"The dress of the rank and file of the inhabitants was simple to a degree. The material employed for that of both men and women was white cotton. The men wore a species of shirt above short breeches, while the women were dressed in petticoats, above which was an armless chemise known as the _typoi_. The hair was plaited into one or two tails, and was generally adorned with a crimson flower. To such a degree had this doctrine of similarity of costume become implanted into the minds of the Indians that, after the expulsion of the Jesuits, those who succeeded the missionaries--and endeavoured in vain to carry on the work--were astonished at the tenacity with which they clung to it. Desirous of rooting out entirely the influence of the Jesuits, they assiduously pointed out to the Indians the advantages of individuality in dress. But it was a very long time before one of these could bring himself to distinguish his person from the rest by means of any of those added touches which are usually so eagerly sought after by the dusky races. "The supposition that Satan finds work for idle hands to do was acknowledged by the Jesuits with an enthusiasm on which was founded the principal tenets of their communities. In the mission towns any risk of this kind was quite infinitesimal! Indeed, one of the charges levelled by the opponents of the missionaries has been to the effect that they harnessed the Guaranís from the age of five years upwards to an endless and grinding routine of toil. Indeed, in estimating the benefits derived by the company of the Jesuits from this fount of labour, a very gifted modern Argentine writer estimates the eighteenth-century Guaraní population of the Paraguayan missions at some 150,000, adding that, so healthy was the climate of their country that almost the entire force of this community was available, invalids being almost unknown. In this he unconsciously pays a notable tribute to the methods employed in the 'Reductions'--by which name these mission towns were also known. For this remarkable lack of invalids may well be compatible with the circumstances attending ordinary hard work, but they suggest nothing of that grinding toil such as the _conquistadores_ were only too frequently accustomed to inflict on the aborigines--labour involving broken health and premature death. "The admittedly healthy condition of the Jesuitical Guaranís is in itself sufficient to refute such a charge as this.