ve availed himself of the confidence and affection he had inspired, so
as to gather the remnants of his mission again, we cannot say. At any
rate, he consoled himself for the disastrous failure at Natal by setting
forth on a fresh scheme of Christian knight-errantry on behalf of the
Indians of South America.

Long ago, in Brazil, the Jesuits had done their best to Christianize and
protect the Indians; but the Portuguese settlers had, as usual, savagely
resented any interference with their cruel oppressions, broken up the
Jesuit settlement, and sold their unfortunate converts as slaves. After
this, the Jesuit Fathers had formed excellent establishments in the more
independent country of Paraguay, lying to the south, where they had many
churches, and peaceful, prosperous, happy communities of Christian
Indians around them. South American Indians are essentially childish
beings; and the Jesuits, when providing labour enough to occupy them
wholesomely, found themselves obliged to undertake the disposal of the
produce, thus not merely rendering their mission self-supporting, but so
increasing the wealth of the already powerful Order as to render it a
still greater object of jealousy to the European potentates; and when, in
the eighteenth century, the tide of opposition set strongly against it,
the unecclesiastical traffic of the settlements in Paraguay was one of
the accusations. The result was, that the Jesuit Fathers were banished
from South America in 1767; and whether it was that they had neglected to
train the Indians in self-reliance, or whether it was impossible to do
so, their departure led to an immediate collapse into barbarism; nor had
anything since been done on behalf of the neglected race. Indeed, the
break-up of all Spanish authority had been doubly fatal to the natives,
by removing all protection, and leaving them to the self-interested
violence of the petty republics, unrestrained by any loftier
consideration.

In the Republic of Buenos Ayres, under the dictatorship of General Rosas,
the lot of these poor creatures was specially cruel. A war of
extermination was carried on against them, and eighty had at one time
been shot together in the market-place of the capital. Nothing could be
done towards reclaiming them while so savage a warfare lasted; but
Gardiner hoped to push on to the more northerly tribes, on the borders of
Chili, and he took a journey to reconnoitre across the Pampas, with many
strang