STATE OF T1IE MISSION. 239 



river has been impelled westward, in consequence of the 

 accumulations of earth, which occur more frequently on the 

 side of the eastern mountains, that are furrowed by torrents. 

 The cataract bears the name of Mapara,* as we have men- 

 tioned above ; while the name of the village is derived from 

 that of the nation of Atures, now believed to be extinct. 

 I find on the maps of the seventeenth century, Island and 

 Cataract of Athule ; which is the word Atures written ac- 

 cording to the pronunciation of the Tamanacs, who con- 

 found, like so many other people, the consonants I and r. 

 This mountainous region was so little known in Europe, 

 even in the middle of the eighteenth century, that D' Anvilie, 

 in the first edition of his South America, makes a branch 

 issue from the Orinoco, near Salto de los Atures, and fall 

 into the Amazon, to which branch he gives the name of 

 Rio Negro. 



Early maps, as well as Father Gumilla's work, place 

 the Mission in latitude 1 30'. Abbe Grili gives it 3* 50'. 

 I found, by meridian altitudes of Canopus and a of the' 

 Southern Cross, 5 38' 4" for the latitude ; and by the chro- 

 nometer 4 h 41' 17" of longitude west of the meridian of 

 Paris. 



"We found this small Mission in the most deplorable state. 

 It contained, even at the time of the expedition of Solano, 

 commonly called the 'expedition of the boundaries,' three 

 hundred and twenty Indians. This number had diminished, 

 at the time of our passage by the Cataracts, to forty-seven ; 

 and the missionary assured us that this diminution became 

 from year to year more sensible. He showed us, that in the 



* I am ignorant of the etymology of this wor d, which I believe means 

 only a fall of water. Gili translates into Maypure a small cascade 

 (raudalilo) by uccamatisi mapara canacapatirri. Should we not 

 spell this word matpara ? mat being a radical of the Maypure tongue, 

 and meaning bad (Hervas, Saygio, N. 29). The radical par (para) is 

 found among American tribes more than five hundred leagues distant 

 from each other, the Caribs, Maypures, Brazilians, and Peruvians, in the 

 words sea, rain, water, lake. We must not confound mapara with mapaja ; 

 this last word signifies, in Maypure and Tamanac, the papaw or melon- 

 tree, no doubt on account of the sweetness of its fruit, for mapa means 

 in the Maypur , as well as in the Peruvian and Omagua tongues, ' the honej 

 of bees.' The Tamanacs call a cascade, or raudal, in general uatapurutpe 

 the Maypures, uca. 



