308 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. 



. loins girdled with a jaguar skin, the two furies arm themselves with a sharp bone 

 or some other cutting implement, which they seek to plant in the breast or 

 body of their antagonist, the men assisting with imperturbable gravity at the 

 deadly combat. 



Among these Toba Indians are many Hispano-American refugees, who have 

 made their escape from Paraguay, Corrientes, and Santiago. But they are not 

 easily detected, except by the hair on their face. " Men who have but a little 

 white blood in their veins, and only a few points of the European type, become 

 still less distinguishable in the costume of Adam before the Fall and after years 

 of an Indian life. A youth, however, who had been stolen when a child, had 

 retained his natural light-brown hair, and his face left no room for doubt as to 

 his parentage. Another Christian was a chief. He was a certain Vincenzino, 

 formerly the manager of an estancia at Santiago, where he was well known. 

 He was a fine tall man, sunburnt, and with a short grizzled beard. He uttered 

 very few words, and affected to be unable to express himself in Castilian. This 

 was an artifice to avoid rousing the suspicion of the Indians, by whom Indianized 

 Christians are forbidden to speak in an enemy's language that is not understood 

 by themselves. Such Christians, therefore, remain mute and motionless as 

 statues. 



" Fortune for a long time has favoured the Tobas, who occupy the best lands on 

 the banks of the Parana and Paraguay, being about sixty leagues, or, if measured 

 by the windings of the river, a hundred. By secret trading with Corrientes 

 and the Paraguayan Pepublic, they have provided themselves with firearms. 

 Moreover, being farthest from the continually advancing Christian frontier, they 

 receive a considerable contingent of the convicts, of whom I have already spoken. 

 In this way the Vilelas and the Chiulipos have become mixed with them, and the 

 case will be the same with the Mocovitos, who live in the south-west, along the 

 frontiers of Santa Fé and Santiago, and whose language is not dissimilar, many 

 words being identical." * 



But these Gran Chaco Indians are not men of many words, and Mr. Knight 

 witnessed a scene on the banks of the Paraguay, which was highly characteristic 

 of their taciturn disposition. " "We saw four Indians come stealthily down to the 

 bank, armed with long lances. Then, lying down among the reeds, they gazed 

 silently into the water till they saw some big fish pass by, when, with wonderful 

 skill, they speared them one after the other, and threw them on the bank. Next 

 they lit a fire, roasted the fish they had caught, and devoured them. This done, 

 they picked up their weapons, and crept back into the woods as noiselessly and 

 stealthily as they had come. The whole time — some three hours — that they 

 were on the river-bank, not one of these men spoke a word ; they gave the 

 necessary directions to each other by slight inclinations of the head only. As 

 soon as they had gone, the kites and vultures that had been waiting patiently 

 around came down and finished the remains of the fish."t 



* Pelleschi, Eight Months on the Gran Chaco, p. 27. 

 T Cruise of the Falcon, II., p. 102. 



