MANUFACTURING TB1BE8. 477 



We were assured that a great lamp of massive silver, 

 purchased at the expense of the neophytes, is expected from 

 Madrid. Let us hope that, after the arrival of this treasure, 

 they will think also of clothing the Indians, of procuring for 

 them some instruments of agriculture, and assembling their 

 children in a school. Although there are a few oxen in the 

 savannahs round the mission, they are rarely employed in 

 turning the mill (trapiche), to express the juice of the 

 sugar-cane ; this is the occupation of the Indians, who work 

 without pay here as they do everywhere when they are under- 

 stood to work for the church. The pasturages at the foot 

 of the mountains round Santa Barbara are not so rich as at 

 Esmeralda, but superior to those at San Fernando de Ata- 

 bapo. The grass is short and thick, yet the upper stratum 

 of earth furnishes only a dry and parched granitic sand. 

 The savannahs (far from fertile) of the banks of the Gua- 

 viare, the Meta, and the Upper Orinoco, are equally desti- 

 tute of the mould which abounds in the surrounding forests, 

 and of the thick stratum of clay, which covers the sandstone 

 of the Llanos, or steppes of Venezuela. The small herba- 

 ceous mimosas contribute in this zone to fatten the cattle, 

 but are very rare between the Rio Jao and the mouth of the 

 Guaviare. 



During the few hours of our stay at the mission of Santa 

 Barbara, we obtained pretty accurate ideas respecting the 

 Rio Ventuari, which, next to the Guaviare, appeared to me 

 to be the most considerable tributary of the Orinoco. Its 

 banks, heretofore occupied by the Maypures, are still peo- 

 pled by a great number of independent nations. On going 

 up by the mouth of the Ventuari, which forms a delta 

 covered with palm-trees, you find in the east, after three 

 days' journey, the Cumaruita and the Paru, two streams 

 that rise at the foot of the lofty mountains of Cuneva. 

 Higher up, on the west, lie the Mariata and the Manipiare, 

 inhabited by theMacos and Curacicanas. The latter nation 

 is remarkable for their active cultivation of cotton. In a 

 hostile incursion (entrada) a large house was found contain- 

 ing more than thirty or forty hammocks of a very fine tex- 

 ture of spun cotton, cordage, and fishing implements. The 

 natives had fled ; and Father Valor informed us, that the 

 Indians of the mission who accompanied > im had set fire to 



