Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.2): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

154 CHILDREN — INDIAN DISPOSITION. unless the delinquent atones by some valuable gift. Some- times, at the command of a wizard, a man orders his wife to go to an appointed place, usually a wood, and abandon herself to the first person she meets. Yet there are women who refuse to comply with such orders." When it does happen that a man and his Avife quarrel, the woman is sometimes punished by having her two tails rather savagely pulled. I have been told that the husband scarcely ever beats her, except in the height of passion. Children are left to take care of themselves soon after they can walk. With sets of little balls (bolas) they annoy the dogs not a little, practising their future occupation. While very young they climb upon old, or quiet, horses' backs. If a young guanaco is caught and tamed, or a bird with its wings clipped hops about the tolderia, the little ones have fine sport. While infants are suckling, the mothers use frames or cradles in which their charges are carried about : they are made of flat pieces of wood, with a few semi-circular guards of lath, or thin branches, whose ends are fixed into holes in the wood. In such frames, between pieces of guanaco skin, the babies are placed ; and while travelling, these cradles are hung at the mothers' saddle-bows. The children are much indulged. Falkner says, " The old people frequently change their ha- bitations to humour the caprices of their children. If an Indian, even a cacique, wish to change his abode, and the tribe with whom he is living do not choose to part with him, it is customary to take one of his children, and pretend such a fondness for it, that they cannot part with the little favourite. The father, fond of his child, and pleased that it is so much liked, is induced to remain." Yet with all this apparent goodness of disposition, in moments of passion, these Indians have been seen to be like other savages, disgraced by the worst barbarity. Neither man, •woman, wife, nor even a smiling innocent child, is safe from that tiger in human shape — a savage in a rage. " Nunca, nunca fiarse de los Indios," is a Spanish maxim, as well founded as it is common.