174 THK AMAZON AND MADEIRA RIVERS. 
Tlien there is another element not to he overlooked. The female sox 
could not bnt profit by the diffusion of gentler customs, just as iu 
the time of our own heathen forefathers, udien St. Eonifiice and other 
pious sons of Erin’s green isle first preached the Gospel on the Ehino 
and Exdda; and the squaws, having the satisfaction of learning from the 
Indians of the Missions that there the lords of the creation had to bo 
content with one wife only, and moreover that, like themselves, they had 
to work in the fields, doubtless were the first to be won over to tlie 
new doctrine ; and there, as iu oim own countiy, and then, as in our own 
time, became the most powerful auxiliaries of the white men in black 
gowns. Anyhow, we get nearer to the arrival of the i)eriod of decision, 
which will show us whether the love of freedom or the honeyed words 
of the Father will prevail ; and some fine morning he calls together 
all his children, and, in wcll-kuown accents,* delivers the following 
speecli, or one conducting to the same conclusion : — “ Beloved ones, you 
see that it is quite a comfortable life you lead under my fatherly 
guidance, I hope you will now altogether give up your old life in the 
woods; only, as it is quite imposisible, 3-011 know, that 3mur bretliren 
should go on working for you as they have hitherto done, you must 
yourselves lend a helping hand in the fields and with the herds ; and, in 
short, you must do all I tell you.” 
Even if some of the elder Indians sulkily took up their bows, and 
turned their backs on the orator and his nearly comifiete Mis.sion, the 
greater part of the tribe thought of the fleshpots of Egypt, and — 
remained. 
Then a lu’oud .staff of overseers and assistants was named from 
among the Indians themselves, very likel}’-, at first, from those of the 
Jesuits, DobrizRoffer says : “ If, after the saying of St. Paul, faith enters by the ears 
with other heathens, it certainly enters by the mouth with the savages of the 
Paraguay.” 
* Already in tho sixteenth century the Jesuits, Josejih de Anchieta and Manoel 
da Vega, had written vocabularies of the Tupi language, the Lingoa Geral 
Brazilica ; and in 16.39 followed several Guarani vocabularies by Montoya. They 
were intended to help the missionaries in their task, and also to render that com- 
paratively rich idiom the general one, a sort of “lingua franca,” in all South 
America. However, the Padres also took the trouble of learning less-spread hhoms, 
when they thought it necessary for their success. One of our Mojos from Trinidad 
had a little book of well-written prayers in his own language, which is quite different 
from the Tupi. The original dates from the Jesiuts, and the copies taken by the 
Indians themselves, as the proprietor proudly assured nio, descend from generation to 
generation. In the Eeducciones on the Beni, the missionaries had to leaau, in this way, 
no less than seven languages. 
