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WILD INDIANS. 



The wild Indians have occasionally crossed 

 from the main land to the island, and have 

 committed depredations upon the houses and 

 gardens in the neighbourhood of St. Luiz. Some 

 of these people have been at different times 

 made prisoners and brought to the town, where 

 very little pains, I fear, have been taken to con- 

 ciliate them. I did not see any of them, but 

 they were represented to me as most frightful 

 beings ; their features are excessively ugly, and 

 their hair is black and preposterously long, 

 both before and behind. They are of a dark 

 copper colour, darker than Indians that have 

 been domesticated. The last individuals taken, 

 to the number of four or five, were brought into 

 the town quite naked, were put into close con- 

 finement, and I was informed that there they 

 died. I could not find out that any attempt 

 had been made to send them back as mediators, 

 or that any plan of conciliation had been enter- 

 ed into - f and on mentioning something of this 

 kind, I was in more than one instance told that 

 it would be of no use, that rigour was the only 

 method. I do not think that this is the general 

 opinion regarding them, but I much apprehend 

 that but faint hopes can be entertained of any 

 zeal being shown for their civilisation. There 

 are now no enthusiastic missionaries ; the Jesuits 

 no longer exist in that country, and the other 

 orders of friars have become lazy and worse 



