MISSION OF 8AK FIIANCISCO. 405 



mountains are only found more to the east, towards the 

 sources of the Pacimoni, Siapa, and Mavaca. Having 

 arrived on the south of the Eaudal of Caravine, we per- 

 ceived that the Cassiquiare, by the windings of its course, 

 again approached San Carlos. The distance from this fort 

 to the mission of San Francisco Solano, where we slept, is 

 only two leagues and a half by land, but it is reckoned 

 seven or eight by the river. I passed a part of the night in 

 the open air, waiting vainly for stars. The air was misty, 

 notwithstanding the agiuis blancas, which were to lead us 

 beneath an ever-starry sky. 



The mission of San Francisco Solano, situated on the left 

 bank of the Cassiquiare, was founded, as were most of the 

 Christian settlements south of the Great Cataracts of the 

 Orinoco, not by monks, but by military authority. At the 

 time of the expedition of the boundaries, villages were built 

 in proportion as a subteniente, or a corporal, advanced with 

 his troops. Part of the natives, in order to preserve their 

 independence, retired without a struggle ; others, of whom 

 the most powerful chiefs had been gained, joined the mis- 

 sions. Where there was no church, they contented them- 

 selves with erecting a great cross of red wood, close to 

 which they constructed a casa fuerte, or block-house, the 

 walls of which were formed of large beams resting hori- 

 zontally upon each other. This house had two stories ; in 

 the upper story two cannon of small calibre were placed; 

 and two soldiers lived on the ground-floor, and were served 

 by an Indian family. Those of the natives with whom they 

 were at peace cultivated spots of land round the casa fuerte. 

 The soldiers called them together by the sound of the horn, 

 or a botuto of baked earth, whenever any hostile attack was 

 dreaded. Such were the pretended nineteen Christian 

 settlements founded by Don Antonio Santos in the way 

 from Esmeralda to the Erevato. Military posts, which had 

 no influence on the civilization of the natives, figured on the 

 maps, and in the works of the missionaries, as villages 

 (pueblos) and reducciones apostolicas* The preponderance 

 of the military was maintained on the banks of the Orinoco 

 till 1785, when the system of the monks of San Francisco 



* Signifying apostolic conquests or convenient. 



