The lessons of piety and resignation by which he instructs his young convert Lautaro, and the relation of the tale of his misfortunes, are given with that sweetness and simplicity which the character demands, and which indeed pervade the whole poem. personage The adopted daughter of the Missionary has become the wife of Lautaro, which is the tie that binds him to the Spaniards. Another is now introduced, and one, the novelty of which is extremely pleasing-not that we mean to say that an inconstant lover is by any means new, but the mixture of gayety and melancholy, of warmth of heart and instability of principle, forms the charm which envelopes Zarinel the minstrel. He comes to Anselmo to relieve his conscience by a confession of his cruelty to "an Indian maid," who trusted, and was by him deserted. This, it will be readily conjectured, was the daughter of Atacapac, and sister of Lautaro, who found him in distress, pitied and led him to her father's hut. 'The father spoke not :-by the pine-wood blaze, And when I wak'd some melancholy strain, Yet notwithstanding her pathetic remonstrances, ambition conquers love— he leaves "her sorrows and the scene behind,"-and for this he craves absolution from the father. Though all Anselmo's admonition is equally excellent, we think these two lines allexpressive: "First by deep penitence the wrong atone, Then absolution ask from God alone !* The succeeding canto presents many The difsublime and terrific scenes. ferent appearance of the several Indian warriors, particularly Caupolicantheir solemn invocation of their "country-gods"-their denunciations of vengeance against the tyrants who invade their rights, is told in the most forcible manner, and bear the attention along with eager impetuosity during the continuance of these mysterious ceremonies, and examination of the unfortunate Spanish captive, who, as he tremblingly pronounces the name of the hostile commander, and casts the billet into the trench, excites the renewed rage of the assembled avengers. Would break her generous and her trusting heart- rupted. True, I had vow'd-but now estranged and cold Death, instant death, would be a traitor's fate !'- It ceas'd; when bursting from the thickest wood, With lifted axe, two gloomy warriors stood; Wan in the midst, with dark and streaming hair, Blown by the winds upon her bosom bare, A woman, faint from terror's wild alarms, And folding a white infant in her arms, Appeared. Each warrior stooped his lance to gaze On her pale looks, seen ghastlier through the blaze. "Save!" she exclaimed, with harrowed aspect wild 'Oh, save my innocent-my helpless child!" Then fainting fell, as from death's instant stroke. To the inquiries of the Chiefs from whence they come, the answer is, that the ship in which the Spanish woman was, being wrecked, and the seamen having borne her and her child to shore, they were attacked and massacred by the Indians, leaving these two helpless, beings now brought there for the sacrifice. They are saved by the intercession of the Mountain-chief. This is the speech of Caupolican: White woman, we were free, When first thy brethren of the distant sea Yet blood we seek not, though our arms oppose 387 ensues between him and the unhappy Olola, whom at first he knows not; but after she had fled, a sudden thought flashes on his mind that he has beheld his sister. Zarinel, whose minstrelsy, meanwhile, had delighted the revellers, now languid and weary from the past gayety, and with a mind at variance with itself, seeks the shore. As thus, with shadow stretching o'er the sand, He touched the hand-it was no longer warm ; Lautaro, rushing from the rocks, advanced; 'Oh, my poor sister! when all hopes were past Of meeting, do we meet-thus meet-at last?' Then, full on Zarinel, as one amazed, The Spanish woman is next repre- Oh! did he love thee then? let death betide, I heard their signal-guns at distance roar. The Spanish camp and night-fires they descried : Canto the sixth. From the festivities of "the Castle Hall" Lautaro retires to "wander by the moonlight sea," his bosom torn with sad remembrance. A scene of great interest there (For Zarinel still knelt upon the sand, And to his forehead pressed the dead maid's hand.) Pale Zarinel, his head 'Peace is with the dead! Him dost thou seek who injured thine and thee? 'Die!' he exclaimed, and with convulsive start prayer- But oh! the sister of my soul...lies there! The Christian's God has triumphed! Father, heap The seventh canto is taken up with the warlike preparations of the Spaniards, till the final engagement, all which is conducted with great spirit and dig. nity of expression. The following is the energetic account of the decisive moment: With breathless expectation, on the height Lautaro watched the long and dubious fight: Pale and resigned the meek man stood..and pressed Now nearer to the fight Lautaro drew, The Indians rally inspired with fresh courage, attack the enemy anew, and in a few moments the fate of the Spaniards is decided. The shouts of victory ascend-Valdivia is made prisoner. Anselmo, too, is carried away captive, and Zarinel expiates by death his injuries to Olola. The last canto records the fate of the devoted Valdivia, which Lautaro is unable to prevent. The aged and mortally wounded Atacapac survives. but to know and embrace his son. The Missionary is preserved, and, in the Spanish woman and her infant, Lautaro finds his wife and child. The last duties are paid to the remains of the Mountain-chief; and such is Anselmo's concluding prayer: 'Here, too,' he cried my bones in peace shall rest! Omay it teach that charity should bind, ⚫ Yet we condemn not him who bravely stood Hurlback his thunder on the assailant's head! THE LOST TRIBES OF ISRAEL-SOUTH AMERICAN CUS TOMS, &c. Extracted from the Literary Gazette, November 1819. URSUING the history of the savages who bordered on each other in wilds and forests, the author relates some extraordinary particulars respecting the Calchaquis. vivor should raise up seed to his deceased brother; and because their garments, which were long enough to reach the ground, were gathered up with a girdle. This garment was made of vicuna wool, and was girt about them with great dexterity, when they wished to have their limbs at full liberty, for labour or for battle. They wore their hair long, and divided into tresses; their arms were covered to the elbow with silver or copper plates, worn on the one as a guard against the bow-string, and on the other for uniformity, or ornament. Wives were dressed in only one colour, maidens in many; and no sexual intercourse was tolerated till the youth had undergone certain religious ceremonies. Other vestiges of a civili "On this side also were the fierce tribes comprehended under the general name of Calchaquis, from the country they inhabited, a long valley between mountains, which afforded them safe places of retreat. Their language was a dialect of the Quichua,and their origin has been variously referred to some Peruvians flying from the despotism of the Iucas; to those who escaped from Almagro on his miserable expedition into Chili; and to the adherents of the last princes of the Inca blood. Early wrization from which they had degraded, ters, fond of theory, after looking every where for the lost tribes of Israel, suppose these people to be of Jewish origin, because names were found among them resembling David and Solomon; because it was their custom, that a sur were found among them. They had little idols wrought in copper, which they carried about them as their most precious things: and amid the internal disputes in which their strength was consumed, they frequently listened to the VOL.6.] Southey's New Work-Singular Customs of the Aborigines of Brazil. 389 actions which they had performed. These people behaved with the utmost intrepidity against the Spaniards, whom they detested with their whole hearts: the women, who in other wars were so often the ministers of peace, would, if they saw their husbands give way before these execrated enemies, drive them back to the battle with fire-brands; and rather than be made prisoners, they would rush upon the swords of their oppressors, or throw themselves from the precipices. "Their bows were of the same wood, straight as a staff when unstrung, and tall as the archer himself; the strings were made of fox gut, or of the fibres of a certain palm; the arrows were headed with wood, or bone, or iron; the iron were the least dangerous, the bone the most so, because they always broke in the wound: before they went to battle they selected the best * arrows for especial service. Sometimes the head of a warrior was ornamented with the wing of a large bird; all, indeed, except those of the most acknowledged courage, strove to make themselves terrible in appearance ;-for this purpose one warrior wore upon his head the mediation of the women,-fór barbarous as they were, says Techo, they easily granted any thing at the request of those who bore and suckled them. The Sun was the chief object of their worship: they also worshipped Thunder and Lightning, and erected to their honOur huts as temples, upon which wands were placed adorned with feathers and sprinkled with vicuna blood. The earthly objects to which a religious reverence was shown were certain trees, which were trimmed with feathers; and the stones which were heaped over the graves of their ancestors. Old feuds were often revived in their cups, and in the frays which ensued it was a whimsical point of honour never to shrink from a blow, nor to ward it off. The bow was the weapon which they then used for striking, a clumsy substitute for a club, and therefore perhaps prescribed for such occasions as less dangerous. At their banquets, the Priest consecrated to the Sun the skull of a bind, stuck with arrows, and prayed for a good harvest: the person to whom he delivered it was to be master of the next revels. All the friends and kinsmen of a sick man repaired to his hut, and continued there drinking as long as his disease last-skin of a stag with the horns, and anothed. They planted arrows in the ground round the place where be lay, that Death might be deterred from approaching: they buried with him his dogs, his horses, and his weapons, and abundance of garments which were presented as fu neral offerings; and they burnt the house in which he died, as being a place to which Death knew the way, and might be likely to return. They interred him with his eyes open, that he might see his way to the other world. The mourning was continued a whole year, during which the mourners painted themselves black. It was their notion, that death was not in the course of nature, but was always the effect of some malignant interference:-they were not the only people by whom this extraordinary notion was entertained; and it necessarily produced heart-burnings, enmity, and hatred. Souls, they thought, were converted into stars, which were bright in proportion to the rank of the deceased, and to the brave In er put the beak of a toucan over his The author relates, that the women never rear one * Dobrizhoffer observes that a similar practice is alluded to by the prophet Isaiah. xlix. 2. posuit me sicut sagittam electam: in pharetra sua abscondit me; probable interpretation than that of our version. this appears a more after the first, to proeure abortion; and the account adds : "It necessarily happens, that some lose their lives in consequence of the crime; and others, who escape death, contract diseases which render life burthensome. Still it is the fashion; and they adhere to it obstinately. The Spaniards have offered to purchase the children whom they do not choose to rear, if they will only suffer them to be born; and they have often endeavoured to induce a pregnant woman, by large gifts, to spare her unborn child: but it is averred that they have never succeeded in any one instance. This practice, in its consequence, has entirely destroyed that part of the Guaycurus, who were for so many years the most formidable enemies of the Spaniards of Asumpcion. When Azara left Paraguay in the year 1801, there remained only one individual of this stock,-a person remarkable in other respects as well as for being the last survivor of his nation he was six feet seven inches in stature, beautifully proportioned in all his limbs, and altogether, it is said, one of the finest specimens of the human animal that had ever been seen. Being thus left alone, he had joined the Tobas, and adopted their dress and fashion of painting. But that branch of the Guaycurus with whom the Portuguese of Cuyaba were engaged in war, still exists. "It is also said, that among the Guaycurus, baptism, by reason of their many vices, was seldom performed till they were in the last extremity. Perhaps the haughtiness of the tribe was a stronger obstacle than any superstitious persuasion. They believed that the soul of a Guaycuru, armed with his bow and arrows, made the Land of the Departed tremble, and that the souls of all other people fled at his approach. The Abipones, who despised all other tribes respected these, and acknowledged their own inferiority; but they attributed it to the greater skill of the Guaycuru conjurors. Their tradition of their ●wn origin is, that in the beginning God created all other nations as numerous as they are at present, and divided the earth among them. Afterwards he created two Mbayas, male and female; and he commissioned the Caracara (Falco Brasiliensis) to them, he was very sorry that there was no part of the world left for their portion, and therefore he had only made two of them; but they were to wander about the inheritance of others, make eternal war upon all other people, kill the adult males, and increase their own numbers by adopting the women and children. Never, says Azara, were divine precepts more faithfully observed! The Guanas were the only tribe whom they exempted from their universal hostility, and the Guanas purchased this exemption by performing personal services to them as their mas ters and, protectors. The poorest Mbaya had three or four slaves taken in war, who did for him every kind of work except hunting and fishing, for these were lordly pastimes. But this slavery was so easy, and the Mbayas, ferocious as they were in war, were so kind to those whom they had thus adopted, that none of the captives wished to leave their state of servitude; not even Spanish women, it is said, who were adults at the time of their capture, and had even left children in their husband's house." Speaking of another Tribe, it is said : "The most singular custom of the Lenguas, related to sickness and death. When any one appeared to be near his end, they dragged him by the legs out of his hut, lest he should die there, and haled him some fifty paces off; made a hole there for the sake of decent cleanliness, laid him on his back, kindled a fire on one side, placed a pot of water on the other, and left him to expire. Nothing more was given him: frequently they came to look at him from a distance,-not to administer assistance, not to perform any office of human charity, not to express any sense of human sympathy, but to see whether he had breathed his last. As soon as that was ascertained, some hired persons, or more usually some old women, wrapt up the body with all that had belonged to it, dragged it as far as they were able for weariness, then scratched a shallow |