Among the tribes of Southern Brazil the Botocudos, who inhabit the primeval forests on the banks of the rivers Pardo, Doce, and Belmonte, are the most remarkable. The custom of piercing the ears and underlip for the purpose of inserting some ornament is found among many other nations, both of the Old and the New World, but nowhere is it carried to such an excess as among the Botocudos. At an early age pieces of round light wood, first small and gradually larger, are inserted into the apertures, until at length the ears almost reach down to the shoulders, and the lip, distended into a narrow rim, is made to project to a distance of seven or eight inches. At a later age, when the muscular fibres begin to lose their elasticity, it hangs down, and as, in consequence of the pressure of the wood, the front teeth soon fall out, it is hardly possible to conceive anything more hideous than a face thus artificially deformed. To add, probably, to their beauty, these savages shave their hair so as to leave but a small crown or tuft on the top of the head. The wourali is not in use among them, but their enormous bows and long sharp arrows render them formidable to their neighbours. A Botocudo, with his sharp eye and muscular arm, accustomed from infancy to the use of these murderous weapons, is indeed a greater object of terror in the gloomy impervious forest than the jaguar or the snake. When a horde, after having exhausted the neighbourhood of its game, is obliged to migrate to some other quarter, its removal is easily effected. A few dried palm-leaves alone remain to indicate the spot where the savages had fixed their dwellings, and soon even these slight vestiges disappear. In the primitive forest man, indeed, passes away like a shadow, ‘Sicut navis, quasi nubes, velut umbra,’ and leaves no more traces of his existence than the wild animals which he chased. In these migratory journeys the heaviest burdens fall to the share of the women, who, besides a large heap of household articles, tied up in a bag of network, are often still obliged to carry a child on their back. Thus encumbered, they manage to cross small rivers on bridges of a very primitive construction. A cable made of bush-ropes is loosely suspended over the surface of the stream, and on this they walk, holding themselves by another cable similarly hung at a greater height. The Botocudos are cannibals, like many other American tribes. After a battle they feast upon the dead bodies of their enemies, but more, it seems, from a spirit of vindictive rage than from a depraved taste for human flesh.