500 SAN XAVIER DEL BAG. Book III. 
speak of the heathen part of their tribe — "los Gentiles" — 
with great contempt. They have, however, long been 
without any spiritual or other instruction, and have re- 
tained many of their heathen usages : for instance, the de- 
struction of the property of a dead person,— a custom which 
renders all improvement in their material condition im- 
possible. They are a good-natured, quiet, honest, and 
inoffensive people, maintaining a strict discipline, which 
they may have acquired from a mixture of Jesuit disci- 
pline and the remains of old Indian customs. They un- 
derstand Spanish tolerably well, but they refused to speak 
it with us. We had a difficulty in making any purchases 
from them, partly from their having little to offer for sale, 
and partly from their being apparently quite devoid of 
any speculative spirit. There was an unmistakeable ob- 
tuseness in them, apparently peculiar to the Christianized 
Indians — a downcast retiring manner, which I have no- 
ticed among this class of people in other parts. They made 
frequent visits to our camp, but they sat there for hours, 
mute and motionless : their children entertained us by 
exhibiting their skill in shooting with the bow. Their 
arrows were pointed with flint, which was covered with a 
dark substance, which they said consisted of the poison 
taken from a serpent; but this seems to me very im- 
probable. 
The position of these people and the condition of the 
spot, must have altered entirely since that time. San Xavier 
del Bac is now a military station of the United States, 
which is the certain commencement of a town. 
We remained here several days, during which time we 
received and returned visits with other caravans which 
happened to be in the neighbourhood. In these I found 
several persons whom I had met before accidentally. One 
