239 



Indians of South-America appear to be in ge- 

 neral happier than those of the savages of the 

 North. Between the Allenghany mountains and 

 the Missisippi, wherever the natives do not live 

 in great part on the produce of the chace 3 the 

 women cultivate the maize, beans, and gourds ; 

 and the men take no share in the labours of 

 the field. Under the torrid zone, the hunting 

 nations are extremely scarce, and, in the Mis- 

 sions, the men work in the fields like the wo- 

 men. 



Nothing can exceed the difficulty, with which 

 the Indians learn Spanish. They have an ab- 

 solute aversion to it, while, living separate from 

 the whites, they have not the ambition to be 

 called polished Indians, or, as it is termed in 

 the Missions, latinized Indians, Indios muy la^ 

 tinos. But what struck me most, not only 

 among the Chaymas, but in all the very distant 

 Missions, which I afterwards visited, is the ex- 

 treme difficulty, which the Indians have to ar- 

 range and express the most simple ideas in Spa- 

 nish, even when they perfectly understand the 

 meaning of the words, and the turn of the phrases. 

 When a white questions them concerning ob- 

 jects which surround them from their cradle^ 

 they seem to discover an imbecility, which ex- 

 ceeds that of infancy. The missionaries assert, 

 that this embarrassment is not the effect of 

 timidity; that in the Indians who daily visit 



