people, and less skilful in the public employments of the town. Who, therefore, can blame the Abipones, if, setting aside the privilege of birth, they elect a cacique, who, though of obscure origin, is distinguished for military valour? CHAPTER XIII. OF THE FOOD, JOURNEYS, AND OTHER PARTICULARS OF THE ECONOMY OF THE ABIPONES. The wild Abipones live like wild beasts. They neither sow nor reap, nor take any heed of agriculture. Taught by natural instinct, the instructions of their ancestors, and their own experience, they are acquainted with all the productions of the earth and the trees, at what part of the year they spontaneously grow, what animals are to be found in what places, and what arts are to be employed in taking them. All things are in common with them. They have no proprietors, as with us, of lands, rivers, and groves, who possess the exclusive right of hunting, fishing, and gathering wood there. Whatever flies in the air, swims in the water, and grows wild in the woods, may become the property of the first person that chooses to take it. The Abipones are unacquainted with spades, ploughs, and axes; the arrow, the spear, the club, and horses, are the only instruments they make use of in procuring food, clothing, and habitation. As all lands do not bear all things, and as various productions grow at various times of the year, they cannot continue long in one situation. They remove from place to place, wherever they can most readily satisfy the demands of hunger and thirst. The plains abound in emus, and their numerous eggs, in deer, tigers, lions, various kinds of rabbits, and other small animals peculiar to America, and also in flocks of partridges. Numbers of stags, exactly like those of our country, frequent the banks of the larger rivers. Innumerable herds of wild boars are almost constantly to be seen in marshy places, which they delight in, in the neighbourhood of a wood. The groves, besides antas, and tamanduas, contain swarms of monkeys and parrots. The lakes and rivers, which abound in fish, produce water-wolves, water-dogs, capibaris, innumerable otters, and flocks of geese and ducks. I do not mention the great multitude of tortoises, as neither the Abipones nor Spaniards eat them in Paraguay. At stated times of the year, they collect quantities of young cormorants, on the banks of rivers, and reckon them amongst the delicacies of the table. Were none of these things to be procured, tree fruits and hives of excellent honey would never be wanting. The various species of palms alone will supply meat, drink, medicine, habitation, clothes, arms, and what not, to those that are in need. Under the earth, and even under the water, grow esculent roots. Two species of the alfaroba, commonly called St. John's bread, throughout great part of the year, produce extremely wholesome, and by no means unsavoury food, both meat and drink. See the munificence of God