423 



The hatred which savages for the most part 

 feel for men, who speak another idiom, and 

 appear to them to be barbarians of an inferior 

 race, is sometimes rekindled in the missions, 

 after having long slumbered. A short time be- 

 fore our arrival at Esmeralda, an Indian, born 

 in the forest * behind the Duida, travelled alone 

 with another Indian, who, after having been 

 made prisoner by the Spaniards on the banks 

 of the Ventuario, lived peaceably in the village, 

 or, as it is expressed here, " within the sound 

 of the bell," debaxo de la campana. The latter 

 could only walk slowly, because he laboured 

 under one of those fevers, to which the natives 

 are subject, when they arrive in the missions, 

 and abruptly change their diet. Wearied of 

 his delay, his fellow-traveller killed him, and 

 hid the body behind a copse of thick trees, near 

 Esmeralda. This crime, like many others among 

 the Indians, would have remained unknown, if 

 the murderer had not made preparations for a 

 feast on the following day. He tried to induce 

 his children, born in the mission and become 

 Christians, to go with him for some parts of 



* En el monte. The Indians born in the missions are dis- 

 tinguished from those born in the woods. The word monte 

 signifies more frequently in the colonies a forest (bosque) than 

 a mountain, and this circumstance has led to great errors in 

 our maps, on which chains of mountains (sierras) are figured, 

 where there are only thick forests, monte espeso. 



