The names of the Abipones who are not distinguished by military rank, end in various letters; but when, on account of their services in war, they are admitted into the rank of the nobles, they drop the name which they bore in youth, and receive another which always terminates in the syllable _In_. They who are solemnly inaugurated, according to the custom of their ancestors, are called _Höcheri_, and have a dialect of their own; for though they use the common words, yet, by insertion and addition of various syllables, they transform and obscure them in such a manner that they can hardly be understood. I shall now briefly describe the rites by which they are promoted to this dignity. When, by the arbitration of the rest, such an honour has been decreed to any one, they make a previous trial of his fortitude, by an experiment common to all. A black bead being placed upon his tongue, he is ordered to sit down at home for three days, and during that time to abstain from speaking, eating, and drinking. This is indeed a harsh law, but it appears mild in comparison with the torments endured by certain Indians at the river Orinoco, when candidates for military honours. They are laid on a hurdle, beneath which are placed burning coals, and, that the heat and smoke may be the more intolerable, the poor wretches are completely overwhelmed with palm leaves. They anoint the whole of the body of others with honey, tie them to a tree, and expose them to the stings of bees, wasps, drones, and hornets. But let me now return to the Abipon who is fasting and keeping silence at home. On the evening preceding this military function all the women flock to the threshold of his tent. Pulling off their clothes from the shoulder to the middle, and dishevelling their hair, they stand in a long row, and with confused shouts, accompanied with the sound of gourds, and with the continual agitation of their arms and legs, lament for the ancestors of him, who is, next day, to be adorned with a military dignity. These lamentations continue till it is dark. As soon as morning dawns, our candidate, elegantly dressed in the fashion of his nation, and holding a spear in his hand, leaps upon a horse laden with feathers, small bells, and trappings, and gallops northward, followed by a great troop of Abipones. Presently, returning with equal speed, he approaches the tent, where sits an old female juggler, the priestess of the ceremonies, who is afterwards to inaugurate the candidate with solemn rites. Some woman of noble birth officiously holds his spear and the bridles of his horse, while he dismounts, the rest of the matrons continuing to strike their lips, and applaud; when the candidate listens to a short address from the old woman seated on a hide, with as much veneration as if it was an oracle from a Delphic tripod. Then mounting fresh horses, he rides out in the same manner as before, first to the South, then to the East, and