races which had been for centuries exposed to civilization and its effects. His description of the Indians has for veracity and observation not often been surpassed. ‘Those natives[345] (he says) are of a pale colour, well made, and well set up. Their talent and capacity are capable of much advancement. Though they lack invention in themselves, yet are they excellent in imitation. Idleness seems natural to them, although it may be more the effect of habit than of temperament; their inclination towards acquiring knowledge is decided, and novelty has its full effect upon their minds. Ambitious of command, they acquit themselves with honour in the positions to which they may attain. Eloquence is held amongst them in the first place, and avarice in no respect degrades their minds. An injurious word offends them more than punishments, which they solicit rather than undergo the former outrage. Incontinency in their women they look upon but with indifference, and even husbands are little sensible to acts of infidelity. Conjugal love has but slight influence upon the treatment which they give their wives. Fathers of families care for their sons but little. The serenity of mind of all these Indians in the midst of the greatest troubles is without equal in the world; never a sigh with them takes off the bitterness of suffering.’ No one who knows the Indians but must confess that Dean Funes had made a study of their character deeper than is his own. Azara, on the other hand, was a man of science; his books upon the birds and quadrupeds of Paraguay still hold the field, and are esteemed for curious and minute observation and accuracy as to scientific facts. The man himself was an extremely able writer, a captain in the Spanish navy, and well educated. For twenty years he served in Paraguay and in the River Plate, with credit to himself and profit to the country which he served. Educated as he was in the school of the Encyclopædists, amongst the strictest of the pharisees of Liberalism, to him the very name of Jesuit was anathema. After the fashion of his kind, he seemed unable to distinguish between the scheming Jesuits at European courts and the simple and hard-working missionaries in Paraguay. All were anathema, and therefore all their system was repugnant to him; and though a kindly man, as is set forth abundantly in all his works, he never paused to think that there could be a difference between his ideal free Liberal citizen, voting and exercising all his right of citizenship in a free commonwealth, after the fashion of a dormouse freely exercising his natural functions in the receiver of an air-pump, and a simple Indian of the Paraguayan woods.