The Yaaukanigas, in proportion as they have less estimable qualities than the other Abipones, are more arrogant and untractable; yet we never despaired of bringing them to a better course of life, and of this there appeared some likelihood, so long as they were the sole inhabitants of the colony. The more advanced in age discontinued their usual incursions against the Spaniards, and employed themselves in agriculture. Their dispositions grew milder from daily intercourse with us. After some months' instruction we joyfully beheld an appearance of civilization beginning to flourish amongst them; their horror of baptism insensibly wore away, many infants and young people received it with the consent of their parents, and numbers of women and girls crowded to partake of the daily instructions in the rudiments of religion. But the old female jugglers thought it a crime even to touch the threshold of the church, and did their utmost to prevent others from entering it; and to compel the boys, who were driving about on horseback, to attend divine service, was a matter of some difficulty. One of the Yaaukanigas, a man advanced in years, came with his family to be baptized at the very beginning of the colony. The strict integrity of this excellent man obtained him the name of _Juan Bueno_, and his wife, daughter, and female Negro captive were equally exemplary in their conduct. The great hopes that we began to entertain of the happy advancement of religion and of the colony, were all nipped in the bud by the unlucky arrival of Debayakaikin, who, fearing an attack from Ychoalay, fled thither with a troop of his hordesmen, thinking himself secure in a town under the protection of the Spaniards. Of Ychoalay's challenge to Debayakaikin, and the pacification effected by means of the Vice-Governor of Corrientes, I have spoken elsewhere; I shall now show how pernicious Debayakaikin's visit proved to the colony of St. Ferdinand. His voracious and turbulent followers, besides privately slaying oxen and calves, to the great loss of the estate, involved the colony itself in a war with its neighbours, the Mocobios and Tobas. A party of Mocobios, leaving the town of Concepcion, surprized the unfortunate Alaykin, about day-break, in the open plain, and after slaying him and seven of his fellow-soldiers, in an engagement, they roasted and devoured them on the spot. Many wounded Abipones saved their lives by the swiftness of their horses, but the women and children fled for security to the recesses of a neighbouring grove. Pachiekè, to revenge his father's death, persuaded the Yaaukanigas and Debayakaikin's hordesmen to undertake an expedition against the Mocobios, in which although scarcely any blood was shed, yet the Mocobios, provoked by this hostile incursion, conspired to the destruction of the whole colony. Repeated assaults were made both by day and night, and continued for many years with various fortune: out of many I will relate a few.