DESTRUCTION OF TRE JESUIT MISSIONS. 207 



Carichana. They had at their service a great number of 

 slaves and servants (peones), to tend their herds. Nothing 

 is now cultivated but a little cassava, and a few plantains. 

 Such however is the fertility of the soil, that at Atures I 

 counted on a single branch of a musa one hundred and eight 

 fruits, four or five of which would almost have sufficed for a 

 man's daily food. The culture of maize is entirely neglected, 

 tnd the horses and cows have entirely disappeared. Near 

 the raudal, a part of the village still bears the name ofPasso 

 del ganado (ford of the cattle), while the descendants of 

 those very Indians whom the Jesuits had assembled in a 

 mission, speak of horned cattle as of animals of a race now 

 lost. In going -up the Orinoco, toward San Carlos del Rio 

 Negro, we saw the last cow at Carichana. The Fathers of 

 the Observance, who now govern these vast countries, did 

 not immediately succeed the Jesuits. During an inter- 

 regnum of eighteen years, the missions were visited only 

 from time to time, and by Capuchin monks. The agents of 

 the secular government, under the title of Royal Coinrais- 

 sioners, managed the hatos or farms of the Jesuits with 

 culpable negligence. They killed the cattle for the sake 

 of selling the hides. Many heifers were devoured by the 

 jaguars, and a great number perished in consequence of 

 wounds made by the bats of the raudales, which, though 

 smaller, are far bolder than the bats of the Llanos. At the 

 time of the expedition of the boundaries, horses from Enca- 

 rainada, Carichana, and Atures, were conveyed as far as San 

 Jose de Maravitanos, where, on the banks of the Rio Negro, 

 the Portuguese could only procure them, after a long passage, 

 and of a very inferior quality, by the rivers Amazon and 

 Grand Para. Since the year 1795, the cattle of the Jesuits 

 have entirely disappeared. There now remain as monuments 

 of the ancient cultivation of these countries, and the active 

 industry of the first missionaries, only a few trunks of the 

 orange and tamarind, in the savannahs, surrounded by wild 

 trees. 



The tigers, or jaguars, which are less dangerous for the 

 jattle than the bats, come into the village at Atures, and 

 devour the swine of the poor Indians. The missionary 

 related to us a striking instance of the familiarity of t T ieso 

 animstU, usually so ferocious. Some months before GUI 



