The Tamanacs Call A Cascade, Or Raudal, In General Uatapurutpe; The Maypures, Uca.); While The Name Of The Village Is Derived From That Of The Nation Of Atures, Now Believed To Be Extinct.

I find on the maps of the seventeenth century, Island and Cataract of Athule; which is the word Atures

Written according to the pronunciation of the Tamanacs, who confound, like so many other people, the consonants l and r. This mountainous region was so little known in Europe, even in the middle of the eighteenth century, that D'Anville, in the first edition of his South America, makes a branch issue from the Orinoco, near Salto de los Atures, and fall into the Amazon, to which branch he gives the name of Rio Negro.

Early maps, as well as Father Gumilla's work, place the Mission in latitude 1 degree 30 minutes. Abbe Gili gives it 3 degrees 50 minutes. I found, by meridian altitudes of Canopus and a of the Southern Cross, 5 degrees 38 minutes 4 seconds for the latitude; and by the chronometer 4 hours 41 minutes 17 seconds of longitude west of the meridian of Paris.

We found this small Mission in the most deplorable state. It contained, even at the time of the expedition of Solano, commonly called the expedition of the boundaries, three hundred and twenty Indians. This number had diminished, at the time of our passage by the Cataracts, to forty-seven; and the missionary assured us that this diminution became from year to year more sensible.

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