Thus, though the trade in the herb of Paraguay, in tobacco, cotton, and sugar, and the abundance of different fruits, might offer to the colonists of Paraguay manifold opportunities of acquiring wealth, yet very few opulent men are to be found. They have many means of wealth, but still more impediments. From the very infancy of this province to the present time, bloody seditions, civil wars, contentions, and pernicious enmities to the royal governours and bishops, have miserably diminished the riches of the Spaniards. Add to this, that the savage Guaycurus, Lenguas, Mocobios, Tobas, Abipones, and Mbayas, wretchedly wasted the province with massacres and pillage, without leaving the miserable inhabitants a place to breathe in, or the means of resistance. To elude their designs, little fortlets are every where erected on the banks of the Paraguay, fitted up with a single cannon, which, being discharged whenever the savages come in sight, admonishes the neighbours to fight or fly, according to circumstances. The fortlets not being very far distant from one another, the repeated explosions of guns quickly signifies the approach of an enemy descried from afar, to the metropolis itself. As this province is destitute of a regular soldiery, the settlers themselves are ordered sometimes to watch in these fortlets, sometimes to march against the savages. Being every year pressed for some months with the burdens of the militia, they are forced, during frequent and long absences, to neglect their substance, their families, their agriculture, and their commerce. In this you may see the chief origin of their poverty. Besides the equestrian savages, who is ignorant of the calamities brought upon this province by the barbarous Payaguas? These atrocious pirates, infesting the rivers Paraguay and Parana, had for many years been in the habit of intercepting Spanish vessels freighted with wares for the port of Buenos-Ayres, or conveying them from thence, and of massacring the crews. At length Raphael de la Moneda, the royal governour, repressed the audacity of these pirates, and after repeated successful excursions along the river, obliged them to crave a peace, of which their living quietly on the shore of the Paraguay within sight of the city of Asumpcion, was a principal condition. For many years they have kept to the convention; but no persuasions of the bishops, the governours, or the priests, could ever prevail upon them to embrace our religion. They are tall, and extremely muscular. The frightful appearance which nature has given them they increase with adscititious ornaments. In the under lip, which is perforated, they fix a long tube, sometimes of wood, sometimes of shining copper, reaching down to the breast. To the flap of one of their ears they tie the wing of a huge vulture. Their hair is stained with a purple juice, or with the blood of oxen. On their neck, their arms, and the calves of their legs, they wear strings of glass beads. They paint