Page:Tale of Paraguay - Southey.djvu/183

Rh It is difficult to explain the superior quickness of sight which savages appear to possess. The Brazilian tribes used to eradicate the eyelashes and eyebrows, as impeding it. "Some Indians," P. Andres Perez de Ribas says, "were so quicksighted that they could ward off the coming arrow with their own bow."— L. ii. c. 3. p. 41.

The point of honour in drinking is not the same among the savages of Guiana, as among the English potators: they account him that is drunk first the bravest fellow.—Harcourt's Voyage.

Inconvenient as this may seem, it was the full-dress of the Tupi and Guarani tribes. A fashion less gorgeous and elaborate, but more refined, is described by one of the best old travellers to the East, Francois Pyrard.

"The inhabitants of the Maldives use on feast-days this kind of gallantry. They bruise saunders (sandal wood) and camphire, on very slicke and smooth stones, (which they bring from the firm land,) and sometimes other sorts of odoriferous woods. After they compound it with water distilled