ural element. It may be safely said they are the best swimmers in the world. I have frequently seen little Indians, scarcely from the breast, throw themselves into the water and frolic there for a whole day, never troubling themselves about the alligators that swarm in the rivers of Brazil. The adults wear scarcely any clothing, and as for the children, they go, like the little negroes, entirely naked.
TALISMANS.
The greater portion wear a string of beads around the neck. These beads, sold by the sorcerers, and which the Indians consider a powerful talisman against the bites of serpents, are generally formed of small red grains which grow in great abundance in the woods, Those who visit the whites sometimes replace these necklaces with a medal, One day, curious to know the name of the madonna charged with watching over the destinies of an ugly little red-skin, who was demeaning himself like an imp in a stream we were traversing, I requested my half-negro, half-Indian guide to go and speak to the urchin, so that I might approach him. It was with difficulty that the attempt succeeded, owing in a great measure to my foreign costume, which he now saw probably for the first time. At last, however, thanks to my companion, who held his arms and head to keep him from biting, I was able to seize the medal, and what was my astonishment as I recognized a French coin of fifty centimes, bearing the effigy of the republic of 1848!
THE INDIANS AND THE PADRES.
Like the negro, the Indian knows little of religion except the form of baptism; nevertheless, there is a difference between them. The negro, who is a slave, takes his children to the padre with perfect indifference, interested neither more nor less than if he were carrying an arrobe of coffee to market. The Indian, on the contrary, likes to be persuaded; he makes it a principle to do nothing without an equivalent, and only consents to receive the evangelical ablution upon the promise of a glass of cachaça, (brandy,) a piece of calico, or some other material compensation. He would make an excellent Christian if the missionaries could only draw upon exhaustless stores. If he hears there is to be preaching in the neighborhood, he forthwith sets out, piously crouches near the bearer of glad tidings, and impatiently waits the end of the sermon to demand his portion of the good things. These being exhausted, he retraces the road to his hut, till the time arrives when the faithful, for the propagation of religion, shall have again filled the coffers of their ambassadors. If the missionaries are ever able to precede each religious exercise with a distribution of brandy and red silks, men and women will lock in crowds to hear 'the word of God.' It is not rare, according to the people of the country, to meet with Indians who make their conversion a business, and present themselves to every padre that comes along, asking for a new ablution and exacting the reward attending it. In the early time of the conquest, when the extent of wilderness and the absence of roads rendered communication impossible between different parts of the empire, some tribes practised this species of baptismal brokerage on an extensive scale. Whenever a captain-general arrived in a province, he proceeded, according to bis humor, either to pursue the red-skins and make them slaves, or to convert them in order to found a colony. The latter willingly allowed themselves to be approached when it was only a matter of being catechised, for they knew the Gospel was always accompanied with numerous little advantages very much to their taste, such as garments, knives, and particularly a support less precarious than that afforded by forest-life.
Every thing going so well at first, the missionaries were astonished at the fervor of their converts, and augured well for the future. But when the provi-
