Their principal weapon is the spear. It is about eighteen feet long, and they use it with great dexterity. When they assemble, either to attack their enemies or to invade the country of the Christians, they collect large troops of horses and mares, and then, uttering the wild shriek of war, they start at a gallop. As soon as the horses they ride are tired, they vault upon the bare backs of fresh ones, keeping the best until they see their enemies. The whole country affords pasture for their horses, and they kill the mares for their own provisions. The ground is their bed, and to that only have they been accustomed, so that they find no inconvenience in their long marches of thousands of miles. These Indians, with their red lances, at present are but little heeded; but, to quote Captain Head, “as soon as fire-arms shall be put into the hands of these brave, naked men, they will be elevated in the political scale as suddenly as though they had fallen from the moon.” It may not suit the politics of the whites to calculate upon such an event as the union of the Araucanian and the Pampas Indians--but who can venture to say that the hour may not be decreed, when these men, mounted upon the descendants of the very horses which were brought over the Atlantic to oppress their forefathers, shall rush with irresistible fury on their invaders, till the descendants of the Europeans are, in their turn, trampled under foot, and in agony and torture, in vain are asking mercy from the savage Indians? It was the rude, wild and despised tribes of the old world, that, rushing from their mountains and forests, broke in pieces the mighty fabric of Roman power, and overturned and destroyed all their systems of civilized policy, and the refinements of luxurious taste. It is only by the introduction of true Christianity, that any permanent improvement in the character of these Indians can be hoped; and the Araucanians are the nation which, if rightly instructed in the truths of the Bible, seem most likely to become the missionaries and teachers of the red race. The Abipones,[6] resident in Paraguay, are also a nation of horsemen, but in many habits, are more like the Araucanians than the Pampas Indians. They wear clothing, and are very industrious in manufacturing cloth, and utensils of various kinds. They are a very healthy race, and long-lived. They are temperate in eating, and the women never drink intoxicating liquors of any kind. They are also very modest in their behavior: the girls spend all their time with their mothers in domestic employments, and the young men, engrossed with the exercise of arms and horses, never attempt any acts of gallantry, though they are cheerful and fond of conversation.