[29] This race at one time spread from the Orinoco to the river Plate, and even in the case of its offshoot, the Chiriguanás, crossed to the west bank of the Paraguay. Padre Ruiz Montoya, in his ‘Conquista Espiritual del Paraguay’, cap. i., speaking of the Guaraní race, says: ‘Domina ambos mares el del sur por todo el Brasil y ciñiendo el Peru con los dos mas grandes rios que conoce el orbe que son el de la Plata, cuya boca en Buenos-Ayres es de ochenta leguas, y el gran Marañon, à el inferior en nada e que pasa bien vecino de la ciudad de Cuzco.’ [30] Barco de la Centenera, in ‘La Argentina’, canto v., also refers to ‘La Casa del Gran Moxo’. It was situated ‘en una laguna’, and was ‘toda de piedra labrada’. [31] Their numerals are four in number (_peteî, mocoî, mbohap, irând_); after this they are said to count in Spanish in the same way as do the Guaraní-speaking Paraguayans. Much has been written on the Guaraní tongue by many authors, but perhaps the ‘Gramatica’, ‘Tesoro’, and the ‘Vocabulario’ of Padre Antonio Ruiz Montoya, published at Madrid in 1639 and 1640, remain the most important works on the language. Padre Sigismundi has left a curious work in Guaraní on the medicinal plants of Paraguay. Before the war of 1866-70 several MS. copies were said to exist in that country. See Du Gratz’s ‘République du Paraguay’, cap. iv., p. 214. [32] See Demersay, ‘Histoire du Paraguay’, p. 324, for names of Guaraní tribes. Alfred Maury also, in his ‘La Terre et l’Homme Américain’, p. 392, speaks of ‘le rameau brasilio-guaranin, ou Caráibe, qui s’etendait jadis depuis les Petites-Antilles jusqu’au Paraguay.’ [33] Few modern ‘conquerors’ in Africa seem to have engaged in personal combat with the natives. Even of Mr. Rhodes it is not set down that he has killed many Matabele with his own hands. Times change, not always for the bettering of things. [34] Santiago, as in duty bound, usually appeared whenever Spaniards were hard pressed. Few writers had the courage of Bernal Diaz, who of a similar appearance said: ‘But I, sinner that I was, was not worthy to see him; whom I did see and recognise was Francisco de Morla on his chestnut horse’ (Bernal Diaz, ‘Historia de la Conquista de Nueva España’, cap. xxxiv., p. 141; Madrid, 1795). [35] Thus it will be seen that the Franciscans were at work in the country long before the arrival of the Jesuits. It may be on this account that they became such bitter enemies of the later comers. [36] ‘Comentarios de Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca’. Published by Don Andres Gonzalez Barcia in his collection of ‘Early Historians of the Indies’ (Madrid, 1749). [37] It must be allowed, however, that in their writings few of the Spanish _conquistadores_ of America bragged much. They mostly gave the credit of all their doings to the God of Battles. The boasting has been reserved for the conquerors of Africa in our own time.