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properum lacrymis non prosequeretur, neminem in oppido fuisse. Frater illius tum superstes eandem, quâ mater, sororque extinctæ sunt, invaletudinem sensit, sed, quia robustior, superavit. Quin et ex morbillis, qui multas in oppido edebant strages, subinde convaluit adeo, ut confirmata penitus valetudine nihil illi porro metuendum esse videretur. Hilari erat animo, statis horis sacram adivit ædem, Christiana dogmata condidicit perdiligenter, morigerum, placidumque se præbuit omnibus, ac frugis optimæ indicia passim dedit. Ad periclitandam tamen illius in oppido perseverantiam tantisper differendum ejus baptismum existimavi. Hæc inter adest forte Indus Christianus, qui hunc catechumenum me jubente suis dudum habebat in ædibus, vir

palatum faciunt. Verum dum oblectare se, ornareque oppido fatum. Paucis ab adventu suo hebdomadibus putant, se onerant, opprimuntque. Dum delicias mul-gravedine, rheumateque totum corpus pervadente tentiplicant suas, opes, viresque imminuunt quotidie, for- tabantur omnes. His oculorum, auriumque dolor, ac mæ venustatem labefactant, morbos adsciscunt sibi, haud multo post surditas successit. Morore animi, mortemque accelerant eo infeliciores, quo fuerint deli- cibique omnis fastidium vires absumpsit adeo, ut excatiores. trema demum macies, tabesque nullis remediis profi« Tres mei sylvicolæ, de quibus sermo, rituum Quara- cientibus consequeretur. Aliquot mensibus languescens niis barbaris propriorum vel immemores, vel contemp- mater senicula, Christianæ disciplinæ rudimentis rite tores fuerunt. Crinibus passis sine ulla incisione, vel imbuta, sacroque tincta latice prima occubuit, animo ligamine incedebant. Juveni nec labium pertusum, tam sereno, Divinisque voluntatibus acquiescente, ut nec vertex psittacorum plumis coronatus. Matri, filiæ. illam ad superos transisse nil dubitaverim. Puella, quæ que inaures nullæ, quamvis illa collo circumdederit mo- plena vigoris, venustatisque oppidum ingrediebatur, nilis loco funiculum, è quo frustilla ligni pyramidati, viribus exhausta, sui omnino jam dissimilis, floris instar sat multi ponderis pendebant; è mutuo illorum collisu paulatim marcescens vix ossibus hæsit, ac denique maad quemvis gressum strepitus edebatur. Primo con- trem ad tumulum secuta est, et nisi vehementissime spectu interrogavi vetulam: num ad terrendos culices fallor, ad Cælum. Quid si cum regum sapientissimo strepitans hoc monile è collo suspenderit! moxque glo- dicamus: illam post sacrum, quo expiata est, baptisma bulorum vitreorum exquisiti coloris fascem ligneis his consummatum in brevi explevisse tempora multa: plaponderibus substitui. Mater, filiusque corpore erant citam Deo fuisse animam illius: raptam esse, ne malitia procero, forma honesta; filia vultu tam candido, tamque mutaret intellectum ejus. Illud certissimum: qui ineleganti, ut à Poctis Driadas inter Nymphas, Hama-nocentissimæ puellæ integritatem laudibus, funus prædriadasque numerari, ab Europeo quovis pulchra dici tutò posset. Hilaritatem decoram affabilitati conjunctam præ se ferebat. Nostro adventu repentino minime terreri, recreari potius videbatur. Quaranica lingua loquentes nos liberales inter cachinnos risit, nos illam eadem respondentem. Cum enim extra aliorum Indorum societatem fratri, matrique duntaxat colloqueretur, verbis Quaranicis retentis quidem, ridicula quædam dialectus irrepsit. Sic quaraçi sol: yaçi luna: cheraçi ægroto dicimus reliqui, et illud c cum subjecta notula veluti s pronunciamus, quarassi, yassi, cherassi; illi quaratschi, yatschi, cheratschi dicebant. Juvenis præter matrem, sororemque nullam unquam vidit fœminam; neque præter patrem suum virum aliquem. Puella matrem duntaxat novit, nullam præterea fœminam. Vi-probus, et agri dives. Hic: mi Pater, ajebat, sylvicola rum præter fratrem suum ne eminus quidem conspexit, dum enim utero à matre gestabatur, pater ejus à tigride fuerat discerptus. Ad fructus seu humi, seu in arboribus natos conquirendos, ad ligna, foco necessaria, colligenda sylvam dumetis, arundinibus, spinisque horrentem solers puella peragravit quotidie, quibus pedes misere pertusos habebat. Ne incomitata esset, psittacum exilem humero, simiolum brachio insidentem circumtulit plerumque, nullo tigridum metu, queis omnis illa vicinia abundat, vel me ipso teste oculato. Pridie ejus diei, quo in istorum contubernium incurrimus, parum abfuit, quin dormiens à propinqua jam tigride devorarer. Indi mei ejus rugitu expergefacti et hastis et admotis celeriter ignibus vitam servarunt meam. His in nemoribus, cum minor sit ferarum copia, tigrides fame stimulante ferociunt atrocius, avidiusque in obvios assiliunt homines, quam in campis, ubi, cum infinita vis pecorum omnis generis oberret, præda, famisque remedium, quoties lubet, illis in promptu est. Novi proselyti in oppido mox vestiti reliquorum more, et præ reliquis quotidiano cibo liberaliter refecti sunt. Curatum quoque à me diligenter, ad sylvas vicinas cum aliis ut excurrant frequentius, umbra, amœnaque arborum, queis assueverant, viriditate fruituri. Experientia equidem novimus, ut pisces extra aquam cito intereunt, sic barbaros è sylvis ad oppida translatos sæpe contabescere, victus, aerisque mutatione, ac solis potissimum æstu corporum habitudinem perturbante, quippe quæ à pueritia humidis, frigidiusculis, opacisque nemoribus assueverunt. Idem fuit matris, filii, filiæque nostro in

noster equidem optime valet, verum mihi videtur ad
delirandum propendere. Nil sibi jam dolere, sed noctes
sibi insomnes abire, inquit, spectabilem sibi matrem
cum sorore adesse quot noctibus, et amica voce sibi di-
cere: Ndecaray, ndecaray ânga, nderemimô a eỹrupi
orð yu yebi ndererahabone. Sine te, quæso, baptizari.
Præter tuam expectationem veniemus iterum te abduc-
turæ. Hoc alloquio, hoc aspectu sibi somnum impediri,
ait. Jubeas illum meo nomine, respondi, bono esse
animo. Tristem matris, sororisque, quibuscum, per
omnem ætatem versatus est, recordationem somniorum
ejusmodi causam esse. Illas coelo, ut quidem mihi ve-
risimile, receptas nihil jam negotii his in terris habere.
Hæc ego.
Verum paucos post dies idem redit Indus,
eadem, quae nuper, refert, suamque de timenda cate-
chumeni deliratione suspicionem confirmat. Aliquid
rei subesse, suspicatus actutum ejus in domum propero,
sedentem deprehendo. Rogatus à me: qui se habeat?
incolumem, doloris omnis expertem se esse ridens repo-
nit, addit tamen: vigilando semper se noctem agere,
quod mater, sororque identidem præsentes sibi offeran-
tur, de baptismo accelerando moneant, et inopinate se
abducendum, minentur; idcirco nullam se quietis par-
tem capere posse, iterum, iterumque mihi affirmat can-
dore, ut semper alias, summo. Somniari ab illo talia,
atque adeo contemni posse, autumaveram; memor ta-
men, somnia monitiones cœlestes, Dei oracula non raro
exstitisse, uti divinis ex literis patet, in negotio tanti mo-
menti visum mihi est catechumeni et securitati et tran-
quillitati consulere. De illius perseverantia, de religio-

nis capitum scientia sat certus præmissis interrogationibusque necessariis eum sacris undis mox ablui, Ludovici nomine insignivi. Hoc a me præstitum 23 Junii, S. Joannis Baptista vigilia circa horam decimam antemeridianam. Eodem die circa vesperum nullo morbo, aut apoplexia indicio accedente placidissime expiravit. « Hic eventus, universo oppido compertus, quemque juratus testari possum, in admirationem rapuit omnes. Lectoris arbitrio, quid de hoc sentiendum sit, relinquo. Nunquam tamen in animum inducere meum, potui, ut factum hoc fortuitum putarem. Eximiæ Dei clementiæ tribuo, quod hi tres sylvicolæ à me sint reperti in ignotis sylvarum latebris, quod mihi ad oppidum meum, ad amplectendam religionem se hortanti morem promptissime gesserint, quod sacro latice expiati vitam clauserint. Optimum Numen in Cœlo consociatos voluit, qui tot annos in sylva contubernales fuere incredibili morum integritate. Fateor, dulcissimam mihi etiamnum accidere expeditionis ad flumen Empalado memoriam, quæ licet multis molestiis, periculisque mihi constiterit, ternis illis sylvicolis felicissima fuit; Hispanis utilissima: hi equidem à me facti certiores, quod per immensos illos nemorum tractus nulla porro Barbarorum vestigia extent, istic per triennium quæstu maximo multa centenariorum millia herbæ Paraquaricæ collegerunt. Neque id rarum, missionariorum, qui sylvas herbæ feraces barbaris liberant, sudore, ac periculo Hispanos ditescere mercatores. His tamen nunquam in mentem venit ad alendos, vestiendosque catechumenos vel micam, filumve contribuere. Illorum corpora, ut animi missionariorum sæpissime inopum curæ relinquuntur.»-Dobrizhoffer de Abiponibus, Lib. Prodromus, pp. 97-106.

PROEM.

THAT was a memorable day for Spain,
When on Pamplona's towers, so basely won,
The Frenchmen stood, and saw upon the plain
Their long-expected succours hastening on:
Exultingly they mark'd the brave array,
And deem'd their leader should his purpose gain,
Though Wellington and England barr'd the way.
Anon the bayonets glitter'd in the sun,

And frequent cannon flash'd, whose lurid light
Redden'd through sulphurous smoke: fast vollying

round

Roll'd the war-thunders, and with long rebound Backward from many a rock and cloud-capt height In answering peals Pyrene sent the sound. Impatient for relief, toward the fight The hungry garrison their eye-balls strain: Vain was the Frenchman's skill, his valour vain; And even then, when eager hope almost Had moved their irreligious lips to prayer, Averting from the fatal scene their sight, They breathed the imprecations of despair. For Wellesley's star hath risena scendant there; Once more he drove the host of France to flight, And triumphed once again for God and for the right.

That was a day, whose influence far and wide The struggling nations felt; it was a joy

Wherewith all Europe rung from side to side.
Yet hath Pamplona seen in former time
A moment big with mightier consequence,
Affecting many an age and distant clime.
That day it was which saw in her defence,
Contending with the French before her wall,
A noble soldier of Guipuzcoa fall,

Sore hurt, but not to death. For when long care
Restored his shatter'd leg and set him free,
He would not brook a slight deformity,
As one who being gay and debonnair,
In courts conspicuous, as in camps must be :
So he forsooth a shapely boot must wear;
And the vain man, with peril of his life,
Laid the recovered limb again beneath the knife.

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Long time upon the bed of pain he lay
Whiling with books the weary hours away; 2
And from that circumstance and this vain man
A train of long events their course began,
Whose term it is not given us yet to see.
Who hath not heard Loyola's sainted name,
Before whom Kings and Nations bow'd the knee?
Thy annals, Ethiopia, might proclaim
What deeds arose from that prolific day;
And of dark plots might shuddering Europe tell.
But Science too her trophies would display;
Faith give the martyrs of Japan their fame;
And Charity on works of love would dwell
In California's dolorous regions drear;
And where, amid a pathless world of wood,
Gathering a thousand rivers on his way,
Huge Orellana rolls his affluent flood;
And where the happier sons of Paraguay,

By gentleness and pious art subdued,

Bow'd their meek heads beneath the Jesuit's sway,
And lived and died in filial servitude.

I love thus uncontroll'd, as in a dream,
To muse upon the course of human things;
Exploring sometimes the remotest springs,
Far as tradition lends one guiding gleam;
Or following, upon Thought's audacious wings,
Into Futurity, the endless stream.

But now in quest of no ambitious height,
I go where truth and nature lead my way,
And ceasing here from desultory flight,
In measured strains I tell a Tale of Paraguay.

CANTO I.

I.

JENNER! for ever shall thy honour'd name Among the children of mankind be blest, Who by thy skill hast taught us how to tame One dire disease 3-the lamentable pest Which Africa sent forth to scourge the West, As if in vengeance for her sable brood So many an age remorselessly opprest. For that most fearful malady subdued Receive a poet's praise, a father's gratitude.

II.

Fair promise be this triumph of an age When Man, with vain desires no longer blind, And wise though late, his only war shall wage Against the miseries which afflict mankind, Striving with virtuous heart and strenuous mind Till evil from the earth shall pass away. Lo, this his glorious destiny assign'd! For that blest consummation let us pray, And trust in fervent faith, and labour as we may.

III.

The hideous malady which lost its power
When Jenner's art the dire contagion stay'd,
Among Columbia's sons, in fatal hour,
Across the wide Atlantic wave convey'd,
Its fiercest form of pestilence display'd:
Where'er its deadly course the plague began
Vainly the wretched sufferer look'd for aid;
Parent from child, and child from parent ran,

VIII.

Devices these by poor weak nature taught,
Which thus a change of suffering would obtain;
And flying from intolerable thought
And piercing recollections, would full fain
Distract itself by sense of fleshly pain

From anguish that the soul must else endure.
Easier all outward torments to sustain,
Than those heart-wounds which only time can cure,
And He in whom alone the hopes of man are sure.

IX.

None sorrow'd here; the sense of woe was sear'd,
When every one endured his own sore ill.
The prostrate sufferers neither hoped nor fear'd
The body labour'd, but the heart was still;-
So let the conquering malady fulfil

Its fatal course, rest cometh at the end!
Passive they lay with neither wish nor will
For aught but this; nor did they long attend

For tyrannous fear dissolved all natural bouds of man. 4 That welcome boon from death, the never-failing friend.

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And being there conceal'd in peace their lives they led. And lightly then relay the floor above his head?

V.

There had the tribe a safe asylum found

Amid those marshes wide and woodlands dense, With pathless wilds and waters spread around, And labyrinthine swamps, a sure defence From buman foes,-but not from pestilence. The spotted plague appear'd, that direst ill,How brought among them none could tell, or whence; The mortal seed had lain among them still, And quicken'd now to work the Lord's mysterious will.

VI.

Alas, it was no medicable grief

Which herbs might reach! Nor could the juggler's

power

With all his antic mummeries bring relief.
Faith might not aid him in that ruling hour,
Himself a victim now. The dreadful stour
None could escape, nor aught its force assuage.
The marriageable maiden had her dower

From death; the strong man sunk beneath its rage, And death cut short the thread of childhood and of age. VII.

No time for customary mourning now;

With hand close-clench'd to pluck the rooted hair, To beat the bosom, on the swelling brow Inflict redoubled blows, and blindly tear The cheeks, indenting bloody furrows there, The deep-traced signs indelible of woe; Then, to some crag, or bank abrupt, repair, And giving grief its scope infuriate, throw The impatient body thence upon the earth below.

XI.

Unwept, unshrouded, and unsepulchred,

The hammock where they hang, for winding-sheet
And grave suffices the deserted dead:
There from the armadillo's searching feet

Safer than if within the tomb's retreat.

The carrion birds obscene in vain essay

To find that quarry: round and round they beat The air, but fear to enter for their prey, And from the silent door the jaguar turns away. 5

XII.

But nature for her universal law Hath other surer instruments in store, Whom from the haunts of men no wonted awe Withholds as with a spell. In swarms they pour From wood and swamp: and when their work is o'er On the white bones the mouldering roof will fall; Seeds will take root, and spring in sun and shower; And Mother Earth ere long with her green pall, Resuming to herself the wreck, will cover all.

XIII.

Oh! better thus with earth to have their part,
Than in Egyptian catacombs to lie,
Age after age preserved by horrid art,
In ghastly image of humanity!6

Strange pride that with corruption thus would vie!
And strange delusion that would thus maintain
The fleshly form, till cycles shall pass by,
And in the series of the eternal chain,
The spirit come to seek its old abode again.

XIV.

One pair alone survived the general fate;
Left in such drear and mournful solitude,
That death might seem a preferable state.
Not more deprest the Arkite patriarch stood,
When landing first on Ararat he view'd,
Where all around the mountain summits lay,
Like islands seen amid the boundless flood!
Nor our first parents more forlorn than they,
Through Eden when they took their solitary way.
XV.

Alike to them, it seem'd in their despair,
Whither they wander'd from the infected spot.
Chance might direct their steps: they took no care;
Come well or ill to them, it matter'd not!
Left as they were in that unhappy lot,
The sole survivors they of all their race,

They reck'd not when their fate, nor where, nor what,
In this resignment to their hopeless case,
Indifferent to all choice or circumstance of place.

XVI.

That palsying stupor past away ere long,

And as the spring of health resumed its power, They felt that life was dear, and hope was strong. What marvel! T was with them the morning hour, When bliss appears to be the natural dower Of all the creatures of this joyous earth; And sorrow fleeting like a vernal shower Scarce interrupts the current of our mirth; Such is the happy heart we bring with us at birth.

XVII.

Though of his nature and his boundless love
Erring, yet tutor'd by instinctive sense,
They rightly deem'd the Power who rules above
Had saved them from the wasting pestilence.
That favouring power would still be their defence:
Thus were they by their late deliverance taught
To place a child-like trust in Providence,

And in their state forlorn they found this thought Of natural faith with hope and consolation fraught.

XVIII.

And now they built themselves a leafy bower,
Amid a glade, slow Mondai's stream beside,
Screen'd from the southern blast of piercing power:
Not like their native dwelling, long and wide,
By skilful toil of numbers edified,

The common home of all, their human nest,
Where threescore hammocks pendant side by side
Were ranged, and on the ground the fires were drest;
Alas that populous hive hath now no living guest!

XIX.

A few firm stakes they planted in the ground, Circling a narrow space, yet large enow; These strongly interknit they closed around With basket-work of many a pliant bough. The roof was like the sides; the door was low, And rude the hut, and trimm'd with little care, For little heart had they to dress it now; Yet was the humble structure fresh and fair, And soon its inmates found that Love might sojourn

there.

XX.

Quiara could recall to mind the course

Of twenty summers; perfectly he knew Whate'er his fathers taught of skill or force. Right to the mark his whizzing lance he threw, And from his bow the unerring arrow flew With fatal aim: and when the laden bee Buzz'd by him in its flight, he could pursue Its path with certain ken,7 and follow free Until he traced the hive in hidden bank or tree.

XXI.

Of answering years was Monnema, nor less Expert in all her sex's household ways. The Indian weed she skilfully could dress; And in what depth to drop the yellow maize She knew, and when around its stem to raise The lighten'd soil; and well could she prepare Its ripen'd seed for food, her proper 'praise; Or in the embers turn with frequent care Its succulent head yet green, sometimes for daintier fare.

XXII.

And how to macerate the bark she knew, And draw apart its beaten fibres fine, And bleaching them in sun, and air, and dew; From dry and glossy filaments entwine With rapid twirl of hand the lengthening line; Next interknitting well the twisted thread, In many an even mesh its knots combine, And shape in tapering length the pensile bed, Light hammock there to hang beneath the leafy shed.

XXIII

Time had been when expert in works of clay She lent her hands the swelling urn to mould, And fill'd it for the appointed festal day With the beloved beverage which the bold Quaff'd in their triumph and their joy of old; The fruitful cause of many an uproar rude, When in their drunken bravery uncontroll'd, Some bitter jest awoke the dormant feud, And wrath and rage and strife and wounds and death ensued.

XXIV.

These occupations were gone by the skill
Was useless now, which once had been her pride.
Content were they, when thirst impell'd, to fill
The dry and hollow gourd from Mondai's side;
The river from its sluggish bed supplied

A draught for repetition all unmeet;
Howbeit the bodily want was satisfied;

No feverish pulse ensued, nor ireful heat,

Their days were undisturb'd, their natural sleep was

sweet.

XXV.

She too had learut in youth how best to trim The honoured Chief for his triumphal day, And covering with soft gums the obedient limb And body, then with feathers overlay, In regular hues disposed,8 a rich display. Well-pleased the glorious savage stood and eyed The growing work; then vain of his array Look'd with complacent frown from side to side, Stalk'd with elater step, and swell'd with statelier pride.

XXVI.
Feasts and carousals,9 vanity and strife,
Could have no place with them in solitude
To break the tenor of their even life.
Quiara day by day his game pursued,
Searching the air, the water, and the wood,
With hawk-like eye, and arrow sure as fate;
And Monnema prepared the hunter's food:
Cast with him here in this forlorn estate,
In all things for the man was she a fitting mate.

XXVII.

The Moon had gather'd oft her monthly store
Of light, and oft in darkness left the sky,
Since Monnema a growing burthen bore
Of life and hope. The appointed weeks go by;
And now her hour is come, and none is nigh
To help but human help she needed none.
A few short throes endured with scarce a cry,
Upon the bank she laid her new-born son,
Then slid into the stream,

XXXII.

Thus Monnema and thus Quiara thought,
Though each the melancholy thought represt;
They could not chuse but feel, yet uttered not
The human feeling, which in hours of rest
Often would rise, and fill the boding breast
With a dread foretaste of that mournful day,
When, at the inexorable Power's behest,
The unwilling spirit, called perforce away,
Must leave, for ever leave, its dear connatural clay.

XXXIII.

Link'd as they were, where each to each was all,
How might the poor survivor hope to bear
That heaviest loss which one day must befall,
Nor sink beneath the weight of his despair.
Scarce could the heart even for a moment dare
That miserable time to contemplate,

When the dread Messenger should find them there,
From whom is no escape,-and reckless Fate,

and bathed, and all was done. Whom it had bound so close, for ever separate.

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Still laid his snares for birds, and still the chase pursued. From all mankind, their hearts and their desires were one.

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