PUEBTO SEDENO. 613 



period of the high waters, several months are lost in contend- 

 ing with the currents of the Orinoco, the Apure, and the Rio 

 de Santo Domingo. The boatmen are forced to carry out 

 ropes to the trunks of trees, and thus warp their canoes up. 

 In the great sinuosities of the river whole days are some- 

 times passed without advancing more than two or three 

 hundred toises. Since my return to Europe, the communi- 

 cations between the mouth of the Orinoco and the provinces 

 situated on the eastern slope of the mountains of Merida, 

 Pamplona, and Santa Fe de Bogota, have become more 

 active ; and it may be hoped that steamboats will facilitate 

 these long voyages on the Lower Orinoco, the Portuguesa, 

 the Bio Santo Domingo, the Orivante, the Meta, and the 

 Ghiaviare. Magazines of cleft wood might be formed, as on 

 the banks of the great rivers of the United States, shelter- 

 ing them under sheds. This precaution would be indispen- 

 sible, as, in the country through which we passed, it is not 

 easy to procure dry fuel fit to keep up a fire beneath the 

 boiler of a steam-engine. 



We disembarked below San Eafael del Capuchino, on the 

 right, at the Villa de Caycara, near a cove called Puerto 

 Sedeiio. The Villa is merely a few houses grouped to- 

 gether. Alta Gracia, la Ciudad de la Piedra, Heal Corona, 

 Borbon, in short all the towns or villas lying between the 

 mouth of the Apure and Angostura, are equally miserable. 

 The presidents of the missions, and the governors of the pro- 

 vinces, were formerly accnstomed to demand the privileges of 

 villas and ciudades at Madrid, the moment the first founda- 

 tions of a church were laid. This was a means of persuading 

 the ministry, that the colonies were augmenting rapidly in 

 population and prosperity. Sculptured figures of the sun and 

 moon, such as I have already mentioned, are found near 

 Caycara, at the Cerro del Tirana* It is " the work of the old 

 people" (that is of our fathers), say the natives. On a rock 



* The tyrant after whom these mountains are named is not Lope de 

 \guirre, but probably, as the name of the neighbouring cove seems to 

 prove, the celebrated conquistador Antonio Sedeno, who, after the expe- 

 dition of Herrera, sought to penetrate by the Orinoco to the Rio Meta. 

 He was in a state of rebellion against the audiencia of Santo Domingo. 

 I know not how Sedeno came to Caycara ; for historians relaf that b 

 was poisoned on the banks of the Rio Tisnado, one of tbr tributar*' 

 fctrrams of the Portuguesa. 



TOL. II. 2 I 



