240 
THE NATIVE TILLAGES 
intelligence. The village has existed only thirty years on the 
spot it now occupies. Before that time it was more to the 
south, and was backed by a hill. It is astonishing with what 
facility the Indians are induced to remove their dwellings. 
There are villages in South America which in loss than half 
a century have thrice changed their situation. The native 
finds himself attached by ties so feeble to the soil he inhabits, 
that ho receives with indifference the order to take down 
his house and to rebuild it elsewhere. A village changes its 
situation like a camp. Wherever clay, reeds, and the leaves 
of the palm or heliconia are found, a house is built in a few 
days. These compulsory changes have often no other motive 
than the caprice of a missionary, who, having recently 
arrived from Spain, fancies that the situation of the Mis- 
sion is feverish, or that it is not sufficiently exposed to 
the winds. Whole villages have been transported several 
leagues, merely because the monk did not find the prospect 
from his house sufficiently beautiful or extensive. 
Guanaguana has as yet no church. The old monk, who 
during thirty years had lived in the forests of America, 
observed to us that the money of the community, or the pro- 
duce of the labour of the Indians, was employed first in 
the construction of the missionary’s house, next in that of 
the church, and lastly in the clothing of the Indians. He 
gravely assured us that this order of things could not be 
changed on any pretence, and that the Indians, who prefer 
a state of nudity to the slightest clothing, are in no hurry 
for their turn in the destination of the funds. The spacious 
abode of the padre had just been finished, and we had 
remarked with surprise, that the house, the root of which 
formed a terrace, was furnished with a great number of 
chimnies that looked like turrets. This, our host told us, 
was done to remind him of a country dear to his recollection, 
and to picture to his mind the winters of Aragon amid the 
heat of the torrid zone. The Indians of Guanaguana culti- 
vate cotton for their own benefit as well as for that of the 
church and the missionary. The natives have machines of 
a very simple construction to separate the cotton from the 
seeds' These are wooden cylinders of extremely small dia- 
meter, within which the cotton passes, and which are made 
to turn by a treadle. These machines, however imperfect, 
