[28] He passed through the whole Chaco, descending the Pilcomayo to its junction with the Paraguay, through territories but little explored even to-day. Perhaps the most complete description of the Chaco is that of P. Lozano, with the following comprehensive title:
‘Descripcion chorographica de Terreno Rios, Arboles, y Animales de los dilatadisimas Provincias del Gran Chaco, Gualamba, y de los Ritos y Costumbres de la inumerables naciones barbaros é infideles que le habitan. Con un cabal Relacion Historica de lo que en ellos han obrado para conquistarlas algunos Gobernadores y Ministros Reales, y los Misioneros Jesuitas para reduc irlos à la fe del Verdadero Dios.’ Por el Padre Pedro Lozano, de la Compañia de Jesus, Año de 1733. En Cordoba por Joseph Santos Balbas.
This book did not appear in a clandestine manner, for it had: 1. Censura, por C. de Palmas. 2. Licencia de la Religion, por Geronymo de Huróza, Provincial de los Jesuitas de Andalucia. 3. Licencia del Ordinario por el Dr. Don Francisco Miguel Moreno, por mandado del Sr. Provisor Alonso Joseph Gomez de Lara. 4. Aprobacion del Rdo. P. Diego Vasquez. 5. Privelegio de su Majestad por Don Miguel Fernandez Morillo. 6. Fé de Corrector por el Licenciado, Don Manuel Garcia Alesson, Corrector General de su Majestad (who adds in a note, ‘este libro corresponde à su original’). 7. Sumo de Tassa, as follows: ‘Tassaron los señores del Consejo este libro à seis maravedis cada pliego.’
Palma, in the first censura, says that he had read it several times ‘con repetida complacencia’, and that, though it was ‘breve en volumen’ (it has 484 quarto pages), that it was also short in its concise style, kept closely to the rules of history, and was ‘muy copiosa en la doctrina’.
[29] This race at one time spread from the Orinoco to the river Plate, and even in the case of its offshoot, the Chiriguanás, crossed to the west bank of the Paraguay. Padre Ruiz Montoya, in his ‘Conquista Espiritual del Paraguay’, cap. i., speaking of the Guaraní race, says: ‘Domina ambos mares el del sur por todo el Brasil y ciñiendo el Peru con los dos mas grandes rios que conoce el orbe que son el de la Plata, cuya boca en Buenos-Ayres es de ochenta leguas, y el gran Marañon, à el inferior en nada e que pasa bien vecino de la ciudad de Cuzco.’
[30] Barco de la Centenera, in ‘La Argentina’, canto v., also refers to ‘La Casa del Gran Moxo’. It was situated ‘en una laguna’, and was ‘toda de piedra labrada’.
[31] Their numerals are four in number (peteî, mocoî, mbohap, irând); after this they are said to count in Spanish in the same way as do the Guaraní-speaking Paraguayans. Much has been written on the Guaraní tongue by many authors, but perhaps the ‘Gramatica’, ‘Tesoro’, and the ‘Vocabulario’ of Padre Antonio Ruiz Montoya, published at Madrid in 1639 and 1640, remain the most important works on the language. Padre Sigismundi has left a curious work in Guaraní on the medicinal plants of Paraguay. Before the war of 1866-70 several MS. copies were said to exist in that country. See Du Gratz’s ‘République du Paraguay’, cap. iv., p. 214.
[32] See Demersay, ‘Histoire du Paraguay’, p. 324, for names of Guaraní tribes. Alfred Maury also, in his ‘La Terre et l’Homme Américain’, p. 392, speaks of ‘le rameau brasilio-guaranin, ou Caráibe, qui s’etendait jadis depuis les Petites-Antilles jusqu’au Paraguay.’
[33] Few modern ‘conquerors’ in Africa seem to have engaged in personal combat with the natives. Even of Mr. Rhodes it is not set down that he has killed many Matabele with his own hands. Times change, not always for the bettering of things.
[34] Santiago, as in duty bound, usually appeared whenever Spaniards were hard pressed. Few writers had the courage of Bernal Diaz, who of a similar appearance said: ‘But I, sinner that I was, was not worthy to see him; whom I did see and recognise was Francisco de Morla on his chestnut horse’ (Bernal Diaz, ‘Historia de la Conquista de Nueva España’, cap. xxxiv., p. 141; Madrid, 1795).