SCHOOLS.

503 appeared, if I may so speak," says Charlevoix, by way of a résumé, "all life and soul upon the occasion." To render the pageant more imposing, they assembled wild beasts from the forests and fishes from the neighboring rivers. Lions* and tigers were chained at different points, and huge vases of piscatory specimens added to the general enlivenment. The public buildings and houses of the town were hung with tapestry-in the embroidering of which the women excelled-covered with wreaths and flowers, the most superb of any in the world.

The musicians, dancers, and choir-boys led the procession; the priest followed, wafer in hand, covered by a canopy carried by the cacique and corregidors, resplendent in the costly apparel worn during these festive displays. Behind the sacrament was borne the royal standard, and the military, all brilliantly caparisoned, brought up the rear. In this order they paraded through the mission, and after mass partook of a public banquet. Ulloa, one of the best authorities in this connection, and frequently quoted by Charlevoix, says: "In short, these neophytes omit no circumstance either of festivity or devotion practiced in the most opulent cities of old Spain."

The chief article of clothing was cotton, for the genial climate of Paraguay rendered necessary no heavy vesture. Short breeches and shirts were made for the men, loose gowns for the women, and with the latter a cotton cap was not uncommon as a covering for the head.

Much attention was paid to the schools. Early training was very properly regarded as the key to all future success. That the Spanish language should never have been taught is considered by many a sufficient evidence that the Jesuits were not looking dimly into the future. Excuses were not unfrequently offered for this omission in their course of instruction by the fathers. They pleaded the simplicity of the Guarani's mind, the impossibility of his ever acquiring a language possessed of such difficulties, although they succeeded in making the Latin of the Church very familiar to him. If the establishment of a hierocracy were contemplated, it is but another evidence of Jesuit sagacity; for isolation is always essential to success, and ignorance of the Spanish tongue was the most formidable obstacle that could be placed between the Indian and the Spaniard.

*It would seem needless to remark that the so-called lion of South America is an altogether different animal from the African.

Finally there grew into existence among the missions an institution for which there was never any actual necessity, and which foreshadowed further evil consequences. It was the police. It first consisted merely of a nightly watch for the purpose of preventing dissensions or wanderings from the reductions; but it was enlarged to a passport system, stringent in all its acts and hostile to the stranger. The Jesuit writers speak in high terms of this police. It may have tended to preserve the order and discipline for which the missions were noted; but it was one of the causes that precipitated them to their final ruin.

Daily life among the Guarani was one of military order and regularity. Alfred divided the day into three equal parts, assigning to each the duties which were to engage his mind; but here we have a whole population, extending over a vast tract of country, subjected to restrictions and regulations timed like the rising and setting of the sun. To the most insignificant occupation was attached a stated time. There were hours marked for laboring in the field, for working in town, for retiring at night, for rising in the morning, and they were most rigidly enforced. The reduction moved and had its being, as it were, with the precision of clock-work. The people prayed, toiled, ate, and slept so long and no longer; from one duty or employment they passed to another like soldiers changing guard, equally participating in the charges of the day, each one undergoing his measure of fatigue for the one and common family. In going to the fields natural indolence was no excuse for straggling parties or lounging assemblages; a life of military discipline did not permit of habits which their otherwise monotonous existence might have probably brought about. The moral rigor of the Jesuit was by every possible means infused into the bodily members of the Guarani. Formed in marching order on the great square, enlivened by music, and bearing a favorite statuette in lieu of a banner, they proceeded to the working-ground. There arrived, the first care was to erect an arbor for the patron figure, a tasteful covering of leaves and flowers; then to each man was assigned by the capitan his duty for the day. The return was equally lively, and executed in the same. orderly manner.

These missions have been spoken of as forming what was termed a "Christian Republic." The republicanism seems to have had no other existence than in the institution of social equality among the natives, that the power of the actual rulers might be the more

STRICT GOVERNMENT.

505 absolute. Some Indians were necessarily endowed with titles and nominal powers, and were distinguished by carrying silver appleheaded canes as symbolic thereof; but they were the mere executors of Jesuit will. Azara, on the one hand, offers his objections to this polity, because he attributes to it on the part of the native a general inert state of mind and body, and regards it as having offered no incentives to excellence in any art; while Charlevoix, with other fathers, found in it all the admirable principles and results which might exist in and proceed from a political formation of that nominal and actual character. Not that there was in reality any such political formation, but that the fathers would most felicitously overlook every consideration urged against the unquestioned rule vested in themselves, and present it to the world as in no wise interfering with the so-called republicanism of the reductions. The Indian, thus subjected to the moral influence as well as to the forcible control of the Jesuit, may have attained a higher degree of civilization than would have been possible under a less restraining government; but, at the same time, this system, so skillfully grafted in the native's mind, after a few generations of time brought his race to that childish dependency which the missionaries, when in danger of being driven from their old and proper field, argued as unfitting it for actual sustenance under selfgovernment. In every relation of life the Guarani felt the finger of the Jesuit father resting upon him, or acted unconsciously under its guiding influence. There was no sensible burden, however, to awaken a disaffection, and amusements or festive displays added to the general contentment. If conscious that there were chains gently riveted upon him, the native laughed and danced off the sense of enslavement. The fathers were always politic; if their government was absolute and unquestioned, it was administered in a paternal spirit and faced with a semblance of liberty. They accorded to the natives two or three days of the week to be devoted to their private interest or advantage. There was very little actual profit to be derived from this apparent generosity, for it was never the intention of the fathers in granting these opportunities for free labor, that the Indians should become free merchants and trade according to their interest or pleasure. They could sell all their produce to the Church, but very strict prohibition prevented it ever passing the confines of the missions, except under instructions from a Jesuit superior. The fathers' reasons for this regulation

are specious or just, as we may be inclined to consider all acts of this character.

This contact with an outer world could not but have recoiled with a ruinous effect upon the reductions. Spanish corruptiona term of strong meaning-would creep in among a virtuous, spotless people. Spanish avarice and deceit were bugbears ever to be dreaded in a Christian republic of this character, where no Indian could lay claim to this or that object, for every spot was com mon neutral ground, and what natural obstructions or climatic influences did not permit them to till, was called God's inheritance. "Mine and thine" were unknown words; they were cautiously avoided upon all occasions. Men worked for the community, and every thing belonged to the community or its embodiment, the Jesuits a difference regarded as immaterial. The Indian labored for his spiritual guardian and looked to him for a material return.

CHAPTER XXIX.

Tarija Missions.-Failures.-Confided to Franciscan Friars.-Spanish Settlement in the Province of Chiquitos.-Foundation and Removal of Santa Cruz Missions. -First Establishment by Father Arcé.-Successive Reductions.-Native Officials. Jesuit System.-Abipones.-Concepcion and the Rosary.-Dobrizhoffer. -Voyage along the Coast of Patagonia.-Patagonia Missions.-Revolt of Indians.-Cangapol.

A JESUIT Convent was erected at Tarija in 1574, the year of the foundation of the city. The Chiriguanos-a fierce, warlike tribe that had resisted the arms of Incas and Spaniards-occupied this region of country. Although their welfare was pronounced to be the all-absorbing object of the fathers, the mere announcement of disinterested motives was found insufficient to bend the children of the land to this nominally spiritual rule. Caciques who, in their native strength, recognized no earthly superior, scorned submission to men in long black frocks and of meek deOn the other hand difficulties were promptly met and, to a certain extent, removed. A Jesuit missionary never quailed before the perils of duty or the hazards, how imminent soever, of his vocation—a sublime indifference to danger associated him with the wildest and most ferocious tribes on the continent.

meanor.

At a very early period after the foundation of Tarija, an at

tempt was made to establish a mission on a small branch of the Rio Grande and upon the present site of Piray. Its existence was but brief. The natives were not made up of sufficiently credulous elements to place a necessary confidence in the alleged purposes of the fathers. These they drove out. They burned the church, pulled down the cross, and threw the image of St. Rosa, their patron saint, into a neighboring lake. Potrero-such was its name-remained a heap of ruins until 1768, when the mission was built anew, and intrusted to the only remaining religious in the country, the Franciscan friars. It was then called Mission de Nuestra Señora de la Asuncion del Piray, which for brevity sake is known at present as Piray. Not far from this town, and on the Rio Grande, the Jesuits also founded at an early period the Santissima Trinidad de Abapo, but again they were constrained to seek safety in flight. Abapo, restored shortly after the expulsion of the order, still stands.

In 1690 Father Arcé, a zealous and indefatigable missionary, extended his labors into the valley of Salinas, east of Tarija. His efforts were at first partially successful. But neither the Mataguayos nor the Chiriguanos could be induced to submit to the quiet and repose of a more civilized and hence a more stationary life. The fathers faced every obstacle and incurred every risk that the lost sheep might be found, and then had the mortification of seeing them dispersed as fast as they were collected together. Houses and churches were built, but the natives poured in and out like the water through the bottomless barrel; until, wearied of the untiring perseverance of the missionaries, the Chiquiacas and Tariqueas resolved to rid themselves of their presence in summary style. For this purpose they rose up in revolt, burned the missions, and massacred several of the fathers, threatening the rest with destruction if intrusion were again made into their territory. Frequent warlike demonstrations of this character gave an offensive and defensive aspect to the whole country, to all its little towns, hamlets, and missions. The Tarija reduction resembled an outpost or frontier fort-a safe retreat for foraging parties rather than a home for converted natives. Indeed, repeated and murderous assaults from outside Indians had rendered necessary the erection of strong fortifications and numerous guards to defend them.

But the Tarija missions, properly speaking, do not belong to the Jesuit period. The numerous reductions founded in that