But let me now discourse upon what entirely consoles the Abipones for the loss of their friends, and renders the very necessity of mourning so pleasant to them. Leaving the care of inhuming the body and lamenting for it to the women, they seek for honey in the woods to serve as materials for the public drinking-party, to which they all flock at sun-set. At any report of the death of an Abipon we always pitied the women, upon whom devolved all the trouble of the exequies, the care of the funeral, and the labour of making the grave, and of mourning. For besides that the corpse was to be carried to the grave, and inhumed by them, all standing in a row, and uttering repeated lamentations, the widowers were to be shaved, the widows veiled, the names of the relations of the deceased to be changed, the funeral drinking-party to be attended, and the houses to be demolished; in short, they had to go through the trouble of a public mourning of nine days' continuance. This is of two kinds. One which is held by day in the streets by all but the unmarried women, and another carried on at night in houses appointed for the purpose, and which none but those that are specially invited attend. At stated hours, both in the forenoon and afternoon, all the women in the town assemble in the market-place, with their hair scattered about their shoulders, their breast and back naked, and a skin hanging from their loins. The expression of their faces inspires I can hardly tell whether most of melancholy or terror. Picture to yourself a set of Bacchanals or infernal furies, and you will have a good idea of them. They do not lament in one place by day. They go up and down the whole market-place, like supplicants, walking separately but all in one very long row. You may sometimes count as many as two hundred. They go leaping like frogs. The motion of their feet is accompanied by a continual tossing about of their arms. Each strikes a gourd containing various seeds to the measure of her voice; but some, instead of a gourd, beat a pan covered with does' skins, which makes the most ridiculous noise you can conceive. To every three or four gourds one of these drums answers. But what offends the ear most is the shouting of the mourners. They modulate their voices, like singers, and make trills and quavers mingled with groans. After chaunting some mournful staves in this manner they all cease at intervals, and, changing their voices from the highest to the lowest key, suddenly utter a very shrill hissing. You would swear that a knife had been laid to their throats. By this sudden howl they signify that they are seized with rage, uttering all sorts of imprecations on the author of the death, whoever he be. Sometimes, intermitting this chaunt, they recite a few verses in a declamatory tone, in which they extol the good qualities and deeds of the deceased, and in a querulous voice endeavour to excite the compassion and vengeance of the survivors.