sense of that humility which should always characterize the true Christian. For this it was that they had neither window nor chimney, nor seat nor bed, nor more than one apartment. This last, of course, contributed to the cultivation of domestic virtue and female modesty; and the smoke of the fires, which had no issue, and the modicum of daylight, which had no entrance save the door, by marked contrast made them adore the God of Nature, ever present in the spontaneous richness of their highly favored land. Moreover, from a fatherly regard for due physical development, the women were made to take abundant "exercise in certain rustic labors not beyond their strength."

These willing and subordinate creatures having been made sufficiently submissive to their spiritual lords, we learn that the next step was to petition the King of Spain to allow them the use of fire-arms. Charlevoix says, that this was to prevent their falling into the most cruel slavery; that there could be no apprehension of anything like a revolt among the Neophytes, for their happiness and security depended upon their loyalty, which nothing but an attempt upon their liberties (?) could impair. Accordingly the new Christians were drilled every week, and rendered competent to fight the battles of the Jesuits, which indeed they did, most faithfully, for many years.

These communities where no quarrels or law-suits were to be seen, where mine and yours were synonymous, were occasionally visited by the Bishops of Paraguay. These prelates have affirmed, says our author, that their tears of gratitude to God for such manifest favors to the benighted heathen, never dried up during all the time their visitation lasted! To assist in preventing all attempts upon the liberty of the Neophytes, and in consideration of their natural levity and inconstancy, it was thought proper to establish in the Reductions the practice of public penances, upon the same footing which prevailed in the primitive ages of Christianity. Therefore inspectors were appointed to search out all facts capable of giving scandal. Then followed the penitential habit, an obligation of public confession, and a whipping. Of course, through fear of discovery, this operated to make many volunteer a confes

sion of their crimes. But discretion, says Charlevoix, would not permit this; for the system of espionage could not be deprived of its moral tyranny; it was essential to the enjoyment of the largest liberty! He expressly informs us, that during the act of contrition, which is a portion of the divine mysteries, "they sob and sigh, and would publicly confess their faults, did not the missionaries employ all their authority to prevent it." To hinder all possibility of scandal," moreover, the new Christians were married to the brides chosen for them by the Jesuits. This, too, aided in the cultivation of the domestic affections-the purest and most precious gift of God to

man.

This "Christian Republic" is now before our readers, as the facts are furnished by one of its most ardent defenders, himself a prominent member of the mission. Can they say, with the Bishop of Buenos-Aires, when speaking of the company of Jesus in his letter of 1721 to Phillip V.: "How beautiful is a chaste generation, when joined with the lustre of a pure and burning zeal! the memory of such a generation is precious in the sight of God and man?"

But truly we are sick of our subject; nor can we waste our time any longer in comments on the Rev. Father Charlevoix. Were we to follow out his narrative, every page might furnish a proof of contradiction; for his whole work is but a verbose, and not always subtle attempt to conceal the deep-dyed hypocrisy of plans which, under the overshadowing mantle of the pure religion of Christ Jesus, created a tyranny more thorough and more effectual, than that of the Council of Ten, or the Holy Inquisition itself.

The Jesuits had three principles of government. The first was, that they were a body distinct from either the civil or ecclesiastical powers of the community at large. They professed, indeed, allegiance to the king, but allowed neither their institutions, their laws, nor their practical management to be interfered with by him, his deputy, or the bishop. Aided by their perseverance and vast wealth, as well as by their distance from both regal and papal authority, they well nigh succeeded in making Paraguay an empire of their own. Secondly, the complete subordination in which every member of the order lived to his Superior,

at once enabled one overmastering mind to control the whole. The very senses of each individual were subjugated to the volition of the one next removed above him, and the lips dared not to breathe a sigh for independence. This horrid discipline, surely, could accomplish anything short of absolute impossibilities. Lastly, the community of goods and the perfect equality of the Neophytes, was perhaps the most characteristic trait of the Jesuitical form of government. Ridiculous and unnatural as this system, even when fairly administered, is generally allowed to be, how great an imposture as well as fallacy must it not have involved, when it was nothing but a name? For the poor Indian was made to work in all departments for his lords and masters, and received out of the whole produce of the Reductions, only a scanty supply of coarse clothing, coarse food, and a mud hovel. Latterly, it is true, that the Jesuits, in order to stifle the clamor raised against them, gave to each family a small parcel of land, and three days in the week to work it. But what became of the produce? No market was offered to them at home, nor ships with which to transport it abroad. Nor had they any domestic trade, for they could only exchange commodities in kind. The whole product of this extra labor, therefore, went into the hands of the Jesuits, as offerings to the Virgin Mary-" consecrated to our good Mother," says our author, "who will never abandon us in our distress." And thus, through the perfect subjugation of mind and body, which the Jesuits had secured over their Indian proselytes, this apparently liberal allowance of land and time left their condition, for all practical purposes, precisely as it was before.

We must close our relation of these wonderful Reductions with one more reference to Charlevoix. It is his version of their downfall which we would quote, adding thereto the evidence of contemporary writers. Then, after an account of their wealth in the height of their prosperity, we will pass to more agreeable topics.

It seems that the Spanish settlers of this country of Paraguay most unnaturally conceived that their right to the personal service of the Indians they had conquered by force of arms, was quite as good as any that the Jesuits could urge in support of

the power they exercised over those whom they had peaceably subjugated "by the entrails of Christ.' To this the Jesuits most reasonably objected. Hence arose dissensions, strife, and all ungodliness, and each party endeavored to supplant the other in the good graces of His Catholic Majesty of Spain. The Jesuits consistently followed out in their representations the hypocritical plan they had adopted from the commencement, and persisted in saying, that they did not hold the new Christians in personal service. The Spaniards, in their turn, beset the court with horrid tales of the cruelty and extravagant versions of the wealth of the fathers; falsehoods about the existence of gold mines were poured into the ears of the avaricious ministers, and no effort was left untried to subvert the now firmly settled missions of the hard-working and guileless Jesuits. Amidst the continued storm of words, the latter seem to have prevailed at court for a considerable length of time. At length, however, a royal visitor was appointed in 1613, to investigate the mutual charges of the hostile parties, and if possible gain such information as might lead to an impartial judgment. The better to fulfill his duties, he proceeded to the seat of dissension. After conferring in private with several persons who best understood the nature of these difficulties, he came to a conclusion hostile to the interests of the Spaniards, and deprived them of the personal service of the Indians for eleven months of the year. But from this decision H. C. Majesty was pleased to subtract another month. He furthermore declared that neither the tribes of the Gua

ranis nor the Guaycurus should ever be placed under the subjection of serfdom or slavery, upon any pretence whatever; and that the Jesuits alone should be charged with the care of instructing and civilizing them.

We are informed that the visitor had scarce left Ascension, before there arose so furious a storm against the Jesuits, as being the authors of this new regulation, that they were obliged to retire from the city; whereupon the Spaniards began again to treat the Indians with their usual cruelty and injustice. The great distinction between the hostile parties was, that the Spaniards debased the Castilian dignity

on the seventh of June in the same year, and, from the facilities in his power, found that he could fix upon the 22d of July following, as the day on which all the Jesuits should be instantaneously eradicated. At midnight, therefore, of the 22d of July, 1767, they were swept from their homes and possessions to a man. None escaped, They were marched to Buenos-Aires, from whence, as Bucareli expresses it, they were remitted in parcels to the amount of five hundred, as a present to Pope Clement XIII. His Papal Majesty was much incensed at the impertinent presumption of his vassal, the powerful monarch of Spain and the Indies, and refused to grant his "holy and apostolic " benediction upon this measure. His successor, Pope Clement XIV., more pliant to the wishes of the king, ratified, in 1773, the proceedings against the Jesuits; and issued a complete brief-not very brief-consisting of fortyone articles, which we have not seen. Therein we are told that he exonerated King Charles from all blame, and in direct terms made many and weighty charges against the down-stricken Jesuitical order. Such was the disastrous end of this "Christian Republic." Its foundations so firm-its superstructure so grand, which, for the space of one hundred and eightysix had excited the envy and the wonyears, der of mankind-in a single day were seen no more. Alas, for the Jesuits! Their goods and chattels-their dwellings and churches their land and cattle-their silver and gold-their tools and workshops their subjects and slaves, were all lost to them, and added to the crown of their jealous sovereign. With all their wisdom, caution, calculation, strength, wealth, learning, and double-dealing, the Jesuits were out-jesuited at last; and at the moment when each individual was aspiring to advancement, and every one thought his house built upon a rock, the followers of Loyola found, to their cost, that the Count de Aranda and Bucareli were stronger than they. From that day to this, they have not sought an open return to these countries. Though many, undoubtedly, exist in South America, none are to be found in Paraguay.

In the height of their power, we learn, from a dispatch of Bucareli, that "five hundred Jesuits were distributed over a

distance of more than 2,100 miles; that they possessed twelve colleges; more than fifty estancias and settlements, made up of a vast number of servants and slaves; thirty towns or Reductions of Guarani Indians, inhabited by one hundred thousand souls; and twelve thousand Abipones, Macobies, Lules, and various other nations of Chiquitos; not to speak of many more, of whom, through the Jesuitical principle of keeping the Indians from all intercourse with the Spaniars, we know nothing." Furthermore, speaking of these possessions he says, "Empire it may truly be called; because, counting Indians, slaves, and other servants, they have in this vast country more vassals than the king.'

$700,000

We copy from Robertson a condensed statement of the value of the missionary establishment of San Ignacio Mini :— 3,500 Indians, valued at 5,000 head of horned cattle, 1,600 horses, 2,000 mares, 700 mules,

500 asses, 5,000 sheep,

.

Church and caza de residencia, Church ornaments and plate, Territory twelve miles square,

10,000

1,600

1,000

1,400

500 2,500

100,000

3,200

120,000

hundred and six thousand dollars. And if we estimate this according to the usual standard of difference between the value of money in that day and in our own, the result will be found to exceed by far one hundred millions of dollars at the present time. But the combination of priestly influence and political power ruined them, as we have seen already. "So long as they confined themselves," says Robertson, "to the care of their flocks, and whilst their political situation was feeble or precarious, they went on and prospered; but when they had made those flocks subservient to their aggrandizement, and from year to year, by papal bulls and royal concessions, had isolated and withdrawn themselves from under the control at once of diocesans, viceroys and governors, they got into a false position, and paved the way for their own downfall."

But enough of this. It is time that we proceed to the other topic intended for our present communication. The work of Father Martin Dobrizhoffer is on the whole the best guide to what is known of the Natural History of Paraguay proper; but this we shall occasionally improve, as well by our own recollection of what we saw there, as by the accounts of other writers upon the contiguous countries of a much more recent date. For the upper regions of the river Amazon and the rivers Parana and Paraguay, as far as any knowledge of them has reached us, are very similar in their spontaneous productions, though not in their geological conformation. We shall commence with the principal quadrupeds.

The ANTA, or LA GRAN BESTIA, (the great beast,) from its superior size, as well as its dissimilarity to all known animals, claims our first attention. As far as it bears any resemblance to other quadrupeds, it may be likened to the Rhinoceros. It has the same extremely thick hide, the same long upper lip, with which to collect the same food, viz., the grass and herbage, and it is naturally of a mild and gentle disposition. Here, however, the similarity must end: in all else it is sui generis. Dobrizhoffer's description is the best we have read, and corresponds with a specimen it was our fortune to see in Paraguay. Its size is about the same with that of a full-grown ass; in shape, if we except its eyes, head,

and feet, it resembles the swine; its teeth are sharp and regular, like those in the lower jaw of a calf, save only that it has four tusks in each jaw, similar to those of a wild boar. When enraged, the upper lip is projected to an extent which reminds one of a proboscis. A smooth, short and bare appendage supplies the place of a tail. The stomach contains a pouch, in which are often found a number of polygonous bezoar stones. To these the natives ascribe extraordinary medicinal virtues, either altogether imaginary, or, at least, greatly exaggerated beyond their real value.

There is no animal of our continent which seems to be so little known as this, and about which so many contradictions exist, even in the histories of the most celebrated naturalists. In the Naturalist's Library," edited by Mr. A. A. Gould, A.M., and which professes to use as authority the works of Cuvier, Griffith, Richardson, Geoffroy, Lacepede, Buffon, Goldsmith, Shaw, Montague, and others, we find it stated that the Anta has three toes upon the anterior feet, and four upon the posterior. Goldsmith himself, on the other hand, says it has four claws upon each foot. In a work by Mr. Bennet, entitled "The Garden and Menagerie of the Zoological Society Delineated," it is said to have four toes upon the anterior and three upon the posterior feet. Father Dobrizhoffer, however, who spent twentytwo years in Paraguay, asserts that its fore-feet are cloven into two hollow nails, and the hind-feet into three; and this agrees best with the specimen which we saw during our own brief residence.

The inaccurate historian of "Animated Nature" also ascribes to this animal small, long and pendent ears, and a fondness for the water which almost makes it amphibious. But both these statements are erroneous; for it has rather short, straight ears, inclining forwards, and only takes to the water when pursued. Its favorite haunts are the deepest recesses of the most rugged forests, almost inaccessible to both stags and horses, where it sleeps by day and feeds by night. The Anta belongs to the Pachydermatous tribe, so called on account of the extreme thickness of the skin, and farther characterized by the toes being entirely enveloped in in