494 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 



surprize the Indians in their remote and scattered dwellings. 

 Should the campaign prove successful, the conquered are 

 obliged to yield to their victors, acknowledge the superiority 

 of the Brazilian Government, and submit to be settled in 

 the different Aldeas, which are generally selected at the 

 greatest possible distance from their own native place, and 

 from the Brazilian residences. Here the Indians are placed 

 under the charge of a Director, appointed for the purpose, 

 who instructs them in agriculture ; they must also receive 

 tuition in the Christian Faith from the priest. What fruit 

 can be reaped from such compulsory teaching, either in reli- 

 gion or agriculture ? The Brazilians demand from the natives 

 an instant surrender of all their hereditary inclinations, 

 manners and customs, and claim their submission to a law 

 and a faith whereof they know nothing. It follows, of 

 course, that the more resolute and daring among these cap- 

 tives endeavour to escape as quickly as possible from such 

 intolerable restraint; while those who remain among the 

 Brazilians, without associating with them, live like strangers 

 and aliens, and pine away in the most wretched state of moral 

 and physical degradation. It is only a powerful moral im- 

 pulse that can be expected to operate a favourable change in 

 these neglected sons of the forest ; and unhappily it is seldom 

 that either inspector or priest knows how to give such an 

 impulse. The captives, left to themselves, quickly forget their 

 original mode of life, but receiving no instruction in a better 

 course, they speedily deprive themselves, by idleness and 

 habits of intoxication, of even the small share of mental 

 energy which they possessed when roaming free in their 

 native woods. The disastrous results of the attempts at 

 colonization by Aldeas t prevalent almost throughout Brazil, 

 naturally suggested the desirableness of another plan, 

 by which the Indians, instead of being kept all together, 

 are distributed among the Fazendeiros. This latter method 

 is adopted by the present Governor towards the Pimenteiras, 

 who, so early as the year 1775, rose in rebellion from time 

 to time, and attacked the settlers near the Rio Piauhy. P art 



