230 NAVIGATION OF THE EITEE. 



of two rivers which descend from the paramos of Chingasa 

 and Suma Paz. The first is the Bio Negro, which, lower 

 down, receives the Pachaquiaro ; the second is the Bio de 

 Aguas Blancas, or Umadea. The junction takes place near 

 the port of Marayal. It is only eight or ten leagues 

 from the Passo de la Cabulla, where you quit the Eio 

 Negro, to the capital of Santa Fe. Prom the villages 

 of Xiramena and Cabullaro to those of Guanapalo and 

 Santa Rosalia de Cabapuna, a distance of sixty leagues, the 

 banks of the Meta are more inhabited than those of the 

 Orinoco. "We find in this space fourteen Christian settle- 

 ments, in part very populous ; but from the mouths of the 

 rivers Pauto and Casanare, for a space of more than fifty 

 leagues, the Meta is infested by the Guahibos, a race of 

 savages.* 



The navigation of this river was much more active in the 

 time of the Jesuits, and particularly during the expedition 

 of Iturriaga, in 1756, than it is at present. Missionaries of 

 the same order then governed the banks of the Meta and of 

 the Orinoco. The villages of Macuco, Zurimena, and Casi- 

 mena, were founded by the Jesuits, as well as those of 

 Uruana, Encaramada, and Carichana. 



These Fathers had conceived the project of forming a 

 series of Missions from the junction of the Casanare with 

 the Meta to that of the Meta with the Orinoco. A narrow 

 zone of cultivated land would have crossed the vast steppes 

 that separate the forests of Guiana from the Andes of jNew 

 Grenada. 



At the period of the "harvest of turtles' eggs," not only 

 the flour of Santa Fe descended the river, but the salt of 

 Chita,f the cotton cloth of San Gil, and the printed coun- 

 terpanes of Socorro. To give some security to the little 

 traders who devoted themselves to this inland commerce, 

 attacks were made from time to time from the castillo or 

 fort of Carichana, on the Guahibos. 



To keep these Guahibos in awe, the Capuchin mission- 

 aries, who succeeded the Jesuits in the government of the 



* I find the word written Guajilos, Guahivos, and Guagivos. They 

 cull themselves Gua-iva. 



t East of Labranza Grande, and the north-west of Pore, no*r the 

 capital of the province of Casanare. 



