The constantly increasing perils of the voyage from the pertinacity of our savage foes, recalled the warning words of an old priest of Santa Anna who had engaged in one of the Jesuitical expeditions. He advised us to keep at a safe distance from the shore, and never attempt to hold friendly intercourse with the savages, or endeavor to conciliate them with presents, as it would expose us to their deadly treachery. “You must be constant in your guard or they will board you in the night, for they are as familiar with darkness and water as the land. If they come within reach of your guns kill and spare not, for fear, if you can inspire it, will be your only source of safety.” Our daily experience had thus far confirmed the prudence of his advice, and it was yet a question of extreme hazard if we should attempt to land. Each day afforded additional evidence that the tribes were banded together in a defensive alliance against the whites, with a politic foresight that made intertribal jealousies secondary to their exclusion. When partisan ferocity, so deadly in manifestation with the aboriginal races of America, could be made to coalesce for protection against the aggressive tendencies of a race in customs and habits inimical to their own, it seemed an act of desperation to attempt the farther prosecution of our Quixotic enterprise. This feeling had perceptibly gained strength while the ferocious characteristics of the old savage remained unsubdued, under the impression that our vitality was held with a lease as precarious as his own. The padre’s exhibition of fear had established him in the belief that in stoical courage we were inferior to his own race. This impression he had evidently found means to convey to his tribe. But Mr. Welson had, by a seemingly chance train of humorous experiment, dissipated his reliance upon the savage hypothesis of instinctive sagacity. The fancied superiority of his exaltation realized to the old chief the attributes of deity, while the padre became reduced, in his estimation, to a kindred caste with his tribe. In train the gyved circlet of his neck, as a talismanic badge of investment, would be likely to afford material evidence in proof of Mr. Welson’s deistical power. These impressions, which it would be natural for him to impart, would prove ominous as a prestige of awe, similar in effect to that afforded by Moses to the Israelites. The contrast between the old chief and Waantha discovered a marked distinction in tribal caste, dependent upon the miasmatic influence exerted by local impressions derived from degrees of purity in the sources of exhalation that gave birth to kindred habits and customs. The former devoted his attention to engendered animosity, while the latter eagerly searched for some token of kindly sympathy, and when it was bestowed his whole being became instinct with grateful pleasure. Even the dogs evinced an inherent perception of Waantha’s higher grade by fawning acknowledgment, while