Ch. V. SOUTH AMERICA. üyi 



tion that a fresh quantity is wanting. It is also usual 

 ro squeeze inco the liquor a few drops of the juice of 

 lemons or Seville oranges, mixed with som.e perfumes 

 from odoriferous flowers. This is their usual drmlc 

 in the morning fasting, and many use it also as their 

 evening regale. I have nothing to object iigainst the 

 salubrity and use of this liquor j but the manner of 

 drinking it is certainly very indelicate, tlie whole 

 company drinking successively through the samepipe. 

 Thus the mate is carried several times round the com- 

 pany, till all are satisfied. The Chapitones make very 

 little use of it; but among the Creoles it is the highest 

 enjoyment j so that even v/hen they travel, they never 

 fail to carry with them a suiHcient quantity of it. 

 This may indeed be owing in some measure to the 

 dispatch and facility with which it is prepared ; but 

 till they have taken their dose of mate, they never 

 cat. 



There is no vice to which idleness is not a prelimi- 

 nary; nor is sloth ever unaccompanied with some vice 

 or other. What must then be the state ot morality in 

 a country where the greatest part of the people have 

 no work, employment, or calling, to occupy their 

 thoughts; nor any idea of intellectual entertain- 

 ment ? The prevalence of drunkenness has been al- 

 ready mentioned, and the destructive vice of gaming 

 is equally common. But in the latter, persons of 

 rank and opulence, whose example is always follow- 

 ed, have led the way ; and their inferiors have univer- 

 sally fojlowed in their destructive paths, to the ruin of 

 families, and the breach of conjugal affection; some 

 losing their stocks in trade, others the very clothes 

 from their backs, and afterwards those belonging to 

 their wives, risking the latter to recover their own. 

 This propensity in the Indians for gaming has by some 

 been imputed to causes, in which I can perceive no 

 manner of relation. To me it plainly appea,rs ow- 

 ing to the leisure of some, who know not how to spend 



their 



