dreadful foe to peace! It came with the settlers into colonies. The Jesuit missionaries suffered from it in Paraguay as soon as the Spanish Government permitted settlements in the country. One of them says of his Indians: "They were not only made to contract a liking for brandy there, but even prevailed upon to bring quantities of it home with them, unknown to the missionaries. By this means drunkenness was introduced into the Reduction (Mission), and caused in it all those disorders that might naturally be expected from barbarians so lately reclaimed." In fact, it destroyed the influence of the padres, and was the principal cause of the ruin of so fair and promising a moral structure. Piotrowski assures his readers that the Ostiacks of Siberia, "although they exhibit no sympathy for the better influences of civilization, are all ready to accept its vices; without exception, they have the true savage love of spirits, and instances have not unfrequently occurred when its victims have drunk themselves to death at a single sitting." Similar records can be written of other races.
The Tasmanians were affected as others by its use. Mr. G. Robertson, the leader of a roving party, says of them: "You must not judge of their capability by what you have seen of those who have been caught and trained to rum-drinking, smoking, and swearing among the most abandoned of our prisoner population." As early as Nov. 7th, 1818, there was a Government order against giving the Natives "Bull," or spirits, "whereby the said Natives have become riotous and offensive by their fighting in the streets, and committing wanton barbarities on each other."
But it is useless to descant further upon evils admitted by all to be the product of drink among the Aborigines.
As at the time of writing this part of the work I am being whirled round the tempest-torn shore of Cape Horn, I am reminded of the swarthy race paddling from islet to islet of Terra del Fuego.
Of their lack of civilization Captain Fitzroy and others have informed us, of their pre-existing civilization we can see no trace, of their ultimate civilization we have little hope. Their origin is set in darkness, their fate is gloomy extinction. Patagonia, with its vast plains of glacial loose rocks and pebbles, presents few attractions for colonization, leave alone
