race resembling the Patagonians, but speak a quite different language.  Their dispositions are friendly and inoffensive, but they are a bold and active enemy when provoked.  They are now reduced to a small number by the ravages of the small-pox.  The fourth race, called the Tehuelhets, or in their own language the Tehuel-kunnees or southern-men, are the real Patagonians.  These are again subdivided into many tribes, all of which and the Chechehets also are called Serranos or mountaineers by the Spaniards.  The Leuvuches, who seem to be the head tribe of all the Serranos, live on the Rio Negro.  They speak the same language with the Chechehets, but with a small mixture of the Tehuel.  This tribe used to keep on good terms with the Spaniards, that they might hunt in security in the pampas or immense plains of Buenos Ayres.  About the year 1740, however, they were provoked to war by a most wanton and treacherous attack, and Buenos Ayres would in all probability have been destroyed, had not these injured people been appeased by the Jesuit missionaries.  The Tehuelhets are more numerous than all the other tribes of these parts together, and are the perpetual enemies of the Moluches who are so terrible to the Spaniards, whom they would have long since destroyed if they had been equally well supplied with horses.

To the south of these are the Chulilau-Kunnees, and the Sehuan-Kunnees, who are the most southerly of the equestrian tribes.  The country beyond them, all the way to the Straits of Magellan, is possessed by the last of the Tehuel tribes, called Yacana-Kunnees or foot-people, as they have no horses.  These are an inoffensive race, who are very swift runners, and subsist mostly on fish.  The other Tehuelhets and the Huilliches sometimes attack this tribe for the purpose of making slaves of the prisoners.  The ordinary stature of all the Tehuel tribes is from six to seven feet.  None of the Puelches either keep sheep or cultivate the ground, but depend altogether on hunting, for which purpose they keep a great number of dogs.

The belief in an infinite number of spirits, good and evil, is common to all the native tribes south of the Rio Plata.  From the north of that river to the Orinoco a different language prevails, accompanied by a different form of superstition The Puelches do not appear to acknowledge any of those numerous spirits as supreme over the rest.  The Taluhets and Diuihets call a good spirit Soychu, or he who presides in the land of strong drink.  The Tehuelhets call an evil spirit Atskanna Kanatz, the other Puelches denominate the same being Valichu.  Huecuvu must be another name for the evil spirit; as the Chechehets give the name of Huecuvu-mapu or the devils-country to a great sandy desert, into which they never venture lest they should be overwhelmed.