This game, which from boys they are accustomed to play at for hours together, amuses and fatigues them with wonderful benefit to their health. The same piece of wood which serves both as an instrument of peace and war, is made formidable use of by many of the savages to crush the bodies of their enemies and of wild beasts. The Abipones hate to lead the life of a snail, idle and listless, and consequently do not undergo a swift and miserable decay, like those who are stupefied with sloth, confined to their bed, table, or gaming-table, and seldom stir out into the street or country. The Abiponian women, though debarred from the sports and equestrian contests of the men, have scarce time to rest or breathe, so much are they occupied day and night with the management of their domestic affairs. Hence that masculine vigour of the females in producing almost gigantic offspring, hence their strength and longevity. The food also to which the Abipones are accustomed, in my judgment contributes not a little to prolong their lives. What Tacitus says of the ancient Germans is applicable to them: _Cibi simplices, agrestia poma, recens fera, aut lac concretum, sine apparatu, sine blandimentis expellunt famem_. They feed, as chance directs, upon beef, or the flesh of wild animals, mostly roasted, but seldom boiled. If the plain afford them no wild beasts to hunt, the water will supply their hunger with various kinds of fish besides otters, ducks, capibaris, &c. From the air also they receive birds that are by no means to be despised, and from the woods divers fruits, to appease the cravings of appetite. Should all these be wanting, roots concealed beneath the ground or the water are converted into food. Necessity alone will induce them to taste fishes, though excellent. Tigers' flesh, spite of its vile odour, is in such esteem amongst them that if one of them kills a tiger, he cuts it into small portions, and divides it amongst himself and his companions, that all the hordesmen may share in what they think so delightful a delicacy. It is an old complaint amongst physicians that new seasonings of food imported from the new world have brought with them new diseases into Europe. This complaint cannot affect the Abipones, who are unacquainted with seasonings, and feed upon simple fare. They detest vinegar; and salt, though as fond of it as goats, they are seldom able to obtain, their land producing neither salt nor salt-pits. To remedy this deficiency they burn a shrub called by the Spaniards _vidriera_, and sprinkle its ashes, which have a saltish taste, on meat and on tobacco leaves, previously chewed and kneaded together with the saliva of old women. But as many of the Abiponian hordes are destitute of this shrub, the ashes of which are used for salt, they generally eat their meat unsalted. No one ever denied that the moderate use of salt is wholesome, for it sucks up noxious humours, and prevents putrefaction: but the too