PATAGONIA, the southern portion of South America, is still in possession of the original tribes, who remain to this day a race of savages. They are expert horsemen, pursuing and catching the rhea, or American ostrich, as well as wild cattle, with the lasso.

They are of large stature, and for a long pe

riod were deemed a race of giants. They dwell in miserable huts, go half naked, and feed on flesh and vegetables, scarcely cooked. They believe in an invisible god whom they call Tochu, the Unseen. They believe the sick possessed of demons, and the physicians beat drums about them, to exorcise the evil spirits. They often bury the dying before the breath of life has departed.

The Fuegians, who dwell around the chill and stormy coasts of Terra del Fuego, are a miserable and squalid race, living chiefly on fish. They are of a low grade of intellect, and seem debased both in body and mind. Though their atmosphere is filled with sleety rain a great part of the year, they go half naked, and their habitations are frail tenements of sticks, bark and earth.

The Gauchos, who inhabit the wild surface of the Pampas of La Plata, and appropriate to themselves the countless herds that roam over them, are a singular race. They are Europeans, who have lived so long as hunters, apart from civilized society, that they have became almost mere savages. They are a great part of the time on horseback, and are so little accustomed to the use of their feet that they can hardly walk. Their vigor in the chase is almost supernatural. The houses are cottages of mud, and infested with vermin. Many of them are robbers, and woe to the traveller who falls in their way.

The Indians of the Pampas are still somewhat numerous, and are even more savage than Gauchos. The two races maintain desperate hostilities with each other. The savages are finely mounted, and pos

sess the vigor of character belonging to their Arauco blood, of which they are descended. They delight in midnight surprises, butchering the men and carrying off the girls for wives, who, in this capacity, are kindly treated.

The Indians of Brazil are in a much more uncivilized state than those of the former Spanish territories. They have never been incorporated with the European population, but have usually retired, before the march of civilization, into the depths of the forests. The missionaries have done something for a few of the tribes, and these have adopted the fashion of covering the body. But none of them cultivate the soil, or

have tame animals. They subsist solely upon the spontaneous products of nature; they dig up roots, and use the arrow with amazing dexterity. They eat monkeys, and it is said, human flesh.

As among other savages, some most uncouth customs prevail. The Botocudos, who inhabit the back settlements of Porto Seguro, have a favorite mode of ornamenting themselves by what is called the botogue. This consists of large pieces of wood pendent from the ears and the under lip, to which they are fastened by holes made for that purpose. The result is that the ears are stretched till they hang down, like wings, sometimes to the shoulders, while the lip is made to project, and half the lower teeth are protruded in the processes of eating and speaking. They sometimes also paint themselves frightfully, the body black and the face red, probably to strike terror into the hearts of their enemies. The Puries, Pataches, Machacaries, with sundry other tribes, of name and aspect equally uncouth, have the same general character, with sundry fantastic peculiarities belonging to each.

Along the banks of the Orinoco, there are still various tribes, which seem to have made small advances in civilization. Some of these believe that their fathers grew upon a tree; and one of the rudest tribes among them, the Othomacas, suppose themselves descended from a pile of stones upon the top of a huge rock. At death they suppose they all return to stone, as they came from it. It is one of their odd customs to give, for a first marriage, a young girl to an old man, and a youth to an old woman; for they say if the young people came together there could be no good household management. Polygamy is not practised among them.

Their color is of a yellowish cast, inclining to copper, and their long coarse hair grows low down on

their foreheads; their noses are said to be sharp at the point, as of a person worn out by illness. They have large mouths and thick lips, with eyes black, melancholy and inexpressive; their general air is heavy and sad.

ca.

Mr. Semple, a late traveller, gives a description of some parties of Indians he saw going to seek for work in the coffee plantations, where they were employed in picking the berries; the men were strong, though not so well limbed as the Indians of North AmeriSome of them, he observes, "while they rested their burthens, amused themselves by blowing into a species of flute, one of the rudest ever sounded by the human breath. The sound was like that of the wind sighing in the forest or among rocks-sometimes rising almost to a scream, and then dying away almost to a whisper. This alternate rise and fall constituted the whole of the music, which, excepting the drum of the negroes, consisting of a solid piece of wood beat by two sticks, was the rudest I ever heard. It seemed, however, to afford infinite satisfaction to those for whose ears it was designed; they listened in silence, and when the performers reached the height of screaming, all eyes were turned towards us, to see if we were not yet touched by such masterpieces of melody."

These people travel over mountains and valleys more than a hundred miles, to Caraccas, with poultry, in huge basket cages, made of canes and rushes, some of them six feet high. They have a conical top, divided into five or six stages, full of fowls, monkeys and parrots. They carry them on their backs, sup