For the miscellaneous and imperfectly described sections of the South American population about to be noticed, the chain of the Andes, in its extension from Panama to Cape Horn, and in its remarkable parallelism to the coast of the Pacific, taken along with the three great water-systems of the Orinoko, the Amazons, and the La Plata, is the great geographical point of prominence.
Herefrom, about 20° south latitude, a western extension of mountains and highlands separates the water-system of the Amazons on the North from that of the Rio de la Plata on the South.
Distinguishing, then—
1. The Indians of the water-system of the Amazons, from—
2. The Indians of the water-system of the Plata, and both from—
3. The Indians of the water-system of the Orinoco—the first section of the first division consists of the—
I.
INDIANS OF THE MISSIONS.
The distinction here is so far from being ethnological that it is scarcely geographical. Political, however, as it is, it is convenient—since the term itself indicates what we shall find, viz., a more or less imperfect Christianity throughout.