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site for catching the wild animals on which they subsist, have a 

 thousand stratagems for way-laying the settlers. Sometimes they 

 render themselves invisible by tying branches and young trees about 

 them, and fix their bows imperceptibly, so that, when a poor negro 

 or white happens to pass near them, they seldom miss their aim. 

 At other times they rub themselves with ashes and lie on the ground, 

 or make pit-falls, in which they place pointed stakes, and cover them 

 with twigs and leaves. They have a great dread of fire-arms, and 

 betake themselves to flight whenever they hear them : but these 

 weapons are by no means so general among the settlers as they 

 ought to be, and the few they have are of very indifferent make, 

 and frequently altogether useless. It sometimes, though rarely, hap- 

 pens, that the soldiers surprise the aborigines, in which case no com- 

 bat takes place ; the latter run away as speedily as possible ; and 

 their pursuers, taking vengeance for injuries sustained, seldom give 

 quarter. Those whom they make prisoners they are obliged to tie 

 hand and foot, and carry on a pole to a place of security : if any 

 one of them be loosed but for a moment, he bursts away, and flees 

 into the woods like a tiger, leaving his pursuers behind. They are 

 untameable, either by stripes or kindness ; and, if they find no means 

 of escaping from confinement, they commonly refuse sustenance, and 

 die of hunger. 



The injuries occasionally done to the settlers by these savages have 

 excited the attention of Government, who have passed a decisive 

 law against them. A proclamation has been issued by the Prince 

 Regent, in which they are invited to live in villages, and become 

 Christians, under a promise that, if they come to terms of peace and 

 amity with the Portugueze, their rights shall be acknowledged, and 

 they shall enjoy, in common with other subjects, the protection of 

 the state ; but, if they persist in their barbarous and inhuman prac- 

 tices, the soldiers of His Royal Highness are ordered to carry on a 

 war of extermination against them. Those who are taken prisoners 

 are at the disposal of their captors, as slaves, for the space of ten 



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