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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The Fathers Of The Observance, Who Now Govern
These Vast Countries, Did Not Immediately Succeed The Jesuits.
During
an interregnum of eighteen years, the missions were visited only from
time to time, and by Capuchin monks.
The agents of the secular
government, under the title of Royal Commissioners, managed the hatos
or farms of the Jesuits with culpable negligence. They killed the
cattle for the sake of selling the hides. Many heifers were devoured
by the jaguars, and a great number perished in consequence of wounds
made by the bats of the raudales, which, though smaller, are far
bolder than the bats of the Llanos. At the time of the expedition of
the boundaries, horses from Encaramada, Carichana, and Atures, were
conveyed as far as San Jose de Maravitanos, where, on the banks of the
Rio Negro, the Portuguese could only procure them, after a long
passage, and of a very inferior quality, by the rivers Amazon and
Grand Para. Since the year 1795, the cattle of the Jesuits have
entirely disappeared. There now remain as monuments of the ancient
cultivation of these countries, and the active industry of the first
missionaries, only a few trunks of the orange and tamarind, in the
savannahs, surrounded by wild trees.
The tigers, or jaguars, which are less dangerous for the cattle than
the bats, come into the village at Atures, and devour the swine of the
poor Indians. The missionary related to us a striking instance of the
familiarity of these animals, usually so ferocious.
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