understood not only of the Guaranies and Chiquitos, but also of the Christian Mocobios, Abipones, and all the other nations which we civilized in Paraguay. But let us suppose the Abipones to have been prevailed upon to enter a colony, and accept the friendship of the Spaniards; ye saints, what numerous and almost insurmountable obstacles remain to be overcome in effecting their civilization! From boyhood they had spent their whole time in rapine and slaughter, and had acquired riches, honours, and high-sounding names in the pursuit. How hard then must it have been for them to refrain their hands from the Spaniards, to sit down in a colony indigent and inglorious, to cut wood instead of enemies' heads, to exchange the spear for the axe and the plough; with bended knees to learn the rudiments of religion amongst children; and in some sort to become children themselves! These were arduous trials to veteran warriors, who remembered the time when they were formidable, not to one little town only, but to the whole province; and though many of the more advanced in age gradually laid aside their ferocity, and conformed to the discipline of our colonies, we often had to experience the truth of the apophthegm, _Naturam expelles furcâ, tamen usque recurret._ The greatest difficulties were to be encountered in taming the old women and the young men: the former, blindly attached to their ancient superstitions, the source of their profits, and stay of their authority, thought it a crime to yield up a tittle of the savage rites; the latter, burning with the love of liberty, and disgusted with any sort of labour, strove by plundering horses to acquire renown, that they might not seem to have degenerated from the valour of their ancestors. They had never even heard of a benevolent Deity, the creator of all things, and were accustomed to fear and reverence the evil spirit, as I have shown more fully in a former chapter. Instructed by us they learnt to know and adore the one, and to despise the other. All those pitiful, superstitious, absurd opinions which had been sucked in with their mothers' milk, and, heard from the mouths of old women, as from a Delphic tripod, had received the ready assent of their infancy, they were commanded to look upon as ridiculous falsehoods, and at the same time to yield their belief to mysteries of religion, which surpass the comprehension of the wisest. It was somewhat hard immediately to forego notions which had been sanctioned by the approbation of their grandfathers, and great-grandfathers, and to embrace laws brought from a strange land, and every way contrary to their habits of life. Formerly they had been permitted to marry as many wives as they pleased, and to repudiate them in like manner whenever it suited their fancy. To repress such unbounded liberty by the perpetual marriage tie, this was the difficulty, this was the great obstacle to their embracing religion, and their frequent incitement to desert it.