Though they lack invention in themselves, yet are they excellent in imitation. Ambitious of command, they acquit themselves with honour in the positions to which they may attain. Eloquence is held amongst them in the first place, and avarice in no respect degrades their minds. An injurious word offends them more than punishments, which they solicit rather than undergo the former outrage. Incontinency in their women they look upon but with indifference, and even husbands are little sensible to acts of infidelity.
Conjugal love has but slight influence upon the treatment which they give their wives.
Fathers of families care for their sons but little. No one who knows the Indians but must confess that Dean Funes had made a study of their character deeper than is his own. The man himself was an extremely able writer, a captain in the Spanish navy, and well educated. For twenty years he served in Paraguay and in the River Plate, with credit to himself and profit to the country which he served. Educated as he was in the school of the Encyclopaedists, amongst the strictest of the pharisees of Liberalism, to him the very name of Jesuit was anathema.