51 



they permit it to grow to a great length, and wind it 

 in tresses around their heads ; of this they are as 

 proud and careful as they are averse to beards, nor 

 could a greater affront be offered them than to cut it 

 off. Their women are delicately formed, and many 

 of them, especially among the Boroanes, are very 

 handsome. 



Possessed of great strength of constitution, and 

 unincumbered with the cares that disturb civilized 

 society, they are not subject, except at a very ad- 

 vanced period of life, to the infirmities attendant 

 upon old age. They rarely begin to be grey before 

 they are sixty or seventy, and are not bald or wrin- 

 kled until eighty. They are generally longer lived 

 than the Spaniards, and many are to be met with 

 whose age exceeds a hundred ; and, to the latest 

 period of their lives, they retain their sight, teeth 

 and memory unimpaired. 



Their moral qualities are proportionate to their 

 physical endowments ; they are intrepid, animated, 

 ardent, patient in enduring fatigue, ever ready to 

 sacrifice their lives in the service of their country, 

 enthusiastic lovers of liberty, which they consider 

 as an essential constituent of their existence, jealous 

 of their honour, courteous, hospitable, faithful to ' 

 their engagements, grateful for services rendered 

 them, and generous and humane towards the van- 

 quished. But these noble qualities are obscured by 

 the vices inseparable from the half-savage state of 

 life which they lead, unrefined by literature or 

 cultivation ; these are drunkenness, debauchery, 

 presumption, and a haughty contempt for all otlicr 



