Ch.XIV. south AMERICA. 167 



who have alv/ays reiufed to liilen to tha miflionaries ; 

 though the fathers ftiil continue to vifit them at cer- 

 tain times, and preach to them, but prudently take 

 care to be accompanied with ibme Chiquitos for their 

 lecurity ; and thus they make now and then a fev/ 

 converts, vv^ho are fent to their towns, and there lead 

 a focial life. This generally happens after fome mif- 

 fortune in the wars continually carried on between 

 them and the Chiquitos 5 when in order the more 

 eafily to obtain a peace, and that the Chiquitos may 

 not abfolutely exterminate them, they fend for mii- 

 lionaries but foon difmifs them again, pretending 

 that they cannot bear to fee punifhments inflicted on 

 perfons merely for deviating from the rules of reafon. 

 This plainly demonftrates, that all they defire or 

 aim ar, is an unbounded licentioufnefs of manners. 



Santa Cruz de la Sierra, the capital of this go- 

 vernment, lies eighty or ninety leagues E. of Plata. It 

 was originally built fomething farther toward the S. E. 

 near the Cordillera of the Chirigiianos. It was found- 

 ed in the year 1 548, by captain Nuflo de Chaves, who 

 called it Santa Cruz, from a town of that name near 

 Truxillo in Spain, where he was born. But the city 

 haying been deftroyed, it was rebuilt in the place 

 where it now fbands. It is neither large nor well 

 built, nor has it any thing anfwerable to the promifing 

 title of city. 



III. Bifhopric of the Audience of Charcas. 

 El Tucuman. 



TucMA, by the Spaniards called Tucuman, lies in 

 the center of this part of America, beginning S. of 

 the Plata, beyond the towns of Chicas, which fur- 

 nifli Indians for the mjnes in Potofi. On the E. it 

 borders on Paraguay and Buenos Ay res ^ reaches welt- 

 ward to the kingdom of Chili, and fouthward to the 

 Pampas or plains belonging to the land of Magellan. 

 This country^ though united to the empire of the 



M 4 . YncaS;, 



