THE nature of our Savages is in itself generous and not malicious. They have rather a happy disposition, and a fair capacity for judging and valuing material and common things; deducing their reasons with great nicety, and always seasoning them with some pretty comparison. They have a very good memory for material things, such as having seen you before, of the peculiarities of a place where they may have been, [37] of what took place in their presence twenty or thirty years before, etc.; but to learn anything by heart--there's the rock; there is no way of getting a consecutive arrangement of words into their pates. They have no beards, the men no more than the women, except some of the more robust and virile. They have often told me that at first we seemed to them very ugly with hair both upon our mouths and head; but gradually they have become accustomed to it, and now we are beginning to look less deformed. You could not distinguish the young men from the girls, except in their way of wearing their belts. For the women are girdled both above and below the stomach, and are less nude than the men; also they are usually more ornamented with matachias, that is, with [38] chains, gewgaws, and such finery after their fashion; by which you may know that such is the nature of the sex everywhere, fond of adornment. Generally speaking, they are of lighter build than we are; but handsome and well-shaped, just as we would be if we continued in the same condition in which we were at the age of twenty-five. You do not encounter a big-bellied, hunchbacked, or deformed person among them: those who are leprous, gouty, affected with gravel, or insane, are unknown to them. Any of our people who have some defect, such as the one-eyed, squint-eyed, and flat-nosed, are immediately noticed by them and greatly derided, especially behind our backs and when they are by themselves. For they are droll fellows, and have a word and a nickname very readily at command, if they think they have any occasion to [39] look down upon us. And certainly (judging from what I see) this habit of self-aggrandizement is a contagion from which no one is exempt, except through the grace of God. You will see these poor barbarians, notwithstanding their great lack of government, power, letters, art and riches, yet holding their heads so high that they greatly underrate us, regarding themselves as our superiors.