We Found In This Small Village Of One Hundred And Twenty Inhabitants Some Traces Of Industry; But The Produce Of This Industry Is Of Little Profit To The Natives; It Is Reserved For The Monks, Or, As They Say In These Countries, For The Church And The Convent.

We were assured that a great lamp of massive silver, purchased at the expense of the neophytes, is expected

From Madrid. Let us hope that, after the arrival of this treasure, they will think also of clothing the Indians, of procuring for them some instruments of agriculture, and assembling their children in a school. Although there are a few oxen in the savannahs round the mission, they are rarely employed in turning the mill (trapiche), to express the juice of the sugar-cane; this is the occupation of the Indians, who work without pay here as they do everywhere when they are understood to work for the church. The pasturages at the foot of the mountains round Santa Barbara are not so rich as at Esmeralda, but superior to those at San Fernando de Atabapo. The grass is short and thick, yet the upper stratum of earth furnishes only a dry and parched granitic sand. The savannahs (far from fertile) of the banks of the Guaviare, the Meta, and the Upper Orinoco, are equally destitute of the mould which abounds in the surrounding forests, and of the thick stratum of clay, which covers the sandstone of the Llanos, or steppes of Venezuela. The small herbaceous mimosas contribute in this zone to fatten the cattle, but are very rare between the Rio Jao and the mouth of the Guaviare.

During the few hours of our stay at the mission of Santa Barbara, we obtained pretty accurate ideas respecting the Rio Ventuari, which, next to the Guaviare, appeared to me to be the most considerable tributary of the Orinoco. Its banks, heretofore occupied by the Maypures, are still peopled by a great number of independent nations. On going up by the mouth of the Ventuari, which forms a delta covered with palm-trees, you find in the east, after three days' journey, the Cumaruita and the Paru, two streams that rise at the foot of the lofty mountains of Cuneva. Higher up, on the west, lie the Mariata and the Manipiare, inhabited by the Macos and Curacicanas. The latter nation is remarkable for their active cultivation of cotton. In a hostile incursion (entrada) a large house was found containing more than thirty or forty hammocks of a very fine texture of spun cotton, cordage, and fishing implements. The natives had fled; and Father Valor informed us, that the Indians of the mission who accompanied him had set fire to the house before he could save these productions of the industry of the Curacicanas. The neophytes of Santa Barbara, who think themselves very superior to these supposed savages, appeared to me far less industrious. The Rio Manipiare, one of the principal branches of the Ventuari, approaches near its source those lofty mountains, the northern ridge of which gives birth to the Cuchivero. It is a prolongation of the chain of Baraguan; and there Father Gili places the table-land of Siamacu, of which he vaunts the temperate climate. The upper course of the Rio Ventuari, beyond the confluence of the Asisi, and the Great Raudales, is almost unknown. I was informed only that the Upper Ventuari bends so much towards the east that the ancient road from Esmeralda to the Rio Caura crosses the bed of the river. The proximity of the tributary streams of the Carony, the Caura, and the Ventuari, has facilitated for ages the access of the Caribs to the banks of the Upper Orinoco. Bands of this warlike and trading people went up from the Rio Carony, by the Paragua, to the sources of the Paruspa. A portage conducted them to the Chavarro, an eastern tributary stream of the Rio Caura; they descended with their canoes first this stream, and then the Caura itself as far as the mouth of the Erevato. After having gone up this last river south-west, and traversed vast savannahs for three days, they entered by the Manipiare into the great Rio Ventuari. I trace this road with precision not only because it was that by which the traffic of native slaves was carried on, but also to call the attention of those, who at some future day may rule the destiny of Guiana, to the high importance of this labyrinth of rivers.

It is by the four largest tributary streams, which the majestic river of the Orinoco receives on the right (the Carony, the Caura, the Padamo, and the Ventuari), that European civilization will one day penetrate into this region of forests and mountains, which has a surface of ten thousand six hundred square leagues, and which is bounded by the Orinoco on the north, the west, and the south. The Capuchins of Catalonia and the Observantins of Andalusia and Valencia, have already made settlements in the valleys of the Carony and the Caura. The tributary streams of the Lower Orinoco, being the nearest to the coast and to the cultivated region of Venezuela, were naturally the first to receive missionaries, and with them some germs of social life. Corresponding to the Carony and the Caura, which flow toward the north, are two great tributary streams of the Upper Orinoco, that send their waters toward the south; these are the Padamo and the Ventuari. No village has hitherto risen on their banks, though they offer advantages for agriculture and pasturage, which would be sought in vain in the valley of the immense river to which they are tributary. In the centre of these wild countries, where there will long be no other road than the rivers, every project of civilization should be founded on an intimate knowledge of the hydraulic features of the country, and the relative importance of the tributary streams.

In the morning of the 26th of May we left the little village of Santa Barbara, where we found several Indians of Esmeralda, who had come reluctantly, by order of the missionary, to construct for him a house of two stories.

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