from the press in South America, and perhaps it may be added, the only good which the revolution in those provinces has hitherto produced.

One of our divines has well pointed out, as a peculiar glory of true Christianity, that it does not only save, but civilize its real professors. This has never been better exemplified than by the Jesuits in these provinces. To them the inhabitants were indebted, not alone for whatever learning existed among them, but for every thing beyond the mere necessary arts of life, for whatever comforts and refinements they possessed. Major Gillespie learnt that all mechanical improvements in that country were introduced by the Jesuits: 'wherever,' he says, 'their footsteps can be marked, the loom and the distaff are exclusively among the appendages of the meanest hut.' No body of men was ever recruited with finer subjects, not even the Mamalukes, the Janizaries, nor the King of Prussia's grenadiers. They received into their order men of all countries and all professions, and availed themselves of the peculiar talents and attainments of each to the fullest extent. They were expert also in discovering whatever aptitude or cleverness a novice or a slave possessed; and they put every man to his proper use. Their college, therefore, was as much the school of industry and art, as of Latin and logic; and their church exhibited that splendour of decoration by which the Romanists have so well known how to impress the minds of the multitude. The wealth and splendour of a place of worship, says the good Dean of Cordoba, belong not less to the poor than to the rich; it is only in the temple of the Lord, before whom all men are equal, that poverty partakes of the full enjoyment of opulence; the poor man beholds it there without envy, for there he participates in it. If the pomp of worship, he adds, does not bring us nearer to the Creator, at least it comes in aid of our weakness and elevates us above ourselves.

A curious fact in natural history, relating to the city of Cordoba, is mentioned in an account of the Diocese of Tucuman, published many years ago at the end of a Lima Almanack. The river Pucara, upon which the city stands, formerly abounded, it is there said, with many kinds of fish; but they were all, except one species, destroyed by a tremendous hail-storm. The calamity was accounted for, more Catholico, by the sinfulness of the Cordobans, who, though they had so prolific a river, had persisted, almost generally, in eating forbidden food upon meagre days. The fact is worthy of notice here, because something similar occurred while Major Gillespie was in that country. In the middle of March there was a dreadful thunderstorm, accompanied with hail-stones of unusual size; and on the following morning the

banks of the river, on both sides, were strewn with fish, some far above, and others level with the water, the destruction being so entire, that the fishing, in which he and his fellow-prisoners till then had found excellent sport, was from that day at an end. Fish could not be cast ashore by any storm, however violent, unless they were brought to the surface of the water by sickness or death, By hail-stones alone, of any magnitude, they could not have been injured, against them, indeed, the water was as effectual a protection as against rain. If the effect were electrical, instances would surely be more common; but no third example has occurred in our reading. Is it possible that the convulsion in the atmosphere may have been connected with any subterraneous discharge? Baron Humboldt would bring to the consideration of such a fact, an extent of knowledge scarcely less surprizing than the excursive and intuitive intellect which renders the whole of his acquirements available. One who is ignorant of physical science, may yet be serviceable to science in thus relating facts for the consideration of those who are able to reason upon them. And there is a singular phenomenon at Cordoba, which shows that more is going on under ground in those parts, than is known upon the surface. A subterranean sound is frequently heard in that city, which Dobrizhoffer describes as dull and heavy, like the sound of a wooden pestle and mortar, or of a pavior's rammer, to which latter the common people compare it, and therefore call it el pison. During a residence of two years he heard it but once; but he speaks of it as a well known phenomenon, and as if it occurred by night only; and he says that the sound passes from street to street, surdus hic, et nescio quid triste sonans, strepitus ex alia in aliam plateam excurrit. The vulgar, he says, believe it to be the tramp of some spectre-horseman riding through the city. His own explanation, with which he declares himself perfectly satisfied, is, that it is a subterranean wind roaring in the caverns of the earth, and endeavouring to find an issue; for in the hollows and crevices of the ground he thought he could discern unequivocal vestiges of frequent earthquakes. In the Lima Almanack the sound is likened to the rattling of wheels over a paved way, and supposed to be produced by a subterranean river, in a rocky and hollow part of its course; and a traditional prophecy of S. Francisco Solano is referred to, that such a river wonld one day swallow up the city. Dobrizhoffer also notices rock-thunders among the cliffs of this neighbourhood; he heard them distinctly on a fine night, when the air was still and the sky clear, and he compares the sound to the discharge of cannon, saying he could have sworn that some fortress was cannonaded. He was then a few leagues from Cordoba, on the Pucara, at a place where lime was burnt;

the

the inhabitants assured him that these sounds were peculiar to the rocks about them, and that they occurred almost daily; and he observes, that often as he had travelled among what he calls the Cordoban Alps, he had never heard any thing of the kind else where. Lewis and Clarke, in their journey, heard precisely the same kind of sounds among the Rocky Mountains.

When Dobrizhoffer had acquired a competent knowledge of the Guarani tongue at Cordoba, he was stationed in one of those Reductions where the Jesuits had realized their fair ideal of a Christian Commonwealth. Le meilleur de tous les gouvernemens, says the Abbé Raynal, s'il étoit possible qu'il se maintînt dans sa pureté, seroit la théocratie: mais il faudroit que la religion n'inspirût que les devoirs de la société; n'appellat crime que ce qui blesse les droits naturels de l'humanité; ne substituât pas, dans ses préceptes, des prières aux travaux, de vaines cérémonies de culte à des œuvres de charité, des scrupules à des remords fondés. Il n'en étoit tout-à-fait ainsi au Paraguay. Les Missionaires Espagnols y avoient beaucoup trop porté leurs idées, leurs usages monastiques. Cependant, peut-être ne fit-on jamais autant de bien aux hommes avec si peu de mal. And in another place he says of this famous Jesuit Commonwealth: C'est la seule société sur la terre, où les hommes aient joui de cette égalité, qui est le second des biens; car la liberté est le premier. The Abbé Raynal employed the latter years of his life in correcting his Histoire Philosophique, and in weeding out from it those erroneous opinions which he had disclaimed in his old age, with far more danger than he had avowed them in his youth. It is to be regretted that the work, thus amended, should not have been published; for that work, notwithstanding all its inaccuracies and errors, is worthy of preservation. Raynal was a man of great talents; his eloquence is, in its kind, only inferior to that of Rousseau, and the feelings which he expresses are always those of a humane and generous heart. In the amended copy we should expect to find, that both his praise and censure of the Guarani Reductions would be modified. Upon looking more accurately at the economy of those extraordinary societies, he would have found nothing more extraordinary than that the Jesuits should have introduced so few of those usages and notions which are so closely interwoven with the corruptions of the Romish Church. The system of the Reductions was cenobitical, but there was nothing monastic about them. On the other hand, the equality which he praises was the dead level of servitude; infinitely better indeed than that equality which he lived to see and to deplore in his own country, but which kept the inhabitants improgressive in the lowest stage of civilization. That wherein they most differed from any other existing state in

society,

society, was in the enjoyment of order, without which, as Raynal himself found by bitter experience, liberty itself ceases to be a blessing. The order of a Reduction was as perfect in its kind as that of a bee-hive or an ant-hill.

The number of converted Indians under the Jesuits' government, when Dobrizhoffer began his office as a missionary, amounted to about 120,000 in thirty Reductions; the largest containing not quite 8,000 inhabitants, the smallest not less than 2,500. The population, though increasing in some of these settlements, was on the whole declining, and that greatly. The state of society might seem the most favourable to population that could be devised; early marriages being not merely encouraged, but enjoined; subsistence plentiful, the climate good, spirituous liquors unknown, and the people enjoying a more absolute exemption from cares of every kind, than could have been attained under any other form of society. The evil however is explained by some physical and some moral causes. Visitations of smallpox were frequent and most destructive; many of the men perished while upon military service; drought sometimes produced famine; they were not a prolific race; and perhaps their marriages were premature. How large a portion of the evils which afflict mankind. may be removed or alleviated! When the principle of community was established, there could have been no difficulty in providing (as Joseph did in Egypt) for years of scarcity during years of plenty; and had the Reductions lasted only a generation longer, they would have been delivered by vaccination from their most destructive scourge. Reinforcements were from time to time brought in from the woods, but of these new converts a large proportion always died in seasoning: the total change of habits, diet, and external circumstances, and perhaps the strong mental excitement, being more than they could bear. The Jesuits were far from regarding this mortality as an evil.

New converts made, and duly shriven,

Are always sure to go to Heaven ;

when so many make shipwreck of their souls upon the Voyage of life, the best thing which they could desire for those under their charge, was to see them safe into port. And the wild Indians apprehended no such consequence when they were allured to leave the forests by the expectation of protection from their enemies, plenty of food, and aid in sickness.

Dobrizhoffer was frequently employed to discover and bring in some of these hordes. He relates a beautiful story of a solitary family, whom he found in the woods upon the river Monday, the last remains of a tribe which had been cut off by the small-pox. The family consisted of the mother, a son, and daughter; they accompanied

"

accompanied him gladly to his Reduction, and there, in the course of a few months, all three died, in full expectation of a happy immortality. In the whole annals of Paraguay there is not a more singular and impressive tale than this in all its circumstances. On another occasion he found three hordes in the forest of Mbaevera, whom it was not so easy to persuade, because they were proud of their strength and courage. Dobrizhoffer, however, who spoke their language fluently, and knew how to deal with them, succeeded in his object, by adapting his conduct and discourse to such people. He approached their chiefs with an air of friendly confidence, as one who came for the purpose of conferring benefits upon them. A rude and somewhat menacing reception he took with pleasantry, and allayed their ill humour by an application of that flattering unction which is a specific in so many cases. He played to them upon a stringed instrument, and was regarded as another Orpheus; for snakes are not more susceptible of the power of sweet sounds than savages. He began a discourse upon religion; the boys laughed when he mentioned hell as the punishment of their heathenism; but he was listened to attentively, and the old men assented to the morality of his discourse. He then spake of the direct temporal advantages which he had to offer. Numerous as they were, he said, looking round him as he spoke, he saw but very few among them that were advanced in years, and the cause was evident, the hardships to which they were exposed brought on sickness, infirmity, and premature death. For want of raiment they suffered cold, and their huts afforded them little protection against the weather. If they were not successful in the chase, they had to traverse the woods like famished wild beasts. They were in danger from beasts, from serpents, and of being eaten by their enemies. They lived in a damp unwholesome country, swarming with insects, and sure to generate diseases; and in sickness there was none to heal them for they to whom they looked for help were jugglers and impostors, utterly ignorant of the healing art. How different was the lot of their brethren, who lived in the Reductions according to the commandments of God, and the direction of the priests! Many were to be seen there who had attained to a good old age; and well they might, where none of the means for prolonging life were wanting. Every family had its separate dwelling there, and every dwelling was snug and sheltered. Their own land supplied them with grain, fruit, and culinary herbs; and beef was served to them every day, gratuitously, by the priests. Every year they had new clothes given them. They never wanted beads, knives, or axes; and if they were sick, skilful physicians attended them day and night. The Indians their brethren, whom they saw in his company, could bear testimony to the truth of what

he