220 MISSION OF CARICHANA. 



narrows. Pull of little islands and masses of granite rock, 

 it presents rapids, or small cascades (remolinos), which at 

 first sight may alarm the traveller by the continual eddies 

 of the water, but which at no season of the year are dan- 

 gerous for boats. A range of shoals, that crosses almost 

 the whole river, bears the name of the Randal de Marimara. 

 We passed it without difficulty by a narrow channel, in 

 which the water seems to boil up as it issues out impetu- 

 ously* below the Piedra de Marimara., a compact mass of 

 granite eighty feet high, and three hundred feet in cir- 

 cumference, without fissures, or any trace of stratification. 

 The river penetrates far into the land, and forms spacious 

 bays in the rocks. One of these bays, inclosed between 

 two promontories destitute of vegetation, is called the Port 

 of Carichana.f The spot has a very wild aspect. In the 

 evening the rocky coasts project their vast shadows over 

 the surface of the river. The waters appear black from 

 reflecting the image of these granitic masses, which, in the 

 colour of their external surface, sometimes resemble coal, 

 and sometimes lead-ore. We passed the night in the small 

 village of Carichana, where we were received at the priest's 

 house, or convento. It was nearly a fortnight since we had 

 slept under a roof. 



To avoid the effects of the inundations, often so fatal to 

 health, the Mission of Carichana has been established at 

 three quarters of a league from the river. The Indians in 

 this Mission are of the nation of the Salives, and they have 

 a disagreeable and nasal pronunciation. Their language, of 

 which the Jesuit Anisson has composed a grammar still in 

 manuscript, is, with the Caribbean, the Tamanac, the May- 

 pure, the Ottomac, the Guahive, and the Jaruro, one of the 

 mother-tongues most general on the Orinoco. Father Gili 

 thinks that the Ature, the Piraoa, and the Quaqua or 

 Mapoye, are only dialects of the Salive. My journey was 

 much too rapid to enable me to judge of the accuracy of 

 this opinion ; but we shall soon see that, in the village of 

 Ature, celebrated on account of its situation near the great 

 cataracts, neither the Salive nor the Ature is now spoken, 

 but the language of the Maypures. In the Salive of Cari- 



* These places are called chorreras in the Spanish colonies. 

 f Piedra y puerto de Carichana. 



