346 THE ROCK OF TilE GUA11IBA. 



and the two large stars in the feet of the Centuar. I found 

 the latitude of San Balthasar 3 14' 23". Horary angles of 

 the sun gave 70 14" 21" for the longitude by the chrono- 

 meter. The dip of the magnetic needle was 27*8 (cent, 

 div.) "We left the mission at a late hour in the morning, 

 and continued to go up the Atabapo for five miles ; then, 

 instead of following that river to its source in the east, 

 where it bears the name of Atacavi, we entered the Rio 

 Temi. Before we reached its confluence, a granitic eminence 

 on the western bank, near the mouth of the Ghiasacavi, fixed 

 our attention : it is called Piedra de la Gruahiba, (Rock ot 

 the Gruahiba woman), or the Piedra de la Madre (Mother's 

 Rock.) We inquired the cause of so singular a denomina- 

 tion. Father Zea could not satisfy our curiosity ; but some 

 weeks after, another missionary, one of the predecessors of 

 that ecclesiastic, whom we found settled at San Fernando as 

 president of the missions, related to us an event which 

 excited in our minds the most painful feelings. If, in these 

 solitary scenes, man scarcely leaves behind him any trace of 

 his existence, it is doubly humiliating for a European to see 

 perpetuated by so imperishable a monument of nature as a 

 rock, the remembrance of the moral degradation of our 

 species, and the contrast between the virtue of a savage, and 

 the barbarism of civilized man ! 



In 1797 the missionary of San Fernando had led his 

 Indians to the banks of the Bio Guaviare, on one of those 

 hostile incursions which are prohibited alike by religion 

 and the Spanish laws. They found in an Indian hut a 

 Gruahiba women with her three children (two of whom were 

 still infants), occupied in preparing the flour of cassava. 

 Resistance was impossible ; the father was gone to fish, and 

 the mother tried in vain to flee with her children. Scarcely 

 had she reached the savannah when she was seized by the 

 Indians of the mission, who hunt human beings, like the 

 Whites and the Negroes in Africa. The mother and her chil- 

 dren were bound, and dragged to the bank of the river. The 

 monk, seated in his boat, waited the issue of an expedition 

 of which he shared not the danger. Had the mother 

 made too violent a resistance the Indians would have killed 

 her, for everything is permitted for the sake of the conquest 

 of souls (la conquista espirituel), and it is particularly 



