The example, authority and vigilance of such Caciques, caused this town, so lately composed of a barbarous and blood-thirsty rabble, to become a seminary of Christian piety. The strict observance of the marriage ceremony, the remarkable modesty of the youth of both sexes, their prompt obedience, industry, and concord, together with the extreme good-will they manifested towards the priests, excited the admiration of the Spaniards, who had not yet quite forgotten their ancient barbarism. They desired baptism both for themselves, and for their children, as soon as they were born, though formerly, by an error common to all savages, they had considered it mortally dangerous. In the three last days of Lent, after hearing of the agonies of our Saviour, they all felt an eager desire to inflict tortures on themselves. Many cruelly lacerated their bodies, others carried crosses, like supplicants, as they had formerly seen practised by the Spanish penitents in the city of Sta. Fè. Nor could the young lads be restrained from following the example of their elders. Knotted leathern thongs supplied the place of scourges; and when crosses were wanting, they took yokes of oxen, axle-trees of waggons, heavy beams, or any timber at hand, to be applied to the purpose of making them. They seemed to take amazing pleasure in mangling their flesh. One of them, seeing the backs of his companions streaming with blood, cried, "See! how we are changed by the teaching of the Fathers! how unlike we are grown both to our former selves, and to our ancestors! Accustomed from boyhood to shed the blood of others, we now voluntarily shed our own, and most justly. It is right that we punish ourselves for the numerous droves of horses that we have plundered, and slaughters that we have committed." According to the custom of the equestrian savages, the Mocobian mothers used frequently to kill their own offspring. By the extermination of this cruelty in mothers, together with the abolition of polygamy and divorce, the colony was enriched by a numerous progeny, though often diminished by the ravages of the small-pox. Father Francisco Burges, the founder, and for many years the Governor of this colony, was succeeded, or assisted by Miguel Zea, Joseph Cardiel, Joseph Garzia, Bonenti, Manuel Canelas, Joseph Brigniel, Joseph Lehmann, Pedro Pol, and Florian Pauke my successor when I was removed to the Abipones; from whose labours another colony of Christian Mocobios, distinguished by the name of Pedro and Pablo, took its rise. Over this colony presided the Cacique Amokin, who till that time had terribly infested the territories of the Spaniards with his Mocobios. You may have heard of a colony of Mocobios of the name of St. Xavier, situated near the city Esteco in Tucuman, in the last century, and it appears not foreign to my purpose to relate the origin, state, and ruin of it, in this place. A great sedition was stirred up in Tucuman, at that time, by the Indians, and the Spaniards