Abounding in fish and game and with a mild climate, the Chaco has always been densely peopled, and even to-day its native population is estimated at over twenty thousand. But the ethnology of these numerous tribes is most obscure. The Jesuit missionaries asserted that they found eight totally different languages on the Rio Vermejo alone,[488] and the names of the tribes run up into the hundreds. As is generally the case with such statements, distant dialects of the same stock were doubtless mistaken for radically distinct tongues. From all the material which is accessible, I do not think that the Chaco tribes number more than five stocks, even including those who spoke idioms related to the Guarani or Tupi. The remainder are the Guaycuru, the Mataco, the Lule and the Payagua. This conclusion is identical with that reached by the Argentine writer, Don Luis J. Fontana, except that he considers the Chunipi independent, while I consider that it is a member of the Mataco stock. One of the best known members of the _Guaycuru_ stock was the tribe of the Abipones, whose manners and customs were rendered familiar in the last century through the genial work of the Styrian missionary, Martin Dobrizhoffer.[489] They were an equestrian people, proud of their horsemanship and their herds, and at that time dwelt on the Paraguay river, but by tradition had migrated from the north. The Guaycurus proper were divided into three gentes (_parcialidades_) located with reference to the cardinal points. On the north were the Epicua-yiqui; on the west the Napin-yiqui, and on the south the Taqui-yiqui. Their original home was on the Rio Paraguay, two hundred leagues from its mouth, but later they removed to the banks of the Pilcomayo. Their system was patriarchal, the sons inheriting direct from the father, and they were divided into hereditary castes, from which it was difficult to emerge. These were distinguished by different colors employed in painting the skin. The highest caste, the _nabbidigan_, were distinguished by black.[490] The Abipones were almost entirely destroyed early in this century by the Tobas and Mbocobis,[491] and probably at present they are quite extinct. The Tobas are now the most numerous tribe in the Chaco, and their language the most extended.[492] They remain savage and untamable, and it was to their ferocity that Dr. Crévaux, the eminent French geographer and anthropologist, fell a victim in recent years. The dialects of the Abipones, Mbocobis and Tobas were “as much alike as Spanish and Portuguese” (Dobrizhoffer).