es
of Terra del Fuego, or Van Diemen's Land.

The Christian religion, or what the monks are pleased to call by that
name, has given no beneficial spur to their minds. How indeed could it
act upon their confined understandings, when their teachers were almost
wholly deficient in the necessary means of communicating knowledge,--an
acquaintance with their language? I have since had opportunities of
observing the free Indians, who appear less stupid, and in many respects
more civilized, than the proselytes of the _gente rationale_, as the
Spaniards here call themselves; and I am convinced that the system of
instruction and discipline adopted by the monks, has certainly tended
to degrade even these step-children of Nature. If to raise them to the
rank of intellectual beings had been really the object in view, rather
than making them the mock professors of a religion they are incapable of
understanding, they should have been taught the arts of agriculture and
architecture, and the method of breeding cattle; they should have been
made proprietors of the land they cultivated, and should have freely
enjoyed its produce. Had this been done, _los barbaros_ might soon have
stood on a level with the _gente rationale_.

There are in California many different races of Indians, whose languages
vary so much from each other, as sometimes to have scarcely any
resemblance; in the single mission of Santa Clara more than twenty
languages are spoken. These races are all alike ugly, stupid, dirty, and
disgusting: they are of a middle size, weak, and of a blackish colour;
they have flat faces, thick lips, broad negro-noses, scarcely any
foreheads, and black, coarse, straight hair. The powers of their mind
lie yet profoundly dormant; and La Perouse does not perhaps exaggerate
when he affirms, that if any one among them can be made to comprehend
that twice two make four, he may pass, in comparison with his
countrymen, for a Descartes or a Newton. To most of them, this important
arithmetical proposition would certainly be perfectly incomprehensible.

In their wild state, all these Indians lead a wandering life. It is only
recently that they have begun to build huts of underwood, which they
burn whenever they remove from the spot. The chase is their sole
occupation and means of subsistence. Hence their skill in shooting with
arrows has cost many Spanish lives. They lie in wait at night, in the
forests and mountains, watching for game.

Agricult