BAN FERNANDO Ut APUEE. 137 



morning we pursued our way over low grounds, often in- 

 undated. Tu the season of rains, a boat may be navigated, 

 as on a lake, between the Guarico and the Apure. "We 

 arrived on the 27th of March at the Villa de San Fer- 

 nando, the capital of the Mission of the Capuchins in the 

 province of Varinas. This was the termination of our 

 journey over the Llanos ; for we passed the three months 

 of April, May, and June on the rivers. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



San Fernando de Apure. Intertwinings and Bifurcations of the Rivera 

 Apure and Arauca. Navigation on the Rio Apure. 



TILL the second half of the eighteenth century the names 

 of the great rivers Apure, Arauca, and Meta were scarcely 

 known in Europe : certainly less than they had been in the 

 two preceding centuries, when the valiant Felipe de Urre 

 and the conquerors of Tocuyo traversed the Llanos, to seek, 

 beyond the Apure, the great legendary city of El Dorado, 

 an'd the rich country of the Omeguas, the Timbuctoo of the 

 New Continent. Such daring expeditions could not be car- 

 ried out without all the apparatus of war ; and the weapons, 

 which had been destined for the defence of the new colo- 

 nists, were employed without intermission against the 

 unhappy natives. When more peaceful times succeeded 

 to those of violence and public calamity, two powerful 

 Indian tribes, the Cabres and the Caribs of the Orinoco, 

 made themselves masters of the country which the Con- 

 quistadores had ceased to ravage. None but poor monks 

 were then permitted to advance to the south of the steppes. 

 Beyond the TJritucu an unknown world opened to the 

 Spanish colonists; and the descendants of those intrepid 

 warriors who had extended their conquests from Peru to 

 the coasts of New Grenada and the mouth of the Amazon, 

 knew not the roads that lead from Coro to the Rio Meta. 

 The shore of Venezuela remained a separate country ; and 

 the slow conquests of the Jesuit missionaries were success- 

 ful only by skirting the banks of the Orinoco. These 



