38 JOUENAL OF A VOYAGE 



rest beiug left below to await their return, A very little way above, 

 they encountered a large encampment of Guaharibos, by whom they 

 were received amicably ; in return for which they rose on the Indians by 

 night, killed as many of the men as they could, and carried off the 

 children. One of these captives is still living near the upper mouth of 

 the Casiquiare, where I hope to see and converse with him. Treatment 

 such as this of course is calculated to confirm, and perhaps it was the 

 original cause of, the hostility of these Indians to the whites. The 

 same sort of thing seems to have been practised anciently among the 

 head-waters of all these rivers. On the Kio Negro, where the Portu- 

 guese had formerly large "fazendas reaes," in which were cultivated 

 gi'eat quantities of coffee, indigo, etc., it was the custom to recruit from 

 time to time the hands required for working them, by sending armed 

 men up the various rivers debouching into the Eio Negro and Japura, 



to make"pegas" (razzias) among the indigenous inhabitants. The 

 " fazendas reaes " have disappeared, and the Brazilian Government has 



promulgated edicts against the seizing of the n^ive inhabitants and re- 

 ducing them to slavery ; yet the practice still exists, and is connived at, 

 I speak of this with certainty, because since I came up the Eio Negro 

 two such expeditions have been sent up a tributary of the Uaupes 

 called the Eio Paapuris, to make "pegas" among the Carapana Indians ; 

 and in the second of these, which was sent from Panure early in the 

 present year, I was in some sort an accomplice, though unwittingly, 

 having lent a gun to one of the Indians engaged in it, not knowing 

 for what purpose it was intended. I have also seen and conversed with 

 two female children stolen from the Carapanas in these expeditions. 



The Eio Paapuris enters the Uaupes from the south, at the third 

 cataract (called Jaguarate^ or the Tiger) of the latter, about four days 

 above Panure, It is a beautiful river, being in its lower part a succes- 

 sion of cataracts. I spent a day in it, and would have liked to ascend 

 high on it ; but I was informed that the Carapanas were everywhere on 

 the alert, and that the paths leading to their maloccas were stuck with 

 stripes of Paxiuba Palm {Iriartea exorrUza, Mart.), which, besides being 

 as hard as nails, and capable of themselves to inflict a serious wound 

 were in many cases tipped with Uirari poison. 



To return to the Orinoco. I have met at San Carlos several people 

 who have been as far as the Eandal de los Guaharibos. The most 

 intelligent of these, and the person who perhaps of all others knows 



