DOBRIZHOFFER, MARTIN, Jeenit missionary to the South American Indians, was born at Gritz, in Styria, in 1717. He was admitted into the Society of Jesus in 1736, and ha'viog undergoue the regular course of training and probation, was sent in 1749 to the society's mission in Paraguay. Dobrizhoffer dwelt among the Abipones and Guarinis for eighteen years. when, on the expulsion of the Jesuit missionaries from Spanish South America, in 1767, he was compelled to return to Europe. He took up his residence at Vienna, where he became much noticed, on account of his descriptions of the people among whom be had laboured. The empress Maria-Theresa is said to have been a frequent auditor to his animated narratives. At length he was induced to write an account of the more remarkable of the two races. In 1784 this account was published at Vienna, under the title of ' Historia de Abiponibus, equestri bellicosaque Paraguaries Nations, locupletata copiods barbarum gentium, urbiuna, hominum, foreruns, amphibiorum, insectorum, serpentium prmeipuorum, piscium, avium, arborum, plantarum, aliarumque ejnadem provincim proprie tatum obserTationiburs' 3 vole. 8vo. Dobrizhoffer's account of the Abiponcs is very ample, and minute even to tediousness; and though It contains many curious and interesting facts about a people long since (1770) migrated from their own country [Aereesses, in ENG. CYO.,
GEOG. Dm), it is impossible to read It without considerable scepti cism. Dobrizhoffer was in fact an old man when he wrote his history, and some sixteen years had passed away since he was compelled to leave the country; and, like Bruce, his imagination had come to play falsely with his memory. Thus when, in illustration of the longevity of this wonderful race, he says that an Abiponian wbo dies at eighty is thought to have come to an untimely end, and that in ordinary cases a man of a hundred has his sight and hearing unimpaired, and can leap on his horse as nimbly as a boy, and without fatigue sit there for hours, we are constrained to hesitate about accepting the state ment without some grains of allowance. Dobrizhoffer's book was a favourite with Southey, and at his suggestion Sara Coleridge trans lated it into English : 'An Account of the Abipones, an Equestrian people of Paraguay,' 3 vols. 8vo, 1822. It has also been translated into German.