Capuchin Missions of the Caroni. 27 



quired a peculiarly malignant character, which can be attributed 

 to nothing but the slaughter of the cattle ; and truly the place 

 presented a horrid spectacle. The animals had been killed 

 in the very centre of the square, and the flesh was hung up to 

 dry in the sun on the lee-side, but so thick and near one piece 

 to another, as to aggravate the stench of the ofFal, ^c, §-c., 

 left to rot hard by. At the period of my visit, the place was 

 actually beleaguered with horns, skulls, and bones ; and though 

 the square itself had recently been swept, and the rubbish burnt, 

 yet the whole environs were covered with the relics, and thou- 

 sands of vultures gorging in triumph. Even the church had 

 been polluted with the meat ; the gallery was still full of rotting 

 hides, which I recommended to be burnt forthwith. The conse- 

 quences of this criminal negligence were really dreadful ; the 

 people employed in the butchery all died ; their families caught 

 the infection and perished in the same way. So rapid had the 

 mortality been, that many bodies were to be found in their 

 houses, either altogether unburied, or merely covered by the 

 earth of the floor. The author of so much misery has been most 

 properly displaced : but the present director, who had been 

 endeavouring to purify the town, has suffered severely for the 

 faults of his predecessor. His whole family, himself excepted, 

 is daily attacked by the fever. Five Indian boys are all that 

 remain to do the duty of the place, and these have been brought 

 in from the woods, whither they had betaken themselves. It 

 appears that not a few of the deserters from the late levies 

 which were here embarked, are still lurking in the neighbouring 

 woods, and cannot be induced to return. Breakfasted with the 

 old gentleman upon fish, of which a native employed in the 

 fishery brings him abundance from the river. After remaining 

 an hour to bait the horses, returned to dine at San Felix. K. 

 had been unsuccessful in his search. The baggage was divided 

 into two parcels, the hardened state of our saddles making it 

 impossible for us to carry our valises, and it therefore became 

 necessary to send oft' one division by water from San Joaquin 

 in order to remount K. on his mule. John had with no small 

 difliculty procured us some eatables, these parts having been en- 



