He often disappeared for months together without their knowing what had become of him, then they saw him suddenly camped in their midst without their knowing how he had arrived there.
On the whole, the Indians, apart from the respectful fear he had inspired in them, for the most part were much indebted to him; no one better than he knew how to cure those maladies supposed to be incurable by their sorcerers.
This information, if I can so call the timid and superstitious ramblings of my guide, left me more perplexed than I was before with regard to this man, whom everything tended to surround in my eyes with a mysterious halo.
A word uttered, perhaps, by chance by the Indian aroused still more my insatiable curiosity.
"He is a Paulista," he said to me, in a subdued voice, looking cautiously around him, as if he feared that this word might fall upon an indiscreet ear.
On several occasions during my stay at Buenos Aires, I had heard of the Paulistas: the information which had been given me with regard to them, although for the most part very incomplete and erroneous, had, however, greatly excited my curiosity.
The Paulistas, or Vicentistas, for these two names are indifferently applied to the early historians, first settled in the vast and magnificent plains of Piratininga. There was then organised under the intelligent and paternal direction of the two Jesuits, Antieta and Nobrega, a colony within a colony—a sort of half barbarous metropolis, which owes to its courage a continually increasing prosperity and influence, and the exploits of which if some day they are related, will form, I am convinced, a most interesting chapter in the history of Brazil.
Thanks to the intervention of the Jesuits in Brazil, the Europeans did not disdain to ally themselves with those strong and bellicose Indian races who so long held the Portuguese in check, and sometimes drove back the conquerors.
From these alliances there arose a warlike race—brave, inured to all kinds of fatigue, and remarkably daring, who, well governed, produced the Paulistas.
Several serious charges are laid at their door; they have been accused from the very foundation of their colony of having shown an indomitable and independent disposition, an affected disdain for the laws of the mother city, and an unheard-of pride towards the other colonists.