870 NATIONAL JLKIM08ITIE8. 



were hurt by the motives which we alleged with the view 

 to give them confidence. A people who have preserved in 

 vigour, through the revolutions of ages, a national hatred, 

 like occasions of giving it vent. The mind delights in every- 

 thing impassioned, in the consciousness of an energetic 

 feeling, in the affections, and in rival hatreds that are 

 founded on antiquated prejudices. Whatever constitutes 

 the individuality of nations flows from the mother-country 

 to the most remote colonies ; and national antipathies are 

 not effaced where the influence of the same languages 

 ceases. We know, from the interesting narrative of Kru- 

 senstern's voyage, that the hatred of two fugitive sailors, one 

 a Frenchman and the other an Englishman, was the cause 

 of a long war between the inhabitants of the Marquesas 

 Islands. On the banks of the Amazon and the Bio Negro, 

 the Indians of the neighbouring Portuguese and Spanish 

 villages detest each other. These poor people speak only 

 the native tongues ; they are ignorant of what passes ' on 

 the other bank of the ocean, beyond the great salt-pool ;' 

 but the gowns of their missionaries are of a different colour, 

 and this displeases them extremely. 



I have stopped to paint the effects of national animosi- 

 ties, which wise statesmen have endeavoured to calm, but 

 have been unable entirely to set at rest. This rivalry has 

 contributed to the imperfection of the geographical know- 

 ledge hitherto obtained respecting the tributary rivers of 

 the Amazon. When the communications of the natives 

 are impeded, and one nation is established near the mouth, 

 and another in the upper part of the same river, it is 

 difficult for persons who attempt to construct maps to 

 acquire precise information. The periodical inundations, 

 and still more the portages, by which boats are passed from 

 one stream to another, the sources of which are in the same 

 neighbourhood, have led to erroneous ideas of the bifur- 

 cations and branchings of rivers. The Indians of the Por- 

 tuguese missions, for instance, enter (as I was informed 

 upon the spot) the Spanish Kio Negro on one side by the 

 Rio Gruainia and the Kio Tomo ; and the Upper Orinoco 

 on the other, by the portages between the Cababuri, the 

 Pncimoni, the Idapa, and the Macava, to gather the aro- 

 matic seeds of the pichero laurel beyond the Esmeralda. 



