Ch. XIV. SOUTH AMERICA. 167 



who have always refused to listen to the missionaries; 

 thoiio'li the fathers still continue to visit them at<*er- 

 tain times, and preach to them, hut prudently take 

 care to he accompanied with some Chiquitos for their 

 security; and thus they make now and then a few 

 converts, Avho arc sent to their towns^ and there lead 

 a social life. This generally happens after some mis- 

 fortune in the wars continually carried on between 

 them and the Chiquitos : when in order the more 

 easily to obtain a peace, and that the Chiquitos may 

 iiot absolutely exterminate them, they send for mis- 

 siortaries; but soon dismiss them again^ pretending 

 that they cannot bear to see punishments inflicted ou 

 persons merely for deviating from the rules of reason. 

 This plainly demonstrates, that all they desire or 

 aim atj is an unbounded licentiousness of manners. 



Santa Cruz de la Sierra, the capital of this govern- 

 ment, lies eighty or ninety leagues E. of Plata. It 

 was originally built something farther toward the S. 

 E. near the Cordillera of the Chiriguanos. It was 

 founded in the year ]5iS, by Captain Nuflo de Cha- 

 ves, who called it Santa Cruz, from a town of that 

 name near Truxillo in Spain, where he was born. 

 But the city having been destroyed, it was built in 

 the place where it now stands. It is neither large nor 

 well built^ nor has it any thing answerable to the pro- 

 mising title of cit}'. 



III. Bishoprick of the Audience of Charcas. ► 

 El Tucuman. 



Tlcma, by the Spaniards called Tucuman^ lies in 

 the centre of this part of America, beginning S. of 

 the Plata, beyond the towns of Chicas, which fur- 

 nish Indians for the mines in Potosi. On the E. it 

 borders on Paraguay and Buenos Ayres ; reaches west- 

 ward to the kingdom of Chilip, southward^ to the 

 Pampas or plains belonging to the land of Magellan. 

 This country, though united to the empire of the 



Yucas, 



