When you read that the Abipones take the devil for their grandfather, you may laugh with me at their folly, and behold their madness with pity and wonder, but, if you be wise, let all this be done in moderation, for still grosser errors have been entertained amongst many nations civilized by laws and arts both human and divine. If you do but look into history sacred or profane, you will allow that there is scarce any thing to which divine honours have not formerly been paid. Such madness and folly in many polished nations should so exhaust our indignation and wonder as to make us judge mildly of the savage Abipones, educated amongst wild beasts, and unacquainted with letters, if they simply dignify the evil spirit with the title of their grandfather, without giving him the name or honours of a divinity. During a seven-years' residence amongst the savages, I never discovered any thing of that nature. If secretly or in our absence they did any thing which a divine would condemn, I think it proceeded from no religious inclination towards the evil spirit, but only from fear of him, and from the compulsion used by the jugglers; so that they rather merit the imputation of stupidity than of blasphemy. Not only the Abipones, but likewise the Mocobios, Tobas, Yapitalakas, Guaycurus and other equestrian people of Chaco, boast themselves grandsons of the evil spirit, partakers no less of their superstition than of their madness. But how different are the opinions entertained by the southern equestrian tribes, who wander up and down the region of Magellan! They are all acquainted with the devil, whom they call Balichù. They believe that there is an innumerable crowd of demons, the chief of whom they name El El, and all the inferior ones Quezubû. They think, however, every kind of demon hostile and mischievous to the human race, and the origin of all evil, regarding them in consequence with dread and abhorrence. The Puelches, Picunches, or Moluches, are unacquainted even with the name of God. These last ascribe all the good things they either possess or desire to the sun, and to the sun they pray for them. When a priest of our order told them that God, the creator of all things, and amongst the rest of the sun, should be worshipped before the work of his own hands, they replied; "Till this hour, we never knew nor acknowledged any thing greater or better than the sun." The Patagonians call God Soychù, to wit, that which cannot be seen, which is worthy of all veneration, and which does not live in the world; hence they call the dead _Soychuhèt_, men that dwell with God beyond the world. They seem to hold two principles in common with the Gnostics and Manichæans, for they say that God created both good and evil demons. The latter they greatly fear, but never worship. They believe every sick person to be possessed of an evil demon; hence their physicians always carry a drum with figures of devils painted on it,