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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There is no missionary at Esmeralda; the monk appointed to celebrate
mass in that hamlet is settled at Santa Barbara, more than fifty
leagues distant; and he visits this spot but five or six times in a
year. We were cordially received by an old officer, who took us for
Catalonian shopkeepers, and who supposed that trade had led to the
missions. On seeing packages of paper intended for drying our plants,
he smiled at our simple ignorance. "You come," said he, "to a country
where this kind of merchandise has no sale; we write little here; and
the dried leaves of maize, the platano (plantain-tree), and the vijaho
(heliconia), serve us, like paper in Europe, to wrap up needles,
fish-hooks, and other little articles of which we are careful." This
old officer united in his person the civil and ecclesiastical
authority. He taught the children, I will not say the Catechism, but
the Rosary; he rang the bells to amuse himself; and impelled by ardent
zeal for the service of the church, he sometimes used his chorister's
wand in a manner not very agreeable to the natives.
Notwithstanding the small extent of the mission, three Indian
languages are spoken at Esmeralda; the Idapimanare, the Catarapenno,
and the Maquiritan. The last of these prevails on the Upper Orinoco,
from the confluence of the Ventuari as far as that of the Padamo (*
The Arivirianos of the banks of the Ventuari speak a dialect of the
language of the Maquiritares.
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