392 THE GLOE1E1A J> COCITT. 



going to visit the missions of the Rio Negro, and ( xamine 

 the natural canal which unites two great systems of rivers. 

 In those desert forests instruments had been seen only in the 

 hands of the commissioners of the boundaries ; and at that 

 time the subaltern agents of the Portuguese government 

 could not conceive how a man of sense could expose hli.iself 

 to the fatigues of a long journey, " to measure lands that 

 did not belong to him." Orders had been issued to seize 

 my person, my instruments, and, above all, those registers 

 of astronomical observations, so dangerous to the safety of 

 states. We were to be conducted by way of the Amazon 

 to Grand Para, and thence sent back to Lisbon. Bub 

 fortunately for me, the government at Lisbon, on being 

 informed of the zeal of its subaltern agents, instantly gave 

 orders that I should not be disturbed in my operations; 

 but that on the contrary they should be encouraged, if I 

 traversed any. part of the Portuguese possessions. 



In going down the G uainia, or llio Negro, you pass on 

 the right the Cano Maliapo, and on the left the Canoa 

 Dariba and Eny. At five leagues distance, nearly in 1 38' 

 of north latitude, is the island of San Josef. A little below 

 that island, in a spot where there are a great number of 

 orange-trees now growing wild, the traveller is shown a 

 small rock, two hundred feet high, with a cavern called by 

 the missionaries the Glorieta de Cocuy. This summer- 

 house (for such is the signification of the word glorieta in 

 Spanish) recalls remembrances that are not the most agree- 

 able. It was here that Cocuy, the chief of the Manitivi- 

 tanos,* had his harem of women, and where he devoured 

 the finest and fattest. The tradition of the harem and the 

 orgies of Cocuy is more current in the Lower Orinoco than 

 on the banks of the Guainia. At San Carlos the very idea 

 that the chief of the Maiiitivitanos could be guilty of 

 cannibalism is indignantly rejected. 



The Portuguese government has established many settle- 

 ments even in this remote part of Brazil. Below the 

 Glorieta, in the Portuguese territory, there are eleven 

 Tillages in an extent of twenty-five leagues. I know of 



* At San Carlos there is still preserved an instrument of music, a 

 kind of large drum, ornamented with very rude Indian paintings, which 

 relute to the exploits of Cocuy. 



