essed in this sort
of cloak, with his mask on, and shaking his rattle.

Though these people cannot be viewed without a kind of horror, when
equipped in such extravagant dresses, yet, when divested of them,
and beheld in their common habit and actions, they have not the
least appearance of ferocity in their countenances; and seem, on
the contrary, as observed already, to be of a quiet, phlegmatic, and
inactive disposition, destitute, in some measure, of that degree of
animation and vivacity that would render them agreeable as social
beings. If they are not reserved, they are far from being loquacious;
but their gravity is, perhaps, rather a consequence of the disposition
just mentioned, than of any conviction of its propriety, or the
effect of any particular mode of education. For, even in the greatest
paroxysms of their rage, they seem unable to express it sufficiently;
either with warmth of language, or significancy of gestures.

Their orations, which are made either when engaged in any altercation
or dispute, or to explain their sentiments publicly on other
occasions, seem little more than short sentences, or rather single
words, forcibly repeated, and constantly in one tone and degree of
strength, accompanied only with a single gesture, which they use at
every sentence, jerking their whole body a little forward, by bending
the knees, their arms hanging down by their sides at the same time.

Though there is but too much reason, from their bringing to sale human
skulls and bones, to infer that they treat their enemies with a degree
of brutal cruelty, this circumstance rather marks a general agreement
of character with that of almost every tribe of uncivilized man, in
every age, and in every part of the globe, than that they are to be
reproached with any charge of peculiar inhumanity. We had no reason to
judge unfavourably of their disposition in this respect. They seem to
be a docile, courteous, good-natured people; but, notwithstanding the
predominant phlegm of their tempers, quick in resenting what they look
upon as an injury, and, like most other passionate people, as soon
forgetting it. I never found that these fits of passion went farther
than the parties immediately concerned, the spectators not troubling
themselves about the quarrel, whether it was with any of us, or
amongst their own body, and preserving as much indifference as if they
had not known any thing about it. I have often seen one of them rave
and