INTRODUCTION. 
11 
liad brought bis Guaraui State to such a clcgi'ee of national developnicnt 
tliat ho could carry on for five years a bloody ivar against a country of 
six times the population of his little republic ; but Avhoever knows the 
indolent character of the Indians, and the tenacity with wliich they 
cling to their old habits, will not wonder that in Brazil little or nothing 
lias been attained by the small energy and scanty means allotted to 
“ catechese dos Indies.” 
Tlie civili.sing work of the Jesuits was violently interrupted by their 
expulsion in 1751); and the Portuguese Government, always behind a 
century or two, could not devise any better plan than tlie pursuit of the 
red-skins by fair means or foul. As late as 1808 a decree of the king 
ordered war against them, especially the Botocudos, with fire and sword, 
until they “ movidos do ju.sto terror das minhas reaes armas,” should sue 
lor peace. Since the reign of the present emperor, Don Pedro II., they 
arc protected by law, and spared at least as mucli as jiossible ; still this 
protection is not always efficient, by reason of the enormous extent of 
the country ; and the full-blood Indians will disappear in Brazil as simely 
as tlu'v do in Xorth America. 
Wherever they come into immediate contact with that set of con- 
scienceless intruders who usually are the “ pioneers of civilisation,” they 
must succumb if there is no protecting element to help them. If a 
nation is bereft at once of everything whicli, till then, it cherislied — its 
gods, its chiefs, and all its peculiar ways of life — and if it is brought 
into contact with Eui’opean corruption ; in the state of moral destitution 
consequent on the loss of all national and religious sup])Oi‘t, the Avorst 
results are unavoidable. The zeal Avith Avhich the Indians of former 
Missions in Bolivia cling to the present day to the rites of the Catholic 
Church, may partly have its source in their childi,sh taste for outAvard 
pomp and gaudy shoAVS ; but certainly a good deal of it arises from their 
striving to gain some ccpivalent for their lost nationality. 
The gradual disappearing of this ill-fated race, numerous tribes of 
Avhich certainly bore in them gei-ms of civilisation that might haAm been 
doAmloped under proper management, is the more to bo regretted as the 
solution of many othuograjfiiic j)roblems Avill thus become more and mon; 
difficult. After all the most vabiable notes gathered and published by 
Humboldt, Spix, Martins, D’Orbignj', Moke, and others, many facts 
have not yet found satisfactory explanation, and probably never Avill find 
it ; the more so as there are so few monumental remains of former 
