One of my Abipones, who was burning with feverish heat, the forerunner of small-pox, secretly procured a horn full of brandy which he drank to the last drop. Mounting his horse, in a state of complete intoxication, he swam across a river in the night, and arrived in safety at a plain, three miles and a half distant, where his fellow-hordesmen were dwelling, for fear of the contagion. When informed of these things, I was in great apprehension of the immediate death of the imprudent savage, and flew to succour both his soul and body. Unexpectedly good news were announced: that same night the small-pox broke out upon him, neither thick nor malignant. In a very few days he recovered, and was at liberty to ride where he liked. He was about thirty years old, of a lively temper, strong constitution, and high fame amongst his countrymen, for the number of Spaniards he had slain. Here it may be observed that the Americans, who have had the genuine small-pox, do not fear the return of it. At five years of age I had the small-pox so slightly, that I was marked in ten places only, and was ill but two days. Yet that this short sickness is, by the law of nature, sufficient, I was fully persuaded, after living many months, day and night, with Indians who had the disorder, without taking the infection. Almost the same observations may be made on measles as on small-pox. It rages at intervals, spreads, and cuts off vast numbers in America. Whilst I resided in the town of St. Joachim, out of two thousand Indians so many were laid up with this disorder, that often none were left to supply the sick with food, water, wood and medicines. The offices due to the minds and bodies of the sick kept Father Joseph Fleischauer and myself occupied day and night for some months. That pestilence carried off two hundred persons, out of which number there were very few infants, and no old men, most of them being persons in the flower of their age. The tertian ague sometimes spreads like a contagion amongst the Indians, but is more troublesome than dangerous, and prevails only in those places where stinking ditch water is in constant use. For the same reason tertian ague is very prevalent in many Spanish towns, especially in Tucuman. In the colony of Concepcion, on the banks of the river Inespin, which supplied the inhabitants with sweet and very wholesome water, no person was ever seized with the tertian ague. In the colonies of St. Ferdinand and the Rosary, which were surrounded with marshes and lakes, the Abipones were destitute of river water, and consequently hardly ever free from agues. In the colony of the Rosary the fever prevailed so much for the space of some months, that no one escaped it, not even myself, though at other times secure amidst persons infected with this disorder. That none of the savages might die suddenly without receiving baptism, I daily visited all the sick, and at length caught the quotidian ague, though the Indians only laboured under the