TTTE INDIAN 2EIIEPE. 



j ,- ' 



The passage of the canoe through the Great 

 obliged us to stop two days at Maypures. Father Bernardo 

 Zea, missionary at the Raudales, who had accompanied us to 

 the Rio Negro, though ill, insisted on conducting us with 

 his Indians as far as Atures. One of these Indians, Zerepe, 

 the interpreter, who had been so unmercifully punished at 

 the beach of Pararuma, rivetted our attention by his ap- 

 pearance of deep sorrow. We learned that his grief was 

 caused by the loss of a young girl to whom he was engaged, 

 and that he had lost her in consequence of false intelli- 

 gence which had been spread respecting the direction of our 

 journey. Zerepe, who was a native of Maypures, had been 

 brought up in the woods by his parents, who were of the 

 tribe of the Macos. He had brought with him to the 

 mission a girl of twelve years of age, whom he intended to 

 marry at our return from the Cataracts. The Indian girl 

 was little pleased with the life of the missions, and she was 

 told that the whites would go to the country of the Portu- 

 guese (Brazil), and would take Zerepe with them. Disap- 

 pointed in her hopes, she seized a boat, and with another 

 girl of her own age, crossed the Great Cataract, and fled 

 al monte. The recital of this courageous adventure was the 

 great news of the place. The affliction of Zerepe, however, 

 was not of long duration. Born among the Christians, 

 having travelled as far as the foot of the Rio Negro, under- 

 standing Spanish and the language of the Macos, he thought 

 himself superior to the people of his tribe, and he no doubt 

 soon forgot his forest love. 



On the 31st of May we passed the rapids of Guahibos 

 and Garcita. The islands which rise in the middle of the 

 waters of the river, were overspread with the purest verdure. 

 The rains of winter had unfolded the spathes of the vadgiai 

 palm-tree, the leaves of which rise straight toward the sky. 

 The eye is never wearied of the view of those scenes, where; 

 the trees and rocks give the landscape that grand and severe' 

 character which we admire in the background of the pic- 

 tures of Salvator Rosa. We landed before sunset on the 1 

 eastern bank of the Orinoco, at the Puerto de la Expedition, 

 in order to visit the cavern of Ataruipe, which is the place of 

 sepulchre of a whole nation destroyed. I shall attempt to 

 describe this cavern, so celebrated among the natives. 



VOL. n. 2 I 



