23 



found in their country, particularly birds, of which 

 there are great quantities. For this purpose they 

 made use of the arrow, of the sling, and of the 

 laque or noose, already described in the preceding 

 part of this work, and of several kinds of snares con- 

 structed with much ingenuity, known by the gene- 

 eral appellation of guaches. It is a singular fact, 

 that they employed the same method of taking wild 

 ducks, in their lakes and rivers, as that made use of 

 by the Chinese, covering their heads with perfo- 

 rated gourds, and letting themselves glide gently 

 down among them. These minutiae would perhaps 

 be scarcely worth attending to, in an account of the 

 manners and discoveries of a people well known 

 for their advancement in the arts of civilization, 

 but in the history of a remote and unknown nation, 

 Gonsidcfed as savage, they become important and 

 even necessary to form a correct opinion of the 

 degree of their progress in society. 



With means of subsistence, sufficient to have pro- 

 cured them still greater conveniences of living, it 

 would seem that the Chilians ought to have pro- 

 gressed with rapid steps towards the perfection of 

 civil society. But from a species of inertia, natural 

 to man, nations often remain for a long time station- 

 ary, even when circumstances appear favourable to 

 their improvement. The transition from a savage 

 to a social life is not so easy as at first view may be 

 imagined, and the history of all civilized nations 

 may be adduced in proof of tliis proposition. 



The Chilians were also isolated, and had none of 

 those commercial connections Willi foreigners which 



