THE MOJOS INDIANS. 
105 
final strolte is delivered tliat sevens tlie sinews of the hind legs, 
sinks groaning and bellowing to the gi-ound, where it rather resembles 
a bleeding mass of quivering flesh than the proud animal that had, 
an hour before, impatiently and defiantly stamped the sand. 
Hereupon arise yells of triumph and brilliant flourishes on the 
bajones. His Excellency expresses his warmest thanks for the elevating 
spectacle, and retires to his apartments ; and the drunken Indians discuss 
their heroic deeds beside the fii’es, di’inking ehicha and devouring the 
meat of their tortured victim. 
As night ad^ ances, the gentry assemble in the spacious rooms of 
the old collegio for a festive dance, though the rough floors, wliich 
are divided into regular compartments by rows of bones, are far from 
inviting, the Holy Fathers who had them laid doi\Ti probably not having 
designed them for any such use. 
A few musicians, seated in hammocks in one corner, relieve the 
monotony of their recitative— which is partly an amatory effusion and 
p.irtly an unpro\isation suitable to the occasion — by thruniraing on 
jingling guitars; and the caballoros and senhoritas pair off, cither 
for the national fandango, or, as in these times of universal copying 
and aping is more likely, for the quadrille. A quadrille at the old 
Mission of the Ileni ! And the grocer, or the artist in waistcoats and 
great- coats who but yesterday mended our old poncho, in his shirt- 
sleeves, the of his Excellency, with his little, gaudily- di-essed, 
black-eyed senhera ! And yet, why not ? We must never forget that 
in South America the colour of the skin, all toleration notwithstand- 
ing, determines the social position, and that every white man, or 
whoever can pass himself off for such, with the assm-ance of the 
proudest Castilian, thinks himself to bo of as good blood as the King 
himself.* 
couutries where the Caucasian race mingles with the 
(hfferonce of race in such cases weighs Jieavier than aU other con- 
wiiftnnutol.Lru Brasilians in the highest positions at Eio de Janeiro, 
] ; n ,1 -p given half their fortunes and their influence for tlie white 
staircases of their palaces 
in to eam a feM^ pence. Besides, there is no hereditaiy nobility 
lnl.Tr * is modelled after that of the United States ; and 
title* £60^0^ bestowed hy the Emperor, or bought ; about £200 for a baronet’s 
TOO earls, and so on. Sharp tongues persist iu afiirming, that 
2o years ago, when that clever philanthropist, Jose Clemente Pereira, the noble founder 
-<una 10 sy um at Bio de iTaueiro, saw bis work in danger of suspension from 
0 2 
