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 interior, sometimes in large troops, armed and capable of reducing a strong town, at others, they were scattered into smaller parties prowling through the woods, and pouncing on all that fell into their clutches. They were fierce, savage, and merciless. They seemed to take a wild delight in the destruction of human settlements, and in the blaze of human abodes. They maintained themselves in the wilds by hunting, fishing, the plunder of the natives; and when that failed, they could subsist on the pine-nuts, and the flour prepared from the carob, or locust-tree, termed by them war-meal.

Their abominable practices had been vehemently denounced by the Jesuits of Santo Paulo, and in consequence they became bitter enemies of the order. One of their favourite stratagems, was to appear in small parties, led by commanders in the habits of Jesuits, in those places which they knew the Jesuits frequented in the hopes of making proselytes. The first thing they did there, was to erect crosses. They next made little presents to the Indians they met; distributed remedies amongst the sick; and as they were masters of the Guarani language, exhorted them to embrace the Christian religion, of which they explained to them in a few words, the principal articles. When they had, by these arts, assembled a great number of them, they proposed to them to remove to some more convenient spot, where they assured them they should want for nothing. Most of these poor creatures permitted themselves to be thus led by these wolves in sheeps' clothing, till the traitors, dropping the mask, began to tie them, cutting the throats of those who endeavoured to escape, and carried the rest