Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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She Was There Thrown Into One Of The Caravanserais, Called Las Casas
Del Rey.
It was the rainy season, and the night was profoundly dark.
Forests till then believed to be impenetrable separated the mission of
Javita from that of San Fernando, which was twenty-five leagues
distant in a straight line.
No other route is known than that by the
rivers; no man ever attempted to go by land from one village to
another. But such difficulties could not deter a mother, separated
from her children. The Guahiba was carelessly guarded in the
caravanserai. Her arms being wounded, the Indians of Javita had
loosened her bonds, unknown to the missionary and the alcaldes. Having
succeeded by the help of her teeth in breaking them entirely, she
disappeared during the night; and at the fourth sunrise was seen at
the mission of San Fernando, hovering around the hut where her
children were confined. "What that woman performed," added the
missionary, who gave us this sad narrative, "the most robust Indian
would not have ventured to undertake!" She traversed the woods at a
season when the sky is constantly covered with clouds, and the sun
during whole days appears but for a few minutes. Did the course of the
waters direct her way? The inundations of the rivers forced her to go
far from the banks of the main stream, through the midst of woods
where the movement of the water is almost imperceptible. How often
must she have been stopped by the thorny lianas, that form a network
around the trunks they entwine! How often must she have swum across
the rivulets that run into the Atabapo! This unfortunate woman was
asked how she had sustained herself during four days. She said that,
exhausted with fatigue, she could find no other nourishment than those
great black ants called vachacos, which climb the trees in long bands,
to suspend on them their resinous nests. We pressed the missionary to
tell us whether the Guahiba had peacefully enjoyed the happiness of
remaining with her children; and if any repentance had followed this
excess of cruelty. He would not satisfy our curiosity; but at our
return from the Rio Negro we learned that the Indian mother was again
separated from her children, and sent to one of the missions of the
Upper Orinoco. There she died, refusing all kind of nourishment, as
savages frequently do in great calamities.
Such is the remembrance annexed to this fatal rock, the Piedra de la
Madre. In this relation of my travels I feel no desire to dwell on
pictures of individual suffering - evils which are frequent wherever
there are masters and slaves, civilized Europeans living with people
in a state of barbarism, and priests exercising the plenitude of
arbitrary power over men ignorant and without defence. In describing
the countries through which I passed, I generally confine myself to
pointing out what is imperfect, or fatal to humanity, in their civil
or religious institutions. If I have dwelt longer on the Rock of the
Guahiba, it was to record an affecting instance of maternal tenderness
in a race of people so long calumniated; and because I thought some
benefit might accrue from publishing a fact, which I had from the
monks of San Francisco, and which proves how much the system of the
missions calls for the care of the legislator.
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