34:8 AFFECTING INCIDENT. 



carelessly giarded in the caravanserai. Her arms being 

 wounded, the Indians of Javita bad loosened ber bonds, 

 unknown to tbe missionary and tbe alcaldes. Having suc- 

 ceeded by tbe belp of ber teeth in breaking tbem entirely, 

 sbe disappeared during the nigbt ; and at tbe fourth sunrise 

 was seen at the mission of San Fernando, hovering around 

 the hut where her children were confined. " "What that 

 woman performed," added the missionary, who gave ua 

 this sad narrative, " the most robust Indian would no*u 

 have ventured to undertake!" She traversed the woods at 

 a season when the sky is constantly covered with clouds, 

 and the sun during whole days appears but for a few 

 minutes. Did the course of the waters direct her way? 

 The inundations of the rivers forced her to go far from the 

 banks of the main stream, through the midst of woods 

 where the movement of the water is almost imperceptible. 

 How often must she have been stopped by the thorny 

 lianas, that form a network around the trunks they en- 

 twine ! How often must she have swum across the millets 

 that run into the Atabapo ! This unfortunate woman was 

 asked how she had sustained herself during four days. She 

 said that, exhausted with fatigue, she could find no other 

 nourishment than those great black ants called vachacos, 

 which climb the trees in long bands, to suspend on them 

 their resinous nests. "We pressed the missionary to tell 

 us whether the G-uahiba had peacefully enjoyed the hap- 

 piness of remaining with her children ; and if any repen- 

 tance had followed this excess of cruelty. He would not 

 satisfy our curiosity; but at our return from the Bio 

 Negro we learned that the Indian mother was again sepa- 

 rated from her children, and sent to one of the missions of 

 the Upper Orinoco. There she died, refusing all kind of 

 nourishment, as savages frequently do in great calamities. 



Such is the remembrance annexed to this fatal rock, the 

 Piedra de la Madre. In this relation of my travels I feel 

 no desire to dwell on pictures of individual suffering 

 evils which are frequent wherever there are masters and 

 slaves, civilized Europeans living with people in a state of 

 barbarism, and priests exercising the plenitude of arbitrary 

 power over men ignorant and without defence. In describing 

 the countries through which I passed, I generally confine 



