remain in the dialect of the Caribs of the Mosquito coast.
As to their relative numbers at the time of the foundation of the missions,
it is most difficult to judge. At no one time does the population
of the thirty towns seem to have exceeded one hundred and thirty thousand.

--
* See Demersay, `Histoire du Paraguay', p. 324, for names of Guarani tribes.
Alfred Maury also, in his `La Terre et l'Homme Ame/ricain', p. 392,
speaks of `le rameau brasilio-guaranin, ou Cara/ibe, qui s'etendait
jadis depuis les Petites-Antilles jusqu'au Paraguay.'
--

D'Orbigny in his `L'Homme Americain', estimates the Guaranis of Brazil
at one hundred and fifty thousand.

Humboldt cites two hundred and sixty-nine thousand as the probable number
of Indians of every kind in the Brazilian Empire.

The Viscount de Itabayana (a Brazilian writer) fixes the number
at two hundred and fifty thousand to three hundred thousand.

Veloso de Oliveira puts it at eight hundred thousand;
and later statisticians range between one million five hundred thousand
and seven to eight hundred thousand.

The numbers given of Indians by the Spanish conquerors are almost always
grossly overstated, from the wish they not unnaturally had
to magnify the importance of their conquests and to enhance their exploits
in the eyes of those for whom they wrote.