their hair and teeth to an extreme old age, their sight was keen, they seldom looked you in the face whilst speaking, and their disposition was cold and reserved. The tone of their voices was low, so low that, as Azara says: `La voz nunca es gruesa ni sonora, y hablan siempre muy bajo, sin gritar aun para quejarse si los matan; de manera que, si camina uno diez pasos delante, no le llama el que le necesita, sino que va á alcanzarle.' This I have myself observed when travelling with Indians, even on horseback.

There was one characteristic of the Guaranís in which they differed greatly from most of the Indian tribes in their vicinity, as the Indians of the Chaco and the Pampas, for all historians alike agree that they were most unwarlike. It is from this characteristic that the Jesuits were able to make such a complete conquest of them, for, notwithstanding all their efforts, they never really succeeded in permanently establishing themselves amongst any of the tribes in the Chaco or upon the Pampas.

The name Guaraní is variously derived. Pedro de Angelis, in his `Coleccion de Obras y Documentos', derives it from gua, paint, and ni, sign of the plural, making the signification of the word `painted ones' or `painted men'. Demersay, in his `Histoire du Paraguay',[25] thinks it probable that the word is an alteration of the word guaranai, i.e., numerous. Barco de la Centenera[26] (`Argentina', book i., canto i.) says the word means `hornet', and was applied on account of their savageness. Be that as it may, it is certain that the Guaranís did not at the time of the conquest, and do not now, apply the word to themselves, except when talking Spanish or to a foreigner. The word abá, Indian or man, is how they speak of their people, and to the language they apply the word Abanêe.

In the same way the word `Paraguay' is variously derived from a corruption of the word `Payaguá' (the name of an Indian tribe), and y, the Guaraní word for water, meaning river of the Payaguas. Others, again, derive it from a Guaraní word meaning `crown', and y, water, and make it the crowned river, either from the palm-trees which crown its banks or the feather crowns which the Indians wore at the first conquest. Others, again, derive it from a bird called paraquá (Ortolida paraqua). Again, Angelis, in his work `Serie de los Señores Gobernadores del Paraguay' (lib. ii., p. 187), derives it from Paraguá, the name of a celebrated Indian chief at the time of the conquest. What is certain is that y is the Guaraní for water, and this is something in a derivation. Y is perhaps as hard to pronounce as the Gaelic luogh, a calf, the nasal gh in Arabic, or the Kaffir clicks, having both a guttural and a nasal aspiration.[27] It is rarely attempted with success by foreigners, even when long resident in the country. Though Paraguay was so completely the country of the Jesuits in after-times, they were not the first religious Order to go there. Almost in every instance the ecclesiastics who accompanied the first conquerors of America were Franciscans. The Jesuits are said to have sent two priests to Bahia in Brazil ten years after their Order was founded, but both in Brazil and Paraguay the Franciscans were before them in point of time.