of their witnesses as well known to others as to ourselves.And now, gentle reader, a word in your ear! If the Guarany insurgents were indeed encouraged by the Jesuits, could they not have effected more against the royal forces? Destitute of the counsels and presence of the Fathers, they did their business stupidly and unprosperously; a circumstance mightily advantageous, both to the Spaniards and Portugueze, whose victory was owing to the bungling management of their opponents. About the beginning of the disturbances, one Joseph, Corregidor of S. Miguel, was elected general of their forces against the Portugueze. This Joseph, an active and courageous man, behaved like a good soldier but an execrable general, for he was as ignorant of military tactics as I am of the black art. On his falling in a chance skirmish, Nicholas Neengirù, many years Corregidor of the city of Concepçion, succeeded. Under his conduct the war was poorly carried on; and the affairs of the Uruguayans gradually declining, the seven towns were delivered up to the royal forces. But, reader, when you utter the name of Nicholas Neengirù, uncover your head and bend your knee, or rather, if you know all, burst into laughter. This is that celebrated NicholasNeengirù whom the Europeans called King of Paraguay, whilst Paraguay itself had not an inkling of the matter. At the very time when the feigned majesty of the King of Paraguay employed every mouth and press in Europe, I saw this Nicholas Neengirù, with naked feet, and garments after the Indian fashion, sometimes driving cattle before the shambles, sometimes chopping wood in the market-place; and when I considered him and his occupation, could hardly refrain from laughter.But mark the progress of King Nicholas's fate. To obtain for the base fiction an appearance of truth, a person in the kingdom of Quito was bribed to get money coined and stamped with the name of King Nicholas. This base money was issued both in Europe and America, and no one could doubt its being coined in Paraguay by the pretended king, where, from the want of bullion, the Catholic kings themselves had no mint. The deceit however at length appeared; on March the 20th, 1760, the artificer of the coin wrote a letter to the King, in which he confessed—"that he was compelled by the secret stings of conscience to divulge his crime," &c. This letter detected the venal wretch who instigated him to coin the money of King Nicholas.The fame of King Nicholas and the money issued in his name gave reasonable apprehension to the Court of Madrid; but Pedro Zevallos, who was sent with an army to reclaim Paraguay, soon perceived that it was all a false alarm, and declared the same in letters to the king. If any one doubt my veracity, let him examine the Madrid newspapers, published in the October of 1768, where he will find these words:—"Whatever has been rumoured of King Nicholas is certified to be a fabulous invention." If you require yet stronger evidence, attend to what follows. The tumults in the Uruguay being settled, Nicholas went himself to the Spanish camp, and appearing, of his own accord, before the royal governour, Joseph Andonaegui, gave him an account of all his proceedings. He was quietly heard, dismissed unpunished, and continued in his office of Corregidor. Had he been even suspected of affecting the crown of Paraguay, how different would have been his treatment! Loaded with fetters,—locked in a horrible dungeon,—he would have expiated his crime by some fearful punishment, and perhaps been torn limb from limb. But let us trace the story to its source.It is a trite proverb in Spain—La mentira es hija de algo, falsehood is the daughter of something. Those pernicious rumours which spreadfar and wide, like a pestilence, generally originate in some trifle of no consequence. Such was the fable of King Nicholas, which sprang from an ignorance of the Guarany language, was perpetuated by malice, and spread over all the world.Tubichasignifiesgreatamong the Guaranies; andMburubicha, King or Cacique. Among the companies of Indians sent to plough the land, to cut and carry wood, or to ferry on the river, there is always a chief, who directs their motions, and whom they address by the title ofÑanderubicha, our chief or captain. In this manner the Uruguayan Indians called their leader, Nicholas Neengirù,Ñanderubicha, our captain; which, being heard by the Spaniards of Asumpcion, who speak a confused jargon of Spanish and Guarany, they ignorantly and wickedly asserted that the Indians called Nicholas their king. I must not here omit to mention, that, from the ignorance of the Spanish and Portugueze interpreters, the most unfavourable opinions of our affairs and the most execrable calumnies have often arisen. These men, from their ignorance of Latin and Guarany, have frequently misinterpreted our letters to governors, acquainted with Spanish only; so that deeds and expressions, entirely innocent, have been construed into crimes.Let us now return to Nicholas, whom errorand malice have gifted with an imaginary sceptre. He was born in the city of Concepçion; his ancestors were Guarany Indians, and he had married, many years before, a Guarany woman in the city of Concepçion, where also he had held many and various offices. Father Ignatius Zierhaim boasts that this celebrated Nicholas, monarch of Paraguay, was publicly whipped, when a young man, by his orders, himself being vicar of the place. Nicholas was a tall man, with a good countenance, but grave and taciturn; his face was good-looking, though marked with a large scar. Think then how ridiculously fable must have been added to fable, when this Nicholas was made out a lay-brother of our order. Only five of this description were with us at that time, whereof two were physicians, the third had the charge of providing apparel, the fourth was employed in painting churches, and the fifth was a feeble old man, whose maladies exercised our patience and his own. None of them bore the christian or sur-name of Nicholas, and they were all Europeans. Persons of Indian extraction were never adopted into the number of priests or brothers. The Indians are none of the wisest, I own, but they are not such idiots as to crown a layman in preference to the priests, whose dignity and wisdom theyrank so high, if the madness of choosing their own kinghadpossessed them. Allowing the Jesuits, in a fit of insanity, to have aimed at the sovereign power, they would not have elected an uneducated layman, but some priest of distinguished virtue and prudence. An anonymous Frenchman, in a book intitled,Nouvelles Pièces intéressantes et nécessaires, says, page 18, "I will now show you the origin of Nicholas, King of Paraguay, being supposed a lay-brother. Some Spanish countrymen happened, in the course of conversation, to mention the late insurrection on the banks of the Uruguay." "Verily," says one, "if the Jesuits be wise, they will put the government of the Indians into the hands of Joseph Fernandez, a lay-brother of theirs." This Joseph was a native of Spain, formerly lieutenant of some light-armed cavalry of the king's, and a man of great military science. We never find a story lose by carrying. The vain supposition of putting the Indians under the conduct of this lay-brother was reported in such a manner that what one saidshould bedone, another saidwasdone, and the rest giving implicit credit to their asseverations, a prodigious tale grew out of nothing. This Joseph Fernandez, during the disturbances of the Uruguay, was master of the public school at Tucuman, and necessarily remarkedby the whole of this populous town, if he intermitted his attendance for a single day. Having held the office of school-master many years, he managed an estate in the neighbourhood of the city, and so diligent was he in the exercise of his calling, that I could swear to his never having seen the land of the Guaranies of which he was reported King.To corroborate my account I shall subjoin a few circumstances relative to this affair. From the seven towns which were garrisoned on their surrender by the Spaniards, upwards of thirty thousand Indians departed. Among all who witnessed these innocent exiles, their tender infants, and their feeble old men, not one but shed a tear of compassion. Fifteen thousand of the emigrants were received by the towns of the Parana, and lodged in hovels of straw,—they whose former homes had been of stone, well-built, and commodious. Nearly the same number were dispersed over the plains of the Uruguay, where numerous herds of cattle supplied the means of subsistence. The towns at length evacuated, were offered by the Spanish Governour to the Portugueze, but not accepted. Amongst other ways of accounting for this refusal on the part of the Portugueze, it was reported, that, after exploring the lands of the Uruguay, they found them destitute of the gold andsilver they expected to find there. At this crisis of affairs died Barbara, Queen of Spain, a Portugueze by birth, and through an overweening attachment to her own country, a strenuous advocate for the exchange of lands in Paraguay. Not long after, Ferdinand the Sixth followed his consort to the tomb. Charles the Third succeeded his brother in right of inheritance. Whilst King of the Two Sicilies he had disapproved these treaties which settled the exchange of lands in America with Portugal; and on his succeeding to the throne, he utterly abrogated them, as fraught with danger to the monarchy. He restored the Guarany exiles to their towns, which now, alas! resembled Jerusalem after the return of the Jews from Babylon. They found their farms drained of cattle, their fields over-run with brambles and insects, their houses either burnt or miserably dilapidated; nay, they were sometimes terror-struck by the dens of tigers and the holes of serpents! Charles confirmed the Jesuits in their old administration of the Guarany colonies, of which the Portugueze party itself did not wish their utter deprivation. Had the King believed us the fomenters of the late war he would not have committed the Guaranies to our care and fidelity. About the same time, Zeno, Marquis de la Ensenada, was recalled from banishment toMadrid by the royal letters. This principal court minister had never admitted the exchange of lands agreed upon with the Portugueze, but had transmitted notices of it to Charles then King of Sicily. For this, if we may credit a report prevalent in Spain, the Marquis de la Ensenada was banished. That was not the happy time when you might think as you chose, and speak what you thought.King Charles not only refused to acquiesce in the treaties ratified with the Portugueze, but immediately declared war upon that people; to the carrying on of which six thousand Guaranies strenuously applied themselves in the royal camp, under the conduct of Pedro Zevallos, who having occupied Colonia, carried his victorious arms into Brazil; but being stopped by the news of peace having been restored in Europe, testified in his letters to the King, that the success of his expeditions was greatly owing to the Guaranies. Suffer me, by way of episode, to draw a rude sketch of the immortal hero Zevallos. His father, the descendant of a noble family in Spain, was royal governour in the Canaries, and died in an insurrection, bravely fighting for the crown. The son, Pedro Zevallos, was handsome, tall, and well made, and the comeliness of his person was set off by the elegance and suavity of his manners. Courteousamong his friends, and authoritative with his soldiers, he was neither ruffled with anger, nor soured with harshness. At every place and time he maintained the character of the pious Christian, the consummate general, the equitable judge, and, if need required, the dauntless soldier. During his leisure hours you might see him praying on his knees in the church for two hours together. Such was the innocence and integrity of his life, that envy, argus-eyed as she is, could never detect a stain to reprobate. So exemplary was his conduct, that the soldier and the christian never jarred, but harmonized together in one beautiful concord. The victories which have gained the Spanish hero the plaudits of his country, are rather to be attributed to his piety, than to his military skill;—to that heaven by which his undertakings were constantly favoured, and his slender resources rendered sufficient. In the keenness of his wit, the sagacity of his judgment, the courage and alertness of his mind, and the soundness of his loyalty, if one man ever excelled another,heexcelled. His steadfast aim was to benefit rather than please his sovereign, and both he effected, though more than once disgraced from the royal favour by the artifices of calumny. He did nothing without much previous consideration. To crown his purposeswith success, he was master of the most admirable devices; was never at a loss to remove obstacles,—to anticipate dangers,—and either elude them by artifice, or overcome them by force. He never charged the future with the present business—never let slip a good opportunity: did nothing from impulse, every thing from reason; yet though never headstrong in attempting any thing, or hasty in attacking an enemy, in battles and sieges he was fierce and determined. Neither dejected by adverse nor inflated by prosperous circumstances, he always preserved an equal mind. By kindness and good example, he bound his soldiers to a prompt obedience; and this I conclude was the cause of his doing so much with such scanty resources. He was not content to have given his orders, he would himself overlook their execution. On the eve of an expedition, he used to inspect the waggons, carefully enquiring whether they were stored with the requisite arms and provisions, and if they were properly guarded. Rarely trusting to vague reports and uncertain answers, he examined every thing, as far as he was able, in his own person. Early in the night he inspected the different stations of horse-guards, regardless of sleep, as indeed he was of every other indulgence. Heused to say, that vigilance in the general and obedience in the men, were the safeguards of the army, and the parent of victory, a maxim most happily demonstrated in his own person.Think not that such egregious merits went unrewarded by royalty: he was honoured with the rank of commendador in the equestrian order of St. Iago, made knight of the order of St. Janeiro, and even created military governor of Madrid. Some years after, he received from King Charles the golden key, a mark of singular prerogative in the court. Rumours of the Paraguay disturbances having reached Spain, he was invested with the government of Buenos-Ayres, and commanded to sail thither, to compose the minds of the Guaranies, and forward the delivery of the seven towns, accompanied by five hundred regular cavalry-men, chosen from every regiment of light-armed horse which Spain possesses. To these were added seven companies of foot, consisting of runaway Germans, French, Italians, Poles, and even Russians, collected, a few years before, by a Spanish lieutenant at the surrender of Parma. Most of these were veterans—fierce warriors, fresh from European battles. As often, therefore, as Paraguay found them an enemy, they did not let their help be wanted; but being used to running away at home, they did notforget their old propensities amongst the antipodes, for they sometimes fled in troops, from the desire of marriage and a life of less hardship.During the voyage, Zevallos was anxiously devising methods to tranquillize Paraguay, which he imagined to be embroiled with intestine war, and devoted to King Nicholas. On coming in sight of the shores of Buenos-Ayres, lest by a sudden landing he should endanger his men, he despatched some soldiers in a boat to feel the way before them. Perceiving a multitude assembled on the bank of the river Plata, they hailed them from afar with the usual interrogation of the Spanish guards,Quien vive?—Who reigns here? With one voice they exclaimed, that Ferdinand the Sixth was their king, and should remain so as long as they lived. This was more than enough to quiet the fears of the soldiers, who, deceived by European reports, imagined that King Nicholas would be dethroned with the utmost difficulty, and at the expense of their own and much foreign blood. Zevallos himself was astonished when he learnt that the Guaranies had long since been brought to submission. He had therefore no fighting with the Indians, but many contentions with the officers of the Portugueze faction, among whom the Marquis Val-de-Lirios held a distinguishedplace, as possessing, from royal investment, full power of determining every thing connected with the stipulated exchange of territory with the Portugueze. Equitable in other respects, but too studious of Queen Barbara's favour, he consulted principally the advantage of the Portugueze; while Pedro Zevallos, who laboured for the safety of his country, rather than the favour of his queen, endeavoured to oppose him. Having impartially investigated all the occurrences of the revolt previous to his coming, and discovered that many things had been written against the Guaranies and their missionaries, without foundation, and that others were basely exaggerated, he transmitted to the court a correct statement of the matter, standing forth, on a sudden, the vindicator and eulogist of those very Guaranies he had come to put down and punish.Tucuman, another division of Paraguay, extends very widely in every direction: on the East it reaches the territory of Buenos-Ayres; on the West, the mountains of Chili; on the South, it is bounded by immense plains, running out as far as the Magellanic region; and on the North, by the district of Tariji. It has a governour and bishop of its own, the one of whom resides at Cordoba, the other at Salta, the capital cities. Cordoba is famous for the beauty of itshouses, the number and opulence of its inhabitants, and a celebrated academy. In the richness of its pastures and the multitude of its cattle, it has no superior. Many thousand mules are annually exported from its estates to the Peruvian market. Lofty rocks rise in every part of the Cordoban district. A few leagues distant, on the banks of the river Pucara, which washes the city, is a place where lime is made. Coming to the place one night, when the sky was calm and the air tranquil, I heard terrible noises like the explosion of cannon. But the natives assured me, that these sounds were common to the neighbouring rocks and happened perpetually. The air, confined in the cavities of the mountain, and attempting a forcible passage through the chinks, when stopped by opposing rocks, and reverberated by their windings, bellows after this fearful manner. In the city of Cordoba itself, a hollow murmur, resembling the knocks of a pestle in a wooden mortar, is frequently heard by night. This low mournful sound runs from one street to another, and is called by the Spaniardsel pison, or the paving-hammer. The ignorant vulgar believe that some spectre or goblin haunts the streets; as for me, I am convinced that it originates in subterraneous wind, which, forcing its way through the interstices of the earth, makesviolent endeavours to find a vent; for I observed the lands near the city excavated and fissured in many places by earthquakes. The city of Salta derives its principal profits from the passage of mules. St. Iago del Estero, a very ancient city of Tucuman, was long the seat of a bishop, and afterwards of a governour. The houses are, however, neither large nor elegant. Pope Innocent the Twelfth transferred the episcopal see from hence to Cordoba. The city of St. Iago boasts some tolerably handsome churches. It is washed by the Rio Dulce, which, during its annual flood, rolls down mountains of sands; excellent bulwarks against the cannon of assailants, if the city were ever besieged. The inhabitants of the district of St. Iago are distinguished alike for the greatness of their valour and the scantiness of their means in the wars against the savages. From the trade in wax, which they collect in their distant woods, and from that in corn, they derive some profits, inadequate, however, to recompense them for the hardships they undergo. Their herds are few, from the scantiness of the pastures: for the plains, which are bounded on every side with sand, supply a slender provision of grass, by reason of the frosts in winter and the drought in summer. In winter, when the fields are bare, I have observed the horsescropping the branches of trees, nay, sometimes gnawing their trunks. Did not the Rio Dulce yearly overflow its banks, the soil would produce nothing esculent. This flood generally takes place about January, from the melting of the snows on the Chili and Peruvian mountains. The fertility of the soil is at that time incredible, producing abundant crops of corn, and water-pumpkins of great size and sweetness. Clouds of a remarkable hue announce the event to the natives. The woods around St. Iago abound in thealfaroba, which is converted into a drink, or a sweet-flavoured bread, and taken in either form is possessed of medicinal virtues. The Rio Dulce too supplies the inhabitants of its shores with food. Annually, but at no certain time, shoals of a fish calledzabalohurry down the river, and are taken by the hand, in such numbers that, during the period of their arrival, the lower orders need no other provision.The city of St. Iago formerly numbered many Indian colonies within its jurisdiction, the ruins of which are now alone visible, the inhabitants having perished of want or the small-pox. Some little villages yet remain: Matarà, Salabina, Moppa, Lasco, Silipica, Lindongasta, Mañogasta, and Socconcho; they are governed by secular priests, and inhabited by a very few Indians,employed in the service of the Spaniards who live amongst them. Their condition is miserable, their barbarity beyond conception, their houses mere hovels, and their churches little better. The same may be said of all the villages remaining in the other districts of Paraguay.The little town of St. Miguel, situated near the Chili mountains, is surrounded with hills, plains, large streams, and pleasant woods adorned with lofty forest trees, which supply the whole province with cedar planks, and timber fit for the largest houses. Rioja and St. Ferdinand, or Catamarca, little towns, buried amongst mountains, gain their principal returns from the culture of vines and red pepper, which is in daily use amongst the Spaniards. Not only meal, but even cheese, which, considering the multitude of cattle in the estates of Buenos-Ayres and Cordoba, is but seldom made, is seasoned so high with this powerful spice, that it acquires a deep red colour, and a pungency intolerable to an European palate. All the vine-yards in Paraguay scarce equal the number of fingers on both your hands; for although the climate and soil are extremely suitable to vines, they are uniformly destroyed by an army of ants, wasps, and wood-pigeons. The little wine that is made is deep-coloured, thick, and generous,though to Europeans newly arrived it smells somewhat like a drug. The new must squeezed from the grape is simmered on the fire till it obtains a consistence. Such is the scarcity of wine in the remote colonies, that we were sometimes unable to celebrate the Eucharist. For whatever is used at the table or the altar, is principally brought from Chili, by a long journey, and at great expense, and often is not to be had for love or money.In the districts of Rioja and Catamarca there is very scanty pasturage, and consequently few cattle; a want compensated by the fertility of the soil, the productiveness of the trees, and the industry of the inhabitants, who dry figs, weave a kind of woollen garment in common use, dress ox and sheep hides to great perfection, and apply the leather to various purposes, as saddles, trunks, and similar articles, to be commuted for other goods. Xuxuy, a district of St. Salvador, situate on the Peruvian side of Tucuman, though far from populous, is the seat of the royal treasurers for the last mentioned country. In this place, the tertian ague and wens are common; a circumstance arising from the rivulets flowing from the neighbouring mountains. Talavera de Madrid, also called Esteco, a state formerly flourishing in vices as in wealth, situate on the bank of the river Salado, is said tohave been swallowed up, in the last century, with all its houses and inhabitants, by a violent earthquake; the ill-fated pillar applied to the punishment of delinquents alone remaining in the market-place.Fareja, a city of some note, though within the jurisdiction of Chichas in Peru, contains Jesuits from Paraguay, who, in the hopes of civilizing the Chiriguanàs, a barbarous race, always hostile to the Spaniards, have neither spared their labour nor their lives; five of them were butchered by these savages.Santa Cruz de la Sierra, with its territory, though bordering on the eastern confines of Peru, is within the dominions of Paraguay. Its longitude is 314°, its latitude 21°. It has its own governour and bishop, to whom are subject the towns of the Chiquitos, savages for many years instructed by the Jesuits in religion, humanity, and the useful arts, amid their distant woods. In 1766, the ten towns of the Chiquitos, founded by men of our order, contained 5173 families, and 23,788 souls; but the number of deaths far exceeds that of births. Whether this paucity of issue is to be attributed to the climate, the water, their food—especially the land-tortoises they use so much—or to a natural sterility in the parents, let the learned judge. I have frequently heard, that had not the Jesuits yearlybrought a multitude of savages from the woods, the towns must long since have been depopulated.In each of the cities of Tucuman and Paraguay, the followers of St. Dominic, St. Francis, and St. Pedro de Nolasco, as well as the Jesuits, have their own establishment. Nuns of various orders dwell in Cordoba and Buenos-Ayres, but no where else. The Spaniards account Tucuman the poorest country in America, because it is destitute of gold, notwithstanding its numerous herds of cattle of every description. This province has been honoured with the presence of St. Francis Solano. When he was called away to Paraguay, many whole states were left without a single priest. Francis Victoria, of the order of St. Dominic, first bishop of Tucuman, in 1581 found only five secular priests and a few religious, with not one presbyter who understood the language of the natives, though the province abounded in Indian colonies. Solicitous for the glory of God, this bishop wrote to request Father Juan Atienza in Peru, and Joseph Anchuela in Brazil, to send him a few Jesuits already tried by previous exertions in the Christian cause. Fathers Leonardo Arminio, an Italian; Juan Saloni, a Spaniard; Thomas Fields, an Irishman; Manuel Ortega, and Estevam de Grao, Portugueze, were sentby sea from Brazil, and being taken by the English, were for some time infamously treated, and at last exposed to the winds and waves in an open boat; but Providence happily guiding them, reached the port of Buenos-Ayres. From Peru, Fathers Francis Angulo and Alphonso Barzena had been already despatched into Tucuman. The last of these was created vicar-general by Victoria, who esteemed him so highly as openly to declare that he would himself vacate the bishopric could Barzena benefit by his abdication. To these have succeeded men of our order, one after another, for nearly two centuries. Summoned by the bishop and royal governour, sent from Europe by their Catholic sovereigns, and dispersed in every corner of Paraguay's immense extent, how strenuously they have toiled for God and their King, it is not my business to relate. Thousands of savages won over to God and the King, colonies founded on every side, churches built to the Lord, and numbers of Spanish cities imbued with learning and piety—these will testify that we have at least done something for the Antipodes, though many have left no stone unturned to blot out our very name. This is, however, beyond dispute;—that a far more abundant harvest might have been reaped from our apostolic labours, if the Europeans had not uniformly opposedevery measure conducive to the advantage of the Indians. Not a savage would now have been left in America, had every professor of Christianity conformed his life to its dictates, and joined his endeavours vigorously to ours.The third division, from which the whole province takes its name, is that of Paraguay, so called from the river on which it borders. In regard to the laws of dominion its extent is immense; but from the dangerous vicinity of the savages on one hand, and the Portugueze on the other, the inhabitants, considering their number, are contracted into somewhat narrow limits. Extensive and fertile plains, both to the west on the opposite side of the river, and towards the north, are totally neglected, on two accounts—their distance from the metropolis, and the above-mentioned neighbours. The Corrientine country is accounted the southern boundary. The inhabitants are almost incalculably numerous. There are who assert their capability of bringing ten thousand soldiers into the field, Spaniards only: for if you count Indian natives, and all the herd of negroes, and other slaves, you might reckon up three times that number. But the majority of these deserve the motto—"Nos numerus sumus, et fruges consumere nati." Some one was heard to complain of the governours of Paraguay—that many soldierswere ranged under the banners, but few who were furnished with a musket, and still fewer who could manage one if they had it. The metropolis, Asumpcion, takes its name from the assumption of the Virgin Mary. It is situated in latitude 25° 8´ and longitude 319° 41´, on the banks of the Paraguay, which affords a convenient station for ships and an opportunity of commerce, but menaces destruction to the city; for the channel constantly nearing and nearing, undermines the bank and the houses situate thereupon. Neither splendid edifices nor city fortifications are here to be found. Many of the houses are of stone or brick, and roofed with tiles, but none of them are above one story high. The monasteries are nearly of the same description, possessing nothing by which you could recognise the church. The streets are crooked, and impeded with ditches and stones thrown out of their places, to the imminent peril both of men and horses. It has but one market-place, and that covered with grass. The governor and bishop have resided here since the time of Charles V. though neither has any proper seat. Besides grammar, the scholars in our college pay much attention to philosophy and theology. For the negroes, Indians, and mulattos, there is a separate priest and parish church. Even matrons of the higher rank, boys, girls, and all the lowerorders speak Guarany, though the generality have some acquaintance with Spanish. To say the truth, they mingle both, and speak neither correctly. When the Spaniards first occupied this province, in which the Guaranies had previously settled, for want of Spanish women, they took the daughters of the natives in marriage. The couples presently caught each other's dialect; but as is usual with adults, who learn foreign tongues, the Spaniards miserably corrupted the Indian, and the Indian the Spanish language. Whence from the original two, a third dialect arose, in use at present.The major part of the Spaniards live in hamlets, farms, and little villages, where the convenience of land and pasturage is greatest: cities, except the metropolis, they have none. Villa Rica and Curuquati are meagre places, mere shades of towns, the inhabitants being almost obliterated, by frequent migrations, from fear of the Portugueze. Xerez and Ciudad Real del Guayra, which once boasted the name of cities, have long since been destroyed by the incursions of the Portugueze who, assembled in the city of St. Paulo, enjoy, to this day, the finest parts of Guayra, the Spaniards vainly lamenting the seizure of the noblest part of their territory.Of the ancient towns, where the Spaniardssettled the Indians they had subdued with arms, or won by religion, there remain Caazapà, Yuti, Ytape, and Yta, which are governed by Franciscans. Caazapà contains about two hundred families, and exceeds the rest in the number of its herds. Ytape contains about twenty families; Yuti and Yta, somewhat more. They are all governed by parish priests. Atira and Altos together form one little town. Quarambare and Jobati are both inconsiderable. Yaguaron consists of two hundred families. The Indian inhabitants are mostly employed in the service of the Spaniards, and consequently in populousness, morality, and the appearance of their churches, vastly inferior to our Guaranies, who, exempted from private servitude, are accountable solely to the Catholic King.In the dominions of Paraguay are three other towns, founded and preserved by men of our order. St. Joachim, situate in latitude 24° 49´, and longitude 321°, on the banks of the Yù, which, in 1767, numbered 2017 Christian inhabitants, named Ytatines or Ytatinguays. As early as 1697 about four hundred persons were discovered in the neighbouring woods of Taruma, by Father Bartholomew Ximenez and Francisco Robles, and assembled in the town of Nuestra Senhora de Sta. Fè, 150 leagues distant from Sta. Fè, where they held the Christianreligion many years. But love of freedom at length bore them back to their original forests, whence they were in vain recovered, by fathers of our order, in the year 1721. In the place called Taruma, a little town was built for them, which, in 1723, contained three hundred souls. But partly from the poorness of the pastures, partly from the disturbances raised by the Spaniards, on occasion of Joseph Antequera's obtruding himself upon them as governour, the Ytatines were again removed to Nuestra Senhora de Sta. Fè, where they remained ten years, and bore a good report. But the bloody insurrection of the neighbouring Spaniards, famine, and the wasting pestilence of the small-pox, compelled them, in 1734, to take refuge in the forests they had formerly occupied. On the instant, Fathers Sebastiano de Yegros, Juan Escandon, Felix Villagarzia, and Luke Rodriguez, were sent to explore the lurking-places of the fugitives, and, after a laborious journey of eighteen months, returned unsuccessful. At length, in 1745 accident effected what labour could not. By the command of the superiors, Father Sebastiano de Yegros began the search, and after a forty-nine days journey of matchless difficulty, found the Ytatines in the woods of Tapebo. No opposition being made on their parts, a town was built for them in their nativesoil. Cattle of all kinds, clothes, axes, household furniture, and a few masters of music, and other arts, being sent from the old town, every thing went on favourably.But a sudden terror interrupted the prosperous course of the new colony. The Guaycurus or Mbayas began to devastate the neighbouring estates of the Paraguayrians with slaughter and depredation. The Ytatines, thinking the marauders already upon them, lost all sense of safety. Alarmed by perpetual rumours of the enemy's approach, they spent their nights without sleep, and in open daylight still dreamt of peril. To this another distress was added: the want of water. The Fathers therefore judged it expedient to remove twenty-five leagues southwards, where the intermediate forests could protect them against the Guaycurus, and afford them a constant supply of water. In 1753, having left their church, and the residence of the Fathers, they built a town on the spur of the moment, which was regulated after the model of the Guarany colonies, increased by the accession of new families, and settled on a good foundation. To this city I devoted eight years of unregretted labour. When D. Manuel de la Torre, Bishop of Asumpcion, payed us his accustomed visit, he beheld with admiration the rigid Christian discipline,the accuracy of divine worship, and universal good order established among men so lately inhabitants of the woods. D. Carlos Murphy, an Irishman, and governor of Paraguay, was delighted during his five days' visit at my house with the dexterous management displayed by the Indians as well of their musical instruments, as of their weapons.Another colony in the jurisdiction of Paraguay, that of St. Stanislaus, is the offshoot of St. Joachim. For the Ytatines, discovered by the joint efforts of the Indians and the Fathers of St. Joachim in woods situate between the rivers Caapivarỹ, Yeyuỹ, and Tapiraguaỹ, were prevailed upon to assemble in one place and embrace the Christian religion. Arduous, indeed, was the task of persuading them to leave their native woods; for, accustomed to the shade of towering trees, they shun the exposed and sunny plain, where they think their lives and liberties daily endangered. Father Sebastiano de Yegros lived a year in the woods with the savages; at the end of which time, he persuaded them to relinquish their woods, and occupy the plains bordering on the river Tapiraguaỹ, whither Fathers Manuel Guttierrez and Joseph Martin Mattilla bought cattle and the necessaries of subsistence, and in 1751 erected a chapel and dwellings. Softened by the kindnessand liberality of the Fathers, they became docile and conformable to Christian discipline. In my visits to this town, I could not but admire the gentle disposition and compliance with divine regulations, displayed in a people bred in woods and thickets. In a few years the town was increased by the accession of Indians, won over by Fathers Antonio Planes, Thaddeus Emis, a Bohemian, and Antonino Cortada, after arduous journeys amid pathless wilds. This colony lies in latitude 24° 20´, and in longitude 321° 35´. In 1767 it contained upwards of two thousand three hundred inhabitants, who had formerly wandered over those woods, where the Spaniards gather the herb of Paraguay. So that from the towns of St. Joachim and St. Stanislaus, a lucrative trade is opened to the whole province by the removal of the savages; since which the Spaniards can fearlessly traverse the woods that produce the herb in question.In confirmation of this, I will cite a remarkable instance. The remote forest of Mbaeverà abounds in the trees of the leaves of which the herb of Paraguay is made. To prepare this, a multitude of Spaniards, with the necessary oxen, horses, and mules, are sent from the city of Asumpcion. The forest through which their journey lay, a tract blocked up withmingled trees and reeds, and impeded with twenty-six rivers, and as many long marshes, is full eighty leagues in extent, in which space you will rarely find ten paces of plain land. To render this passable, it was requisite to fell trees, to throw bridges over the rivers, to give the marshes consistence with bundles of boughs, and to level the declivities. When these things had been effected with equal labour and expense, huts were required to receive the Spaniards, hedges to inclose the beasts, and a frame work formed of stakes partly driven into the ground, partly laid cross-wise, to roast the leaves on. The necessary preparations made, the Spaniards were sent to the woods where the leaves were gathered. But their superintendant Vilalba lit upon a hovel, which, though empty, evidently belonged to the savages. Struck with the unexpected occurrence, he hastened to his companions with the news, which instigated them to immediate flight, and to think of saving their lives instead of gathering the herb of Paraguay. Nor do I, on this account, think them to be accused of cowardice or sloth. For in seeking the trees from which they lopped the branches, they did not traverse the woods in one body, but separately, and when they returned home, they were loaded with burthens. Moreover from carrying noweapon but the knife they used, they were always undefended from the assault of the savages. Abandoning therefore the business on which they had come, they returned to the city on their mules and horses. Vilalba, quitting his associates, turned aside to the city of St. Joachim, and related to the Fathers what he had seen and done, conjuring them to endeavour by every possible means to bring the savages to their town. The Fathers readily began the attempt. But, perceiving themselves unequal to such a journey, dispatched a chosen band of Indians, under the conduct of Vilalba, to search out the savages, and sound their inclinations. After some days, having imprudently consumed their provisions, they turned back before they had even approached the station, which the Indians were supposed to hold. So that the glory of finding these savages was reserved to the author of this work.Some years after, I was sent by the superior to the city of St. Joachim. The rumour concerning the Indians of Mbaeverà continued to spread, and with it the fear of the Spaniards, who durst not even approach the woods, which promised so abundant an harvest of the herb of Paraguay. Under the conduct of Vilalba, I set out with five and twenty Indians, through marshes and rivers. The bridges andother aids, prepared to secure the passage of the Spaniards, had long perished. Every obstacle however being overcome, we arrived at the place in question, and discovered the remains of the savage hut. The bones of apes, boars, and antas, a wooden mortar, a few grains of maize, and other things of this kind, were discovered there; a path leading to the river side, well trod with the naked feet of the Indians, was also visible; but not a single recent vestige could we any where detect, though for many days we attentively searched both the neighbouring woods, and the banks of the river Acaraỹ. After having traversed the mournful solitude eighteen days, and suffered what neither I can describe nor my reader credit, as no hope remained of finding the Indians, we returned to the town, the improvement of our patience being our only recompense. I walked the whole way, and often barefoot. Had I turned ever so little from the east to the south, we should have found the habitations of the savages, as was proved to me the following year. The Spaniards, being made acquainted with my diligent search of the forest of Mbaeverà, persuaded themselves that the savages had migrated elsewhere, and accordingly set out thither in great numbers. But, lo! in the course of their business, they perceived thesavages dropping in upon them one after another. Conciliated by familiar discourse, and presents of beef and other trifles, they seemed to entertain no hostile sentiments, but visited the dwellings of the Spaniards in friendly guise. To enquiries concerning their place of abode, they replied that it was at a great distance, and could only be approached by crossing many marshes; a cunning answer, dictated by their fears for themselves and their wives, if visited by the Spaniards. Lest their footsteps should betray their resorts, in returning home they practised the following artifice: if they went by a southern, they returned by a northern road, and contrariwise, so that the Spaniards could not form an idea of the place where they lurked. And thus the savages and Spaniards suspected one other, and their mutual distrust increased every day.
AN ACCOUNTOFTHE ABIPONES.
PREFATORY BOOK ON THE STATE OF PARAGUAY.
PREFATORY BOOK ON THE STATE OF PARAGUAY.
PREFATORY BOOK ON THE STATE OF PARAGUAY.
Paraguay is a vast region in South America, extending very widely in every direction. From Brazil to the kingdoms of Peru and Chili, they reckon 700 Spanish leagues: from the mouth of the river La Plata, to the northern region of the Amazons, 1,100. Some reckon more, some fewer leagues, according as they use German, French, or Spanish miles. Concerning this matter, a determinate opinion must not be expected. These huge tracts of land, receding very far from the Colonies, are not yet rightly explored; possibly, never will be.
Geometry is there arara avis; and were any one capable of measuring the land, and desirous of the attempt, he would want the courage toenter it, deterred either by the fear of savages, or by the difficulties of the journey. Men of our order, seeking out savages for God and the Catholic King, examined the coverts of its forests, the summits of its mountains, and the banks of its remotest rivers, traversing, to the utmost of their ability, every part of the province, always risking, and often losing, their lives. In Peru and Mexico, there is no corner which the Europeans, attracted by the hope of gold, have not searched into; but we are still unacquainted with great part of Paraguay, a region unproductive of gold, and, therefore, wanting the requisite allurement. As for what is discovered, who can deny that it is almost entirely owing to the efforts of the Missionaries? The plains which they traversed, the rivers which they crossed, together with the distances of places, they have noted with the utmost fidelity, though not always with equal art.
Paraguay is subject to the King of Spain, in whose authority it is ruled by three governours, and as many bishops. Each province has its governour; the first is that of La Plata, on the banks of which is the city of Buenos-Ayres, the seat of the royal governour, and of a bishop. It is famous for an academy, monasteries for both sexes, a port, and a citadel, which, thoughimpregnable to the assaults of savages, and even of the citizens themselves, would soon yield to the warlike engines of Europeans; the river compensates for the weakness of the walls, ships being prevented, by shoals, from approaching. It is destitute of a wall, ditch, gates, and similar fortifications; defects common to all the other cities of the province. The inhabitants are reckoned at 40,000, the dwellings at about 3000, constructed chiefly of brick, and roofed with tiles; but they are all low, excepting a few of two stories. The churches are handsome, even to the eye of an European. The finest are two of which Primoli, a Roman lay-brother of our order, and now in repute in his native city, was the architect. There are no public fountains, colossal statues, or images of the Saints in the market-place. You may count more carriages in Austrian Vienna in one street, and in one hour, than you can here, in the whole city, during a whole year. Troops of horse may be seen every moment, nor is it surprising, that even those of moderate estate should, in the Spanish tongue, be calledCavalleros. Military rank, the magistracy of the city, and similar dignities, alone confer nobility. The riches of the inhabitants consist rather in cattle, than in money. The land round about the city, for near twohundred leagues, is a well wooded plain, often destitute of water, but rich in corn and pasturage, the latter of which feeds innumerable herds of cattle, horses, and mules. Wherever you turn you meet droves of wild horses, the property of the first that catches them. Besides willows, in which the islands of the river abound, the peach tree is constantly made use of for fuel.
Buenos-Ayres is one of the principal emporiums of America, merchandise being either brought from Spain, or secretly smuggled from the Portugueze. The more wealthy carry on a lucrative trade with Peru and Chili, in mules and the herb of Paraguay. The climate is moist. Tempests are equally violent at all times of the year, thunder often continuing for whole days and nights; this is common to all parts of Paraguay. Clouds, pregnant with fire and water, terrify, and often destroy, both men and cattle, either with lightning, or hail of an incredible magnitude, the like to which Europe has never seen. The city is situated in S. lat. 34° 36´, and in long. 321° 3´.
On the eastern shore of the river stands Nova Colonia do Sacramento, opposite to Buenos-Ayres, which the Spaniards, as built and fortified by the Portugueze on Spanish ground, have often besieged, and as often restored by treaty; a restoration which the inhabitants ofBuenos-Ayres openly favoured, having in view their profitable traffic with the Portugueze. But the revenue of the Catholic King was grievously affected by the gains of these private individuals, from the diminution of the customary taxes. This little city, the subject of so many disputes, stands on the higher bank of the river. The houses are few and low, forming a village, rather than city, yet it is far from despicable; opulent merchants, wares of every kind, gold, silver, and diamonds are concealed beneath its miserable roofs. Surrounded with a single and very slender wall, though sufficiently stored with military engines, arms, and provisions, for the sudden occasions of war, it yet discovers neither strength nor elegance. The land under Portugueze authority is of such small circumference, that the most inactive person might walk round it in half an hour. Portugueze ships, laden with English and Dutch wares, and Negro slaves, which have a great sale in America, crowd to this port, and the Spanish sentinels, either bribed or deceived, convey the goods to Paraguay, Peru, or Chili. It is incredible how many millions are lost to the Spaniards in this forbidden traffic. Hence it is easy to guess why the Portugueze have ever determined to defend this colony, at allcosts, and the Spaniards, on the other hand, to destroy it.
During my residence of two days, the appearance of the place was such, that I thought it might be taken, in one assault, by a hundred soldiers. But as the fear of war came upon them, I doubt not, that new fortifications were added to the old wall, as the siege cost so much time and trouble to the Spanish General, Pedro Zevallos, a consummate officer, and of known success, who, when he prepared to storm the city, through a breach in the wall, secured as it was with a numerous garrison and military engines, took it conditionally, October 31, 1762. Before the walls were yet repaired, twelve English and Portugueze ships of war arrived there, intending to reduce the Spaniards, then masters of the city. They conducted the affair with much noise, but little success. Chance put an end to the engagement, when it had lasted a few hours. The English Admiral's ship being burnt, the rest fled hastily to the ports of Brazil, the English throwing the blame on the cowardice of the Portugueze, and they in turn accusing the foolhardiness of the English. For the one fought under the very gates, that they might be near to strike home; the other at a distance, lest themselves shouldbe injured. This they threw in each other's teeth. Transient, however, was the advantage which Paraguay derived from this victory; for peace being ratified between the European powers, the Spaniards restored Nova Colonia to the Portugueze, that they might recover the Havanna, and Manilla, capital of the Philippines, both which places the English had taken from them. After a few years, war was rekindled; and Pedro Zevallos, having conquered the Island of Santa Catharina, took it a second time. Finally, in the last peace concluded between the courts of Madrid and Lisbon, it was ceded to the Spanish. This was a bitter loss to the Portugueze, yet by the accession of new territories, many more inlets were opened to them. Cuyaba, a place rich in gold, Matto Grosso, the little fort of S. Rosa, (called La Estacada,) and other colonies, were added to Portugal. Some think this intimate connection dangerous to Peru, hurtful to the Spaniards, and advantageous only to the Portugueze. For what should hinder the latter, accustomed, as they are, from their infancy, to arms and difficult routes, and never slothful in extending the limits of their kingdom, from going and possessing themselves of the treasures of Potosi, a mountain abounding in silver, but destitute of iron, and of men to wield it?Some years ago, when I was in Paraguay, a handful of Portugueze defended the little fort of S. Rosa, (La Estacada,) against a numerous army of Spaniards and Indians, enlisted at Potosi, the assailants being shamefully repulsed. About the same time, a very few Portugueze sallied from the same fort, and coming artfully by night, surprised S. Miguel, a Peruvian city, inhabited by Indian Christians, called Moxos. Two Jesuit priests, who had the care of the city, were dragged into captivity; one of them, an old man, fell a victim to the journey, whilst the other was thrown into prison. The Indians, except those who had escaped by flight, were driven out and dispersed, and every thing was rifled. But away with these sad memorials; for we would not tear open the newly seared wound, we would not presage ill for the future. That the happiness and safety of these flourishing estates may be confirmed by a lasting alliance, is the desire and the prophecy of every good man.
Fifty leagues to the south of Nova Colonia, on the same shore, stands Monte-Video, a little city, founded in the year 1726, by D. Bruno Mauritio Zavala, Governour of Buenos-Ayres; and afterwards fortified with a wall, a castle, and, here and there, with tiers of cannon, by the labours of the Guaranies. Besides soldiersand Guaranies, it contains many men from the Canary islands. On every side the land is fertile in corn, the farms large, and the cattle and horses incredibly numerous. The produce of the farms is a provision for the colonists, and there is daily opportunity of selling cattle and hides for corn: as the ships, which frequently leave this port, need a provision for many months, scarce a single vessel sets sail without a freight of twenty or thirty thousand ox hides for Europe. Grievous it is that so rich a soil should lie open to the devastating savages, who rise up in troops from their coverts, in quest of blood or booty, always creating terror, and often inflicting death. By no arts can they be subdued, by no kindness be won to the friendship and religion of the Spaniards. Fiercer than wild beasts, they have now for two centuries mocked the toil of soldiers and of priests. The latitude of this city is 34° 48´, its longitude 322° 20´.
About thirty leagues from hence lies the gulph of Maldonado, affording a commodious station for ships, even of large burden. Except sentinels, you see nothing here but a few cabins, the abodes of misery. Hard by is an island, the habitation of seals; it lies nearly in the middle of the river, and were the natural rock on which it stands defended by a double tier ofcannon, how would it guard Paraguay against its enemies! For they could not elude the fire of the cannon by taking the east side of the river, unless they preferred being buried in theBanco Ingles, or English shoal.
To the government of Buenos-Ayres belong the cities of Santa Fé and Corrientes; the one on the east, and the other on the west shore of the Parana. The former is the handsomest and most opulent. From its trade in divers articles, and from its countless herds of cattle, it amasses wealth to a great amount. In former years, it was almost razed to the ground, and thus reduced to solitude, by the barbarous Abipones, Mocobios, Tobas, and Charruas. The more valuable and remoter estates were entirely destroyed; slaughters were committed, in the very market-place, at mid-day; and it was provided by law, that no one should enter the church, unless armed with a musket. But after we had founded the colonies of S. Xavier, S. Jeronymo, Concepcion, S. Pedro, and S. Pablo, this city began to take breath, and, flourishing again, returned the security it had previously received. Before, behind, and on both sides, it is bounded by rivers, which, when they overflow, threaten destruction to the inhabitants, but are, at other times, extremely beneficial to them.
Its latitude is 31° 46´. From Buenos-Ayres, its distance is reputed to be an hundred leagues.
The other city, which the Spaniards call De las Siete Corrientes, takes its name from seven points of the rock jutting out into the Parana, against which the current breaks with great violence, and flowing on very rapidly, carries down ships, coming up the stream, unless in full sail under a strong wind. A row-boat, in the passage of the river, must make many windings to avoid the rapidity of the current, as I have often experienced: for hard upon the city, the great river Paraguay flows into the still greater river Parana, the one changing its course, and the other its name. For the Parana, rolling on from east to west, when joined to the Paraguay, hurries down in a southerly direction with it. The Paraguay loses its name for that of the Parana after its junction with that river. It is inconceivable with what a mass of water these conjoint streams roll proudly down in one mighty channel. If you did not see the banks, you might fancy it a sea. This place, in name alone a city, and unworthy of the name, is chiefly composed of mud-hovels, with roofs of palm-leaves. The inhabitants are remarkable for their beauty, fascinated by which, many of the Europeans are entangled in marriages, which they repentfor the rest of their lives. The women destroy themselves with labour, weaving, and exquisitely embroidering garments, which they call ponchos. The men are naturally agile, lively, and expert in horsemanship; but, from their indolence and love of ease, are oppressed with poverty, when they might abound in every thing, if they but knew how to improve the fertility of the soil, and the advantages of the river. The Abipones, who had long afflicted the neighbourhood with slaughter and rapine, being at length subdued, and settled in the new colony of St. Ferdinand, the inhabitants revived after they had entertained thoughts of deserting the city, and the use of the fields and woods, on the other side of the river, was restored them. These last, being stocked with noble trees, afford excellent materials for building ships and waggons. The fields supply pasturage for cattle of various kinds. The inhabitants derive considerable profits from these sources; gains which the daily fear of assailing savages deprived them of. The lat. of the city is 27° 43´, its long. 318° 57´.
In the jurisdiction of the Governour of Buenos-Ayres, are also thirty Guarany towns, on or near the banks of the Parana, the Uruguay, and the Paraguay. By geographers they are called Doctrines, or the land of Missions; but the ignorant or malicious style them, in their books,the kingdom of the Jesuits, a republic rebellious to the Catholic King, painting them in the blackest colours which envy and unbridled calumny can suggest. Let me be excused, if to manifest the falsehood of their calumnies, I mention the following facts:—That the Jesuit missionaries have ever left Europe at the expense of the Catholic King, for the purpose of founding new colonies, and preserving the old—that they are supported by an annual stipend from the royal purse—that the Guaranies pay yearly tribute to the King—that a century before as many thousands as were appointed, fought in the royal camps without any stipend, whenever they were called upon by the royal governour—that the parishes are visited by the Bishops as often as seems good—that the Bishops are honourably received, and splendidly entertained, it may be for many weeks—that the castles of Buenos-Ayres and Monte-Video were built under the direction, indeed, of the Spaniards, but by the labour of the Guaranies—that the royal army consists chiefly of the Guaranies, under our authority, which were ruled by a few Spaniards, as the body by the soul, in every undertaking against the warlike savages, against the Portugueze and their town of Nova Colonia, so often attacked and taken, or against the insurgents of the cityof Concepcion. The Guaranies were governed by the Jesuits, to whose care they were intrusted by the Catholic kings, not as slaves by their masters, but as children by their parents; and these towns were conducted in a manner precisely conformable to the royal laws.
By the labours of nearly two centuries, the Guaranies, formerly wandering cannibals and obstinate enemies to the Spaniards, have been reduced to civilization, to religion, and to the sceptre of the Catholic King. With what labour, what expense of lives the Jesuits have effected this—how infinitely these thirty towns surpass the other American tribes in the number of their inhabitants, in Christian morality, in the splendour of their churches, in their prompt loyalty, in mechanical skill, in arts, and in military activity, you may learn from the letters every where published of the kings, the royal governours, and the Spanish bishops; from the works of Doctor D. Francisco Xarque, Dean of Albarrazin, an eye-witness, of the learned Abbot Antonio Muratori, and an anonymous Englishman, whose book was translated from English into German, at Hamburgh, in the year 1768. This work gave me great pleasure, though it sometimes made me smile, especially where the author says, "We Europeans doat when we blame the Jesuits of Paraguay.It were better to deliberate how we may bring about in Europe, what they effect among the Guarany Indians without violence and without money. In their towns, each labours for all, and all for each. Without needing to buy or sell, every one possesses the necessaries of a comfortable subsistence, victuals, lodging, medicine, and education. Money wanting, all is wanting, say the Europeans; the Guaranies, on the other hand, though destitute of gold and silver, though unacquainted with any kind of money, daily experience the truth of the aphorism,Dii laboribus omnia vendunt, God gives every thing to labour. Proportioning the task to their age, their sex, and their strength, they are always employed, never oppressed with labour. Of luxuries they are ignorant, superfluity they know not, yet are happier in their contentment than the wealthiest in their opulence. He is not prosperous to whom much abounds, but whom little suffices. The Jesuit priests are curates not of the souls, but of the bodies of the Guaranies." Being in subjection only to the Catholic King and the royal governours, not in dreaded slavery amongst private Spaniards, like the other Indians, the towns increase wonderfully every year in population under our care, and fresh towns were now and then added to the old ones. In the year 1732, 141,252 inhabitantswere reckoned in the thirty colonies of the Guaranies; but the small-pox breaking out soon after, cut off thirty thousand of them. Some time after it returned again, but in a milder form, and eleven thousand only were its victims. The measles, likewise, so fatal to Americans, made repeated ravages to a frightful extent. I write from experience in both, for in my office of priest, I attended the sick of the small-pox and measles, day and night, for many months. Famine, also, arising from the continued drought and consequent density of the land, filled the tombs with Guaranies. Add to these, the victims of war in the royal camps, where five, and sometimes six thousand men were detained. In 1767, when we bade America farewell, there were about an hundred thousand numbered in these towns. M. Louis Antoine de Bougainville, in his work entitledVoyage autour du Monde, printed at Neufchatel, in the year 1772, must be read with caution. He loads the Jesuits with egregious praises, but by and bye relates a thousand things as contrary to truth as dishonourable to us and the Guarany colonies.Pessimum inimicorum genus laudantes, says Tacitus, in the life of Agricola. I would not, however, willingly believe that an author, the distinguished favourite of Mars, of Neptune, and, unless I am deceived, of all theMuses, is to be classed with these knaves. True it is, he wrote falsely concerning us and the Guaranies; but rather deceived by the narrations of others, than through envy or malice. He never even saw the Guarany towns from a distance. I wish he had seen them! he would have painted the Indians and their missionaries in fairer colours. A little while, and but a little while, he remained in Buenos-Ayres, the port and threshold of Paraguay. There he drew the very worst notions, from the very worst sources, and gave them to Europe as the undoubted truth. Alas! alas! the friendliest well-wisher could not then, without danger, advocate our cause. The rising, not the setting sun is praised by the multitude, and such was then our fate. A Spaniard of no despicable authority has opened his mind in these words: "If every thing else which M. de Bougainville has written on the other provinces be as false as what he has said concerning Paraguay, let his history be carried to the spice shop to wrap pepper; yea, to a meaner office."
As for Paraguay being the kingdom of the Jesuits, it is the dream—the stupid fiction of Bernardo Ybañez, a Spaniard, twice expelled from our society. It would be endless to mention all whose vile detractions have calumniated the towns and the missionaries of the Guaranies.To refute them, I oppose the histories of Father Nicolas del Techo;La Conquista Espiritualof Father Antonio Ruiz de Montoya; the history of Father Pedro de Lozano; the familiar epistles of Father Antonio Sepp to his brother; the French original of Father Francis Xavier Charlevoix, (for the German translation is wretchedly mutilated and corrupted); the annual accounts of Paraguay, printed at Rome; and the letters of Philip the Fifth—his two epistles to the Jesuit missionaries of Paraguay, dated from the palace of Buen-retiro, the 28th of December, 1743; the letter, printed with them, of the illustrious Joseph de Peralta, bishop of Buenos-Ayres, in which, himself an eye-witness, he acquaints the same Philip with the state of the Guarany colonies. These important documents translated into Latin, and published in 1745, are every where on sale:—from a perusal of them you may learn, that the Guaranies are not only obedient to the Catholic King, but especially prompt in their repulsion of his enemies, exceeding the other American nations in the extent of their services. The sedition of the Guaranies dwelling near the banks of the Uruguay, may perhaps be objected; but what was the cause? Exasperation against the royal decrees, which delivered up seven of the finest towns of Paraguay to the Portugueze,and obliged thirty thousand of their inhabitants to migrate into solitude, or seek a precarious livelihood among the other colonies. Long and vigorously did the Indians oppose the mandate, not through hatred of the king, but love of their country. What! do we think the Spaniards, French, or Germans would act otherwise, if compelled by the command of their sovereigns to relinquish their native land to enemies? For dear to every one is his country; particularly so to the Americans. Hence, though no one can approve the repugnance of the Indians of the Uruguay, who does not think it, in some measure, worthy of excuse and pardon? They erred in understanding, rather than in will; for their loyalty to the Catholic King was sound and lively. No eloquence of the missionaries could induce them to believe themselves condemned by their good king, to a perpetual and miserable exile from their native soil, in favour of the Portugueze, their enemies. "In nothing," (said they in their letters to Joseph Andonaegui, the royal governour,) "in nothing have we or our ancestors sinned against our monarch—never have we injured the Spanish colonies: how then shall we, unoffending subjects, believe ourselves sentenced to exile by the will of our gracious sovereign? Our grandfathers, great grandfathers, and in like manner all our brothershave frequently fought under the royal banners against the Portugueze—frequently against the armies of the savages. Who shall count the number of those our countrymen who have fallen in battle, or in the repeated sieges of Colonia? We, the survivors, still bear about us scars, monuments of our loyalty and courage. To extend the limits of the Spanish domains, to defend them against invaders, has ever been our first desire; nor have we spared our lives in its accomplishment. Would the Catholic King have these our deserts repaid with the most grievous punishments—with the loss of our country, our handsome churches, our houses, fields, and spacious farms? It exceeds belief. But if this be really true, what can we ever deem incredible? In the letters of Philip the Fifth, (which were read to us at his command, from the pulpits of our churches,) we were instructed never to allow the Portugueze to approach our territories—that they and theirs were our bitterest enemies. Now they cry out to us, day and night, that the monarch wills our ceding to the Portugueze those noble, those spacious tracts of land, which nature, which God, which the Spanish sovereign himself had yielded us; and which we have cultivated for upwards of a century with the sweat of our brows. Who shall persuade us that Ferdinand, so dutiful ason, will command what Philip, his excellent father, had so often forbidden? But if, indeed, these enmities be changed into friendship, (for both times and disposition do often change,) and the Spaniards be desirous of gratifying the Portugueze, let them grant them the spacious plains void of inhabitants and of colonies, with our free leave. What! shall we give up our towns to the Portugueze, by whose ancestors so many thousands of our countrymen have been either slain, or forced into cruel slavery in Brazil?—We can neither suffer nor believe it. When, embracing Christianity, we swore allegiance to God and the Catholic King, the priests and royal governours with one voice promised us the friendship and protection of the king: now, though guilty of no crime, and deserving every good return for our services, we are constrained to expatriate, a punishment most grievous, and almost intolerable. What man in his senses will believe the faith of the Spaniards, so versatile in the performance of promises—their friendship so slippery and unsound?" To this effect wrote the Indian chiefs to the royal governour, who, being a well-wisher both to the king and the Indians, when he saw their letter, could hardly refrain from tears; but suppressing pity through military obedience, he never ceased urging the execution ofthe royal decree to the utmost of his power, and threatening those who refused to obey it with all extremities.
There were, (who could believe it?) among the herd of Spaniards, men of so hardened a conscience as to whisper in the ears of the Indians, that the king had never enjoined the delivery of their towns, but that the Jesuits had sold them to the Portugueze. Such convincing proofs, however, had the fathers given of their good-will towards the Guaranies, that the pestilent falsehood never gained credit; some suspicions, however, were engrafted in the minds of the least wise. Many of the missionaries, who urged the migration with more fervour than prudence, had nearly been slain by the Indians in the phrenzy of their patriotism. Father Bernardo Nusdorfer, superior, as it is called, of the Guarany towns, and conspicuous for the magistracies he had held, for his venerable age, his thorough knowledge of the Indian tongue, and lastly, for his authority and favour with the people, visited the seven cities, exhorted them again and again, with every kind of argument, to respect the injunction of the Catholic King, and thought he had prevailed; but as the Indians are of a versatile and unsteady disposition, when the time for executing the decree arrived, unmindful alike of their promisesand intentions they would not endure even the mention of the migration. When the Jesuit, Father Ludovico Altamirano, was sent in the king's name from Spain to Portugal, to hasten the delivery of the towns, the Indians would not acknowledge him as a Jesuit or a Spaniard, because they saw him differ in dress and diet. They even dared to pronounce him a Portugueze disguised in the habit of our order. Terrified at a report that the Indians were approaching him in the city of St. Thomas, he consulted his safety by flying in the night, and soon after I found him, to my great amusement, in the city of Santa Fé, out of danger, and hastening to the Abiponian colonies. Had the Indians shown as much alacrity in yielding to our admonitions, as the Jesuits evinced in endeavouring to inculcate obedience into their wavering minds, the business would have been happily effected without disturbance or delay; but we seldom gained attention, much less compliance. The public supplications in the market-place, undertaken for the purpose of persuading their minds, in which a priest of our order, crowned with thorns, in a mournful voice exhorted the by-standers, with threats and groans, to proceed with the emigration; these supplications had so good an effect, that the major part promised conformity: nor did thematter end in words. A journey was undertaken by the missionaries the next day, to mark out the limits of the new towns; but the remembrance of their birth-place soon after recurring, it was broken off.
Meantime, it being reported that Gomez Freyre de Andrade, governour of Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil, and the author of all these calamities, had entered their territories with his forces, to arms was the immediate cry, and each being forced along by the common impulse, the united body rolled onwards like a mighty river; you would have thought there was a second Hannibal at the gates. Thus, while the Guaranies repelled force by force, in defence of their churches and fire-sides, they are proclaimed rebels—worthier, in fact, of pity than of punishment; for maddened by their rooted hatred of the Portugueze and the love of their country, they were hurried blindly on wherever their passions impelled them. To shake off the Spanish yoke—to injure the neighbouring colonies of the Spaniards, never so much as entered their thoughts: their ancient love towards their monarch still burnt in their breasts, but it was not powerful enough to extinguish the innate love of their country.
Who, then, can wonder that the weak-minded Indian left no stone unturned, to avoid his expulsionfrom a land he could not fail to love,—a land pleasant in its situation, salubrious in its climate, wide in extent, the envy of the Spanish cities for its churches and other edifices, adorned with woods, with rivers, and with plains of the greatest fertility, and lastly, well stored with all the necessaries of subsistence? Joachim de la Viana, governor of Monte-Video, sent forward with a detachment of cavalry to explore the country, having leaped from his horse on the summit of an eminence, and examined through a telescope the city of S. Miguel, (a place inhabited by seven thousand Indians, and famous for its magnificent churches and famous row of buildings,) in his astonishment at the size of the place, exclaimed to the horsemen about him,—"Surely our people at Madrid are out of their senses, to deliver up to Portugal this town, which is second to none in Paraguay." This he said, though a strenuous favourer of the Portugueze, whose party he embraced to ingratiate himself with Barbara, Queen of Spain. The six other towns—those of S. Juan, S. Lewis, S. Nicholas, S. Borgia, and S. Lawrence, were also eminent for the number of their inhabitants and the beauty of their churches, though neither of them was fortified with wall, ditch, palisadoes, or even a gate.
To defend these, the inhabitants of the Uruguay assembled on all sides. Rude and undisciplined, and without a general even tolerably versed in military knowledge, they entered the unequal lists, the ridicule rather than the terror of an European army. No time, no place was left them undisturbed by fear and anxiety, as often as they were assailed by the equestrian spearmen. This was repeatedly mentioned in Gomez Freyre's journals, addressed to the Portugueze commissioners of the demarcation. On both sides the war consisted of long marches and skirmishes, attended with various success; and thus it ended, more noise having been made by both parties than blood spilt. This, however, is agreed on all hands—that the Europeans could never have penetrated to these seven towns, had all the Guarany towns come to the aid of the Uruguayans. But those who dwelt on the banks of the Parana were happily restrained from leaguing with the insurgents, by the exertions of the Jesuits. Judge from this what opinion must be formed by those who have impudently stigmatized us as the authors of the sedition, and the leaders of the rebels. Their books are as many as they are dangerous: for although they allege nothing but falsehoods, yet, with specious arguments, and pretended testimony, they seek to extort that credit whichwould be exploded by all Europe, were the characters of their witnesses as well known to others as to ourselves.
And now, gentle reader, a word in your ear! If the Guarany insurgents were indeed encouraged by the Jesuits, could they not have effected more against the royal forces? Destitute of the counsels and presence of the Fathers, they did their business stupidly and unprosperously; a circumstance mightily advantageous, both to the Spaniards and Portugueze, whose victory was owing to the bungling management of their opponents. About the beginning of the disturbances, one Joseph, Corregidor of S. Miguel, was elected general of their forces against the Portugueze. This Joseph, an active and courageous man, behaved like a good soldier but an execrable general, for he was as ignorant of military tactics as I am of the black art. On his falling in a chance skirmish, Nicholas Neengirù, many years Corregidor of the city of Concepçion, succeeded. Under his conduct the war was poorly carried on; and the affairs of the Uruguayans gradually declining, the seven towns were delivered up to the royal forces. But, reader, when you utter the name of Nicholas Neengirù, uncover your head and bend your knee, or rather, if you know all, burst into laughter. This is that celebrated NicholasNeengirù whom the Europeans called King of Paraguay, whilst Paraguay itself had not an inkling of the matter. At the very time when the feigned majesty of the King of Paraguay employed every mouth and press in Europe, I saw this Nicholas Neengirù, with naked feet, and garments after the Indian fashion, sometimes driving cattle before the shambles, sometimes chopping wood in the market-place; and when I considered him and his occupation, could hardly refrain from laughter.
But mark the progress of King Nicholas's fate. To obtain for the base fiction an appearance of truth, a person in the kingdom of Quito was bribed to get money coined and stamped with the name of King Nicholas. This base money was issued both in Europe and America, and no one could doubt its being coined in Paraguay by the pretended king, where, from the want of bullion, the Catholic kings themselves had no mint. The deceit however at length appeared; on March the 20th, 1760, the artificer of the coin wrote a letter to the King, in which he confessed—"that he was compelled by the secret stings of conscience to divulge his crime," &c. This letter detected the venal wretch who instigated him to coin the money of King Nicholas.
The fame of King Nicholas and the money issued in his name gave reasonable apprehension to the Court of Madrid; but Pedro Zevallos, who was sent with an army to reclaim Paraguay, soon perceived that it was all a false alarm, and declared the same in letters to the king. If any one doubt my veracity, let him examine the Madrid newspapers, published in the October of 1768, where he will find these words:—"Whatever has been rumoured of King Nicholas is certified to be a fabulous invention." If you require yet stronger evidence, attend to what follows. The tumults in the Uruguay being settled, Nicholas went himself to the Spanish camp, and appearing, of his own accord, before the royal governour, Joseph Andonaegui, gave him an account of all his proceedings. He was quietly heard, dismissed unpunished, and continued in his office of Corregidor. Had he been even suspected of affecting the crown of Paraguay, how different would have been his treatment! Loaded with fetters,—locked in a horrible dungeon,—he would have expiated his crime by some fearful punishment, and perhaps been torn limb from limb. But let us trace the story to its source.
It is a trite proverb in Spain—La mentira es hija de algo, falsehood is the daughter of something. Those pernicious rumours which spreadfar and wide, like a pestilence, generally originate in some trifle of no consequence. Such was the fable of King Nicholas, which sprang from an ignorance of the Guarany language, was perpetuated by malice, and spread over all the world.Tubichasignifiesgreatamong the Guaranies; andMburubicha, King or Cacique. Among the companies of Indians sent to plough the land, to cut and carry wood, or to ferry on the river, there is always a chief, who directs their motions, and whom they address by the title ofÑanderubicha, our chief or captain. In this manner the Uruguayan Indians called their leader, Nicholas Neengirù,Ñanderubicha, our captain; which, being heard by the Spaniards of Asumpcion, who speak a confused jargon of Spanish and Guarany, they ignorantly and wickedly asserted that the Indians called Nicholas their king. I must not here omit to mention, that, from the ignorance of the Spanish and Portugueze interpreters, the most unfavourable opinions of our affairs and the most execrable calumnies have often arisen. These men, from their ignorance of Latin and Guarany, have frequently misinterpreted our letters to governors, acquainted with Spanish only; so that deeds and expressions, entirely innocent, have been construed into crimes.
Let us now return to Nicholas, whom errorand malice have gifted with an imaginary sceptre. He was born in the city of Concepçion; his ancestors were Guarany Indians, and he had married, many years before, a Guarany woman in the city of Concepçion, where also he had held many and various offices. Father Ignatius Zierhaim boasts that this celebrated Nicholas, monarch of Paraguay, was publicly whipped, when a young man, by his orders, himself being vicar of the place. Nicholas was a tall man, with a good countenance, but grave and taciturn; his face was good-looking, though marked with a large scar. Think then how ridiculously fable must have been added to fable, when this Nicholas was made out a lay-brother of our order. Only five of this description were with us at that time, whereof two were physicians, the third had the charge of providing apparel, the fourth was employed in painting churches, and the fifth was a feeble old man, whose maladies exercised our patience and his own. None of them bore the christian or sur-name of Nicholas, and they were all Europeans. Persons of Indian extraction were never adopted into the number of priests or brothers. The Indians are none of the wisest, I own, but they are not such idiots as to crown a layman in preference to the priests, whose dignity and wisdom theyrank so high, if the madness of choosing their own kinghadpossessed them. Allowing the Jesuits, in a fit of insanity, to have aimed at the sovereign power, they would not have elected an uneducated layman, but some priest of distinguished virtue and prudence. An anonymous Frenchman, in a book intitled,Nouvelles Pièces intéressantes et nécessaires, says, page 18, "I will now show you the origin of Nicholas, King of Paraguay, being supposed a lay-brother. Some Spanish countrymen happened, in the course of conversation, to mention the late insurrection on the banks of the Uruguay." "Verily," says one, "if the Jesuits be wise, they will put the government of the Indians into the hands of Joseph Fernandez, a lay-brother of theirs." This Joseph was a native of Spain, formerly lieutenant of some light-armed cavalry of the king's, and a man of great military science. We never find a story lose by carrying. The vain supposition of putting the Indians under the conduct of this lay-brother was reported in such a manner that what one saidshould bedone, another saidwasdone, and the rest giving implicit credit to their asseverations, a prodigious tale grew out of nothing. This Joseph Fernandez, during the disturbances of the Uruguay, was master of the public school at Tucuman, and necessarily remarkedby the whole of this populous town, if he intermitted his attendance for a single day. Having held the office of school-master many years, he managed an estate in the neighbourhood of the city, and so diligent was he in the exercise of his calling, that I could swear to his never having seen the land of the Guaranies of which he was reported King.
To corroborate my account I shall subjoin a few circumstances relative to this affair. From the seven towns which were garrisoned on their surrender by the Spaniards, upwards of thirty thousand Indians departed. Among all who witnessed these innocent exiles, their tender infants, and their feeble old men, not one but shed a tear of compassion. Fifteen thousand of the emigrants were received by the towns of the Parana, and lodged in hovels of straw,—they whose former homes had been of stone, well-built, and commodious. Nearly the same number were dispersed over the plains of the Uruguay, where numerous herds of cattle supplied the means of subsistence. The towns at length evacuated, were offered by the Spanish Governour to the Portugueze, but not accepted. Amongst other ways of accounting for this refusal on the part of the Portugueze, it was reported, that, after exploring the lands of the Uruguay, they found them destitute of the gold andsilver they expected to find there. At this crisis of affairs died Barbara, Queen of Spain, a Portugueze by birth, and through an overweening attachment to her own country, a strenuous advocate for the exchange of lands in Paraguay. Not long after, Ferdinand the Sixth followed his consort to the tomb. Charles the Third succeeded his brother in right of inheritance. Whilst King of the Two Sicilies he had disapproved these treaties which settled the exchange of lands in America with Portugal; and on his succeeding to the throne, he utterly abrogated them, as fraught with danger to the monarchy. He restored the Guarany exiles to their towns, which now, alas! resembled Jerusalem after the return of the Jews from Babylon. They found their farms drained of cattle, their fields over-run with brambles and insects, their houses either burnt or miserably dilapidated; nay, they were sometimes terror-struck by the dens of tigers and the holes of serpents! Charles confirmed the Jesuits in their old administration of the Guarany colonies, of which the Portugueze party itself did not wish their utter deprivation. Had the King believed us the fomenters of the late war he would not have committed the Guaranies to our care and fidelity. About the same time, Zeno, Marquis de la Ensenada, was recalled from banishment toMadrid by the royal letters. This principal court minister had never admitted the exchange of lands agreed upon with the Portugueze, but had transmitted notices of it to Charles then King of Sicily. For this, if we may credit a report prevalent in Spain, the Marquis de la Ensenada was banished. That was not the happy time when you might think as you chose, and speak what you thought.
King Charles not only refused to acquiesce in the treaties ratified with the Portugueze, but immediately declared war upon that people; to the carrying on of which six thousand Guaranies strenuously applied themselves in the royal camp, under the conduct of Pedro Zevallos, who having occupied Colonia, carried his victorious arms into Brazil; but being stopped by the news of peace having been restored in Europe, testified in his letters to the King, that the success of his expeditions was greatly owing to the Guaranies. Suffer me, by way of episode, to draw a rude sketch of the immortal hero Zevallos. His father, the descendant of a noble family in Spain, was royal governour in the Canaries, and died in an insurrection, bravely fighting for the crown. The son, Pedro Zevallos, was handsome, tall, and well made, and the comeliness of his person was set off by the elegance and suavity of his manners. Courteousamong his friends, and authoritative with his soldiers, he was neither ruffled with anger, nor soured with harshness. At every place and time he maintained the character of the pious Christian, the consummate general, the equitable judge, and, if need required, the dauntless soldier. During his leisure hours you might see him praying on his knees in the church for two hours together. Such was the innocence and integrity of his life, that envy, argus-eyed as she is, could never detect a stain to reprobate. So exemplary was his conduct, that the soldier and the christian never jarred, but harmonized together in one beautiful concord. The victories which have gained the Spanish hero the plaudits of his country, are rather to be attributed to his piety, than to his military skill;—to that heaven by which his undertakings were constantly favoured, and his slender resources rendered sufficient. In the keenness of his wit, the sagacity of his judgment, the courage and alertness of his mind, and the soundness of his loyalty, if one man ever excelled another,heexcelled. His steadfast aim was to benefit rather than please his sovereign, and both he effected, though more than once disgraced from the royal favour by the artifices of calumny. He did nothing without much previous consideration. To crown his purposeswith success, he was master of the most admirable devices; was never at a loss to remove obstacles,—to anticipate dangers,—and either elude them by artifice, or overcome them by force. He never charged the future with the present business—never let slip a good opportunity: did nothing from impulse, every thing from reason; yet though never headstrong in attempting any thing, or hasty in attacking an enemy, in battles and sieges he was fierce and determined. Neither dejected by adverse nor inflated by prosperous circumstances, he always preserved an equal mind. By kindness and good example, he bound his soldiers to a prompt obedience; and this I conclude was the cause of his doing so much with such scanty resources. He was not content to have given his orders, he would himself overlook their execution. On the eve of an expedition, he used to inspect the waggons, carefully enquiring whether they were stored with the requisite arms and provisions, and if they were properly guarded. Rarely trusting to vague reports and uncertain answers, he examined every thing, as far as he was able, in his own person. Early in the night he inspected the different stations of horse-guards, regardless of sleep, as indeed he was of every other indulgence. Heused to say, that vigilance in the general and obedience in the men, were the safeguards of the army, and the parent of victory, a maxim most happily demonstrated in his own person.
Think not that such egregious merits went unrewarded by royalty: he was honoured with the rank of commendador in the equestrian order of St. Iago, made knight of the order of St. Janeiro, and even created military governor of Madrid. Some years after, he received from King Charles the golden key, a mark of singular prerogative in the court. Rumours of the Paraguay disturbances having reached Spain, he was invested with the government of Buenos-Ayres, and commanded to sail thither, to compose the minds of the Guaranies, and forward the delivery of the seven towns, accompanied by five hundred regular cavalry-men, chosen from every regiment of light-armed horse which Spain possesses. To these were added seven companies of foot, consisting of runaway Germans, French, Italians, Poles, and even Russians, collected, a few years before, by a Spanish lieutenant at the surrender of Parma. Most of these were veterans—fierce warriors, fresh from European battles. As often, therefore, as Paraguay found them an enemy, they did not let their help be wanted; but being used to running away at home, they did notforget their old propensities amongst the antipodes, for they sometimes fled in troops, from the desire of marriage and a life of less hardship.
During the voyage, Zevallos was anxiously devising methods to tranquillize Paraguay, which he imagined to be embroiled with intestine war, and devoted to King Nicholas. On coming in sight of the shores of Buenos-Ayres, lest by a sudden landing he should endanger his men, he despatched some soldiers in a boat to feel the way before them. Perceiving a multitude assembled on the bank of the river Plata, they hailed them from afar with the usual interrogation of the Spanish guards,Quien vive?—Who reigns here? With one voice they exclaimed, that Ferdinand the Sixth was their king, and should remain so as long as they lived. This was more than enough to quiet the fears of the soldiers, who, deceived by European reports, imagined that King Nicholas would be dethroned with the utmost difficulty, and at the expense of their own and much foreign blood. Zevallos himself was astonished when he learnt that the Guaranies had long since been brought to submission. He had therefore no fighting with the Indians, but many contentions with the officers of the Portugueze faction, among whom the Marquis Val-de-Lirios held a distinguishedplace, as possessing, from royal investment, full power of determining every thing connected with the stipulated exchange of territory with the Portugueze. Equitable in other respects, but too studious of Queen Barbara's favour, he consulted principally the advantage of the Portugueze; while Pedro Zevallos, who laboured for the safety of his country, rather than the favour of his queen, endeavoured to oppose him. Having impartially investigated all the occurrences of the revolt previous to his coming, and discovered that many things had been written against the Guaranies and their missionaries, without foundation, and that others were basely exaggerated, he transmitted to the court a correct statement of the matter, standing forth, on a sudden, the vindicator and eulogist of those very Guaranies he had come to put down and punish.
Tucuman, another division of Paraguay, extends very widely in every direction: on the East it reaches the territory of Buenos-Ayres; on the West, the mountains of Chili; on the South, it is bounded by immense plains, running out as far as the Magellanic region; and on the North, by the district of Tariji. It has a governour and bishop of its own, the one of whom resides at Cordoba, the other at Salta, the capital cities. Cordoba is famous for the beauty of itshouses, the number and opulence of its inhabitants, and a celebrated academy. In the richness of its pastures and the multitude of its cattle, it has no superior. Many thousand mules are annually exported from its estates to the Peruvian market. Lofty rocks rise in every part of the Cordoban district. A few leagues distant, on the banks of the river Pucara, which washes the city, is a place where lime is made. Coming to the place one night, when the sky was calm and the air tranquil, I heard terrible noises like the explosion of cannon. But the natives assured me, that these sounds were common to the neighbouring rocks and happened perpetually. The air, confined in the cavities of the mountain, and attempting a forcible passage through the chinks, when stopped by opposing rocks, and reverberated by their windings, bellows after this fearful manner. In the city of Cordoba itself, a hollow murmur, resembling the knocks of a pestle in a wooden mortar, is frequently heard by night. This low mournful sound runs from one street to another, and is called by the Spaniardsel pison, or the paving-hammer. The ignorant vulgar believe that some spectre or goblin haunts the streets; as for me, I am convinced that it originates in subterraneous wind, which, forcing its way through the interstices of the earth, makesviolent endeavours to find a vent; for I observed the lands near the city excavated and fissured in many places by earthquakes. The city of Salta derives its principal profits from the passage of mules. St. Iago del Estero, a very ancient city of Tucuman, was long the seat of a bishop, and afterwards of a governour. The houses are, however, neither large nor elegant. Pope Innocent the Twelfth transferred the episcopal see from hence to Cordoba. The city of St. Iago boasts some tolerably handsome churches. It is washed by the Rio Dulce, which, during its annual flood, rolls down mountains of sands; excellent bulwarks against the cannon of assailants, if the city were ever besieged. The inhabitants of the district of St. Iago are distinguished alike for the greatness of their valour and the scantiness of their means in the wars against the savages. From the trade in wax, which they collect in their distant woods, and from that in corn, they derive some profits, inadequate, however, to recompense them for the hardships they undergo. Their herds are few, from the scantiness of the pastures: for the plains, which are bounded on every side with sand, supply a slender provision of grass, by reason of the frosts in winter and the drought in summer. In winter, when the fields are bare, I have observed the horsescropping the branches of trees, nay, sometimes gnawing their trunks. Did not the Rio Dulce yearly overflow its banks, the soil would produce nothing esculent. This flood generally takes place about January, from the melting of the snows on the Chili and Peruvian mountains. The fertility of the soil is at that time incredible, producing abundant crops of corn, and water-pumpkins of great size and sweetness. Clouds of a remarkable hue announce the event to the natives. The woods around St. Iago abound in thealfaroba, which is converted into a drink, or a sweet-flavoured bread, and taken in either form is possessed of medicinal virtues. The Rio Dulce too supplies the inhabitants of its shores with food. Annually, but at no certain time, shoals of a fish calledzabalohurry down the river, and are taken by the hand, in such numbers that, during the period of their arrival, the lower orders need no other provision.
The city of St. Iago formerly numbered many Indian colonies within its jurisdiction, the ruins of which are now alone visible, the inhabitants having perished of want or the small-pox. Some little villages yet remain: Matarà, Salabina, Moppa, Lasco, Silipica, Lindongasta, Mañogasta, and Socconcho; they are governed by secular priests, and inhabited by a very few Indians,employed in the service of the Spaniards who live amongst them. Their condition is miserable, their barbarity beyond conception, their houses mere hovels, and their churches little better. The same may be said of all the villages remaining in the other districts of Paraguay.
The little town of St. Miguel, situated near the Chili mountains, is surrounded with hills, plains, large streams, and pleasant woods adorned with lofty forest trees, which supply the whole province with cedar planks, and timber fit for the largest houses. Rioja and St. Ferdinand, or Catamarca, little towns, buried amongst mountains, gain their principal returns from the culture of vines and red pepper, which is in daily use amongst the Spaniards. Not only meal, but even cheese, which, considering the multitude of cattle in the estates of Buenos-Ayres and Cordoba, is but seldom made, is seasoned so high with this powerful spice, that it acquires a deep red colour, and a pungency intolerable to an European palate. All the vine-yards in Paraguay scarce equal the number of fingers on both your hands; for although the climate and soil are extremely suitable to vines, they are uniformly destroyed by an army of ants, wasps, and wood-pigeons. The little wine that is made is deep-coloured, thick, and generous,though to Europeans newly arrived it smells somewhat like a drug. The new must squeezed from the grape is simmered on the fire till it obtains a consistence. Such is the scarcity of wine in the remote colonies, that we were sometimes unable to celebrate the Eucharist. For whatever is used at the table or the altar, is principally brought from Chili, by a long journey, and at great expense, and often is not to be had for love or money.
In the districts of Rioja and Catamarca there is very scanty pasturage, and consequently few cattle; a want compensated by the fertility of the soil, the productiveness of the trees, and the industry of the inhabitants, who dry figs, weave a kind of woollen garment in common use, dress ox and sheep hides to great perfection, and apply the leather to various purposes, as saddles, trunks, and similar articles, to be commuted for other goods. Xuxuy, a district of St. Salvador, situate on the Peruvian side of Tucuman, though far from populous, is the seat of the royal treasurers for the last mentioned country. In this place, the tertian ague and wens are common; a circumstance arising from the rivulets flowing from the neighbouring mountains. Talavera de Madrid, also called Esteco, a state formerly flourishing in vices as in wealth, situate on the bank of the river Salado, is said tohave been swallowed up, in the last century, with all its houses and inhabitants, by a violent earthquake; the ill-fated pillar applied to the punishment of delinquents alone remaining in the market-place.
Fareja, a city of some note, though within the jurisdiction of Chichas in Peru, contains Jesuits from Paraguay, who, in the hopes of civilizing the Chiriguanàs, a barbarous race, always hostile to the Spaniards, have neither spared their labour nor their lives; five of them were butchered by these savages.
Santa Cruz de la Sierra, with its territory, though bordering on the eastern confines of Peru, is within the dominions of Paraguay. Its longitude is 314°, its latitude 21°. It has its own governour and bishop, to whom are subject the towns of the Chiquitos, savages for many years instructed by the Jesuits in religion, humanity, and the useful arts, amid their distant woods. In 1766, the ten towns of the Chiquitos, founded by men of our order, contained 5173 families, and 23,788 souls; but the number of deaths far exceeds that of births. Whether this paucity of issue is to be attributed to the climate, the water, their food—especially the land-tortoises they use so much—or to a natural sterility in the parents, let the learned judge. I have frequently heard, that had not the Jesuits yearlybrought a multitude of savages from the woods, the towns must long since have been depopulated.
In each of the cities of Tucuman and Paraguay, the followers of St. Dominic, St. Francis, and St. Pedro de Nolasco, as well as the Jesuits, have their own establishment. Nuns of various orders dwell in Cordoba and Buenos-Ayres, but no where else. The Spaniards account Tucuman the poorest country in America, because it is destitute of gold, notwithstanding its numerous herds of cattle of every description. This province has been honoured with the presence of St. Francis Solano. When he was called away to Paraguay, many whole states were left without a single priest. Francis Victoria, of the order of St. Dominic, first bishop of Tucuman, in 1581 found only five secular priests and a few religious, with not one presbyter who understood the language of the natives, though the province abounded in Indian colonies. Solicitous for the glory of God, this bishop wrote to request Father Juan Atienza in Peru, and Joseph Anchuela in Brazil, to send him a few Jesuits already tried by previous exertions in the Christian cause. Fathers Leonardo Arminio, an Italian; Juan Saloni, a Spaniard; Thomas Fields, an Irishman; Manuel Ortega, and Estevam de Grao, Portugueze, were sentby sea from Brazil, and being taken by the English, were for some time infamously treated, and at last exposed to the winds and waves in an open boat; but Providence happily guiding them, reached the port of Buenos-Ayres. From Peru, Fathers Francis Angulo and Alphonso Barzena had been already despatched into Tucuman. The last of these was created vicar-general by Victoria, who esteemed him so highly as openly to declare that he would himself vacate the bishopric could Barzena benefit by his abdication. To these have succeeded men of our order, one after another, for nearly two centuries. Summoned by the bishop and royal governour, sent from Europe by their Catholic sovereigns, and dispersed in every corner of Paraguay's immense extent, how strenuously they have toiled for God and their King, it is not my business to relate. Thousands of savages won over to God and the King, colonies founded on every side, churches built to the Lord, and numbers of Spanish cities imbued with learning and piety—these will testify that we have at least done something for the Antipodes, though many have left no stone unturned to blot out our very name. This is, however, beyond dispute;—that a far more abundant harvest might have been reaped from our apostolic labours, if the Europeans had not uniformly opposedevery measure conducive to the advantage of the Indians. Not a savage would now have been left in America, had every professor of Christianity conformed his life to its dictates, and joined his endeavours vigorously to ours.
The third division, from which the whole province takes its name, is that of Paraguay, so called from the river on which it borders. In regard to the laws of dominion its extent is immense; but from the dangerous vicinity of the savages on one hand, and the Portugueze on the other, the inhabitants, considering their number, are contracted into somewhat narrow limits. Extensive and fertile plains, both to the west on the opposite side of the river, and towards the north, are totally neglected, on two accounts—their distance from the metropolis, and the above-mentioned neighbours. The Corrientine country is accounted the southern boundary. The inhabitants are almost incalculably numerous. There are who assert their capability of bringing ten thousand soldiers into the field, Spaniards only: for if you count Indian natives, and all the herd of negroes, and other slaves, you might reckon up three times that number. But the majority of these deserve the motto—"Nos numerus sumus, et fruges consumere nati." Some one was heard to complain of the governours of Paraguay—that many soldierswere ranged under the banners, but few who were furnished with a musket, and still fewer who could manage one if they had it. The metropolis, Asumpcion, takes its name from the assumption of the Virgin Mary. It is situated in latitude 25° 8´ and longitude 319° 41´, on the banks of the Paraguay, which affords a convenient station for ships and an opportunity of commerce, but menaces destruction to the city; for the channel constantly nearing and nearing, undermines the bank and the houses situate thereupon. Neither splendid edifices nor city fortifications are here to be found. Many of the houses are of stone or brick, and roofed with tiles, but none of them are above one story high. The monasteries are nearly of the same description, possessing nothing by which you could recognise the church. The streets are crooked, and impeded with ditches and stones thrown out of their places, to the imminent peril both of men and horses. It has but one market-place, and that covered with grass. The governor and bishop have resided here since the time of Charles V. though neither has any proper seat. Besides grammar, the scholars in our college pay much attention to philosophy and theology. For the negroes, Indians, and mulattos, there is a separate priest and parish church. Even matrons of the higher rank, boys, girls, and all the lowerorders speak Guarany, though the generality have some acquaintance with Spanish. To say the truth, they mingle both, and speak neither correctly. When the Spaniards first occupied this province, in which the Guaranies had previously settled, for want of Spanish women, they took the daughters of the natives in marriage. The couples presently caught each other's dialect; but as is usual with adults, who learn foreign tongues, the Spaniards miserably corrupted the Indian, and the Indian the Spanish language. Whence from the original two, a third dialect arose, in use at present.
The major part of the Spaniards live in hamlets, farms, and little villages, where the convenience of land and pasturage is greatest: cities, except the metropolis, they have none. Villa Rica and Curuquati are meagre places, mere shades of towns, the inhabitants being almost obliterated, by frequent migrations, from fear of the Portugueze. Xerez and Ciudad Real del Guayra, which once boasted the name of cities, have long since been destroyed by the incursions of the Portugueze who, assembled in the city of St. Paulo, enjoy, to this day, the finest parts of Guayra, the Spaniards vainly lamenting the seizure of the noblest part of their territory.
Of the ancient towns, where the Spaniardssettled the Indians they had subdued with arms, or won by religion, there remain Caazapà, Yuti, Ytape, and Yta, which are governed by Franciscans. Caazapà contains about two hundred families, and exceeds the rest in the number of its herds. Ytape contains about twenty families; Yuti and Yta, somewhat more. They are all governed by parish priests. Atira and Altos together form one little town. Quarambare and Jobati are both inconsiderable. Yaguaron consists of two hundred families. The Indian inhabitants are mostly employed in the service of the Spaniards, and consequently in populousness, morality, and the appearance of their churches, vastly inferior to our Guaranies, who, exempted from private servitude, are accountable solely to the Catholic King.
In the dominions of Paraguay are three other towns, founded and preserved by men of our order. St. Joachim, situate in latitude 24° 49´, and longitude 321°, on the banks of the Yù, which, in 1767, numbered 2017 Christian inhabitants, named Ytatines or Ytatinguays. As early as 1697 about four hundred persons were discovered in the neighbouring woods of Taruma, by Father Bartholomew Ximenez and Francisco Robles, and assembled in the town of Nuestra Senhora de Sta. Fè, 150 leagues distant from Sta. Fè, where they held the Christianreligion many years. But love of freedom at length bore them back to their original forests, whence they were in vain recovered, by fathers of our order, in the year 1721. In the place called Taruma, a little town was built for them, which, in 1723, contained three hundred souls. But partly from the poorness of the pastures, partly from the disturbances raised by the Spaniards, on occasion of Joseph Antequera's obtruding himself upon them as governour, the Ytatines were again removed to Nuestra Senhora de Sta. Fè, where they remained ten years, and bore a good report. But the bloody insurrection of the neighbouring Spaniards, famine, and the wasting pestilence of the small-pox, compelled them, in 1734, to take refuge in the forests they had formerly occupied. On the instant, Fathers Sebastiano de Yegros, Juan Escandon, Felix Villagarzia, and Luke Rodriguez, were sent to explore the lurking-places of the fugitives, and, after a laborious journey of eighteen months, returned unsuccessful. At length, in 1745 accident effected what labour could not. By the command of the superiors, Father Sebastiano de Yegros began the search, and after a forty-nine days journey of matchless difficulty, found the Ytatines in the woods of Tapebo. No opposition being made on their parts, a town was built for them in their nativesoil. Cattle of all kinds, clothes, axes, household furniture, and a few masters of music, and other arts, being sent from the old town, every thing went on favourably.
But a sudden terror interrupted the prosperous course of the new colony. The Guaycurus or Mbayas began to devastate the neighbouring estates of the Paraguayrians with slaughter and depredation. The Ytatines, thinking the marauders already upon them, lost all sense of safety. Alarmed by perpetual rumours of the enemy's approach, they spent their nights without sleep, and in open daylight still dreamt of peril. To this another distress was added: the want of water. The Fathers therefore judged it expedient to remove twenty-five leagues southwards, where the intermediate forests could protect them against the Guaycurus, and afford them a constant supply of water. In 1753, having left their church, and the residence of the Fathers, they built a town on the spur of the moment, which was regulated after the model of the Guarany colonies, increased by the accession of new families, and settled on a good foundation. To this city I devoted eight years of unregretted labour. When D. Manuel de la Torre, Bishop of Asumpcion, payed us his accustomed visit, he beheld with admiration the rigid Christian discipline,the accuracy of divine worship, and universal good order established among men so lately inhabitants of the woods. D. Carlos Murphy, an Irishman, and governor of Paraguay, was delighted during his five days' visit at my house with the dexterous management displayed by the Indians as well of their musical instruments, as of their weapons.
Another colony in the jurisdiction of Paraguay, that of St. Stanislaus, is the offshoot of St. Joachim. For the Ytatines, discovered by the joint efforts of the Indians and the Fathers of St. Joachim in woods situate between the rivers Caapivarỹ, Yeyuỹ, and Tapiraguaỹ, were prevailed upon to assemble in one place and embrace the Christian religion. Arduous, indeed, was the task of persuading them to leave their native woods; for, accustomed to the shade of towering trees, they shun the exposed and sunny plain, where they think their lives and liberties daily endangered. Father Sebastiano de Yegros lived a year in the woods with the savages; at the end of which time, he persuaded them to relinquish their woods, and occupy the plains bordering on the river Tapiraguaỹ, whither Fathers Manuel Guttierrez and Joseph Martin Mattilla bought cattle and the necessaries of subsistence, and in 1751 erected a chapel and dwellings. Softened by the kindnessand liberality of the Fathers, they became docile and conformable to Christian discipline. In my visits to this town, I could not but admire the gentle disposition and compliance with divine regulations, displayed in a people bred in woods and thickets. In a few years the town was increased by the accession of Indians, won over by Fathers Antonio Planes, Thaddeus Emis, a Bohemian, and Antonino Cortada, after arduous journeys amid pathless wilds. This colony lies in latitude 24° 20´, and in longitude 321° 35´. In 1767 it contained upwards of two thousand three hundred inhabitants, who had formerly wandered over those woods, where the Spaniards gather the herb of Paraguay. So that from the towns of St. Joachim and St. Stanislaus, a lucrative trade is opened to the whole province by the removal of the savages; since which the Spaniards can fearlessly traverse the woods that produce the herb in question.
In confirmation of this, I will cite a remarkable instance. The remote forest of Mbaeverà abounds in the trees of the leaves of which the herb of Paraguay is made. To prepare this, a multitude of Spaniards, with the necessary oxen, horses, and mules, are sent from the city of Asumpcion. The forest through which their journey lay, a tract blocked up withmingled trees and reeds, and impeded with twenty-six rivers, and as many long marshes, is full eighty leagues in extent, in which space you will rarely find ten paces of plain land. To render this passable, it was requisite to fell trees, to throw bridges over the rivers, to give the marshes consistence with bundles of boughs, and to level the declivities. When these things had been effected with equal labour and expense, huts were required to receive the Spaniards, hedges to inclose the beasts, and a frame work formed of stakes partly driven into the ground, partly laid cross-wise, to roast the leaves on. The necessary preparations made, the Spaniards were sent to the woods where the leaves were gathered. But their superintendant Vilalba lit upon a hovel, which, though empty, evidently belonged to the savages. Struck with the unexpected occurrence, he hastened to his companions with the news, which instigated them to immediate flight, and to think of saving their lives instead of gathering the herb of Paraguay. Nor do I, on this account, think them to be accused of cowardice or sloth. For in seeking the trees from which they lopped the branches, they did not traverse the woods in one body, but separately, and when they returned home, they were loaded with burthens. Moreover from carrying noweapon but the knife they used, they were always undefended from the assault of the savages. Abandoning therefore the business on which they had come, they returned to the city on their mules and horses. Vilalba, quitting his associates, turned aside to the city of St. Joachim, and related to the Fathers what he had seen and done, conjuring them to endeavour by every possible means to bring the savages to their town. The Fathers readily began the attempt. But, perceiving themselves unequal to such a journey, dispatched a chosen band of Indians, under the conduct of Vilalba, to search out the savages, and sound their inclinations. After some days, having imprudently consumed their provisions, they turned back before they had even approached the station, which the Indians were supposed to hold. So that the glory of finding these savages was reserved to the author of this work.
Some years after, I was sent by the superior to the city of St. Joachim. The rumour concerning the Indians of Mbaeverà continued to spread, and with it the fear of the Spaniards, who durst not even approach the woods, which promised so abundant an harvest of the herb of Paraguay. Under the conduct of Vilalba, I set out with five and twenty Indians, through marshes and rivers. The bridges andother aids, prepared to secure the passage of the Spaniards, had long perished. Every obstacle however being overcome, we arrived at the place in question, and discovered the remains of the savage hut. The bones of apes, boars, and antas, a wooden mortar, a few grains of maize, and other things of this kind, were discovered there; a path leading to the river side, well trod with the naked feet of the Indians, was also visible; but not a single recent vestige could we any where detect, though for many days we attentively searched both the neighbouring woods, and the banks of the river Acaraỹ. After having traversed the mournful solitude eighteen days, and suffered what neither I can describe nor my reader credit, as no hope remained of finding the Indians, we returned to the town, the improvement of our patience being our only recompense. I walked the whole way, and often barefoot. Had I turned ever so little from the east to the south, we should have found the habitations of the savages, as was proved to me the following year. The Spaniards, being made acquainted with my diligent search of the forest of Mbaeverà, persuaded themselves that the savages had migrated elsewhere, and accordingly set out thither in great numbers. But, lo! in the course of their business, they perceived thesavages dropping in upon them one after another. Conciliated by familiar discourse, and presents of beef and other trifles, they seemed to entertain no hostile sentiments, but visited the dwellings of the Spaniards in friendly guise. To enquiries concerning their place of abode, they replied that it was at a great distance, and could only be approached by crossing many marshes; a cunning answer, dictated by their fears for themselves and their wives, if visited by the Spaniards. Lest their footsteps should betray their resorts, in returning home they practised the following artifice: if they went by a southern, they returned by a northern road, and contrariwise, so that the Spaniards could not form an idea of the place where they lurked. And thus the savages and Spaniards suspected one other, and their mutual distrust increased every day.