the whole body from head to foot with a variety of colours. The females, of every age, are decently covered with woollen garments woven by themselves. The males think themselves handsomely arrayed if they be elegantly painted; and formerly frequented both their own settlement, and the Spanish city and houses, in a state of complete nakedness; which being considered offensive to Christian decency by the governour Raphael de la Moneda, he provided that a quantity of coarse cotton should be distributed amongst the adult savages, with this edict, that if any of them thenceforth entered the city naked, he should be punished at the pillory in the market-place with fifty strokes. One of them had brought fish to the house of a Spanish matron to sell, in exchange for which he received a fruit called _mandubi_. Having no sack to put them in, he held them in the bottom of his garment lifted up as high as the loins. On departing, when he had reached the door of the room, he began to think within himself that this mode of proceeding would be punished by the governour with a public whipping, if he should hear of it. Alarmed by this consideration, he returns to the matron, repeats the word _Moneda_, with his finger in a threatening attitude, and having let down the fore part of his garment, pours the fruit on the ground, puts them into the hind part, and joyfully carries them off; thinking that by this method he might walk through the market-place decently and unpunished. They use their own language, though, from their constant intercourse with the Spaniards, the majority can stammer a little Spanish and Guarany. They abound in nuptial, funeral, natal, and military rites, and in the absurdest superstitions. Their weapons are a bow and arrows, long spears, and a club; but their craft is more formidable than their arms. Each family has its canoe, a narrow one indeed, but very long. They are managed with a single oar, pointed at the end like a sword, and fly at the slightest impulse in any direction. Their velocity is owing to their structure. The keel touches the water for little more than three palms in the middle; the remainder, towards the prow and poop, is curved like a bow, and rises out of the water. Both ends of the canoe are sharp alike, and either serves for poop or prow, as seems good. When the river is stormiest, they trust themselves and their families, without fear, to its waves. If ever the boat is upset by an unusually strong wave, which happens but seldom, the Payagua gets astride the boat, and thus pursues his way. How often, from the shore, have I beheld the Payagua struggling and laughing amid the foaming waves of the tumultuous river, and expected every moment to see him swallowed up by the eddying waters! They plunge into the lowest depths of the water, and after remaining under a surprising time, emerge at an immense distance, loaden with fish. They have two sorts of canoes; the lesser for fishing and daily