THE CAPTIVE MOTHER. 161 



cursions. They found . in an Indian hut a Guahiba 

 woman with her three children, two of whom were still 

 infants, occupied in preparing the flour of cassava. 

 Resistance was impossible ; the father was gone to fish, 

 and the mother tried in vain to flee with her children. 

 Scarcely had she reached the savannah when she was 

 seized by the Indians of the mission. The mother and 

 her children were bound, and dragged to the bank of the 

 river. The monk, seated in his boat, waited the issue of 

 an expedition of which he shared not the danger. Had 

 the mother made too violent a resistance the Indians 

 would have killed her, for everything was permitted for 

 the sake of the conquest of souls, and it was particularly 

 desirable to capture children, who might be treated in 

 the mission as slaves of the Christians. The prisoners 

 were carried to San Fernando, in the hope that the mother 

 would be unable to find her way back to her home by 

 land. Separated from her other children who had ac- 

 companied their father on the day in which she had been 

 carried off, the unhappy woman showed signs of the 

 deepest despair. She attempted to take back to her 

 home the children who had been seized by the mission- 

 ary ; and she fled with them repeatedly from the village 

 of San Fernando. But the Indians never failed to re- 

 capture her ; and the missionary, after having caused her 

 to be mercilessly beaten, took the cruel resolution of 

 separating the mother from the two children who had 

 been carried off with her. She was conveyed alone to 

 the missions of the Rio Negro, going up the Atabapo. 

 Slightly bound, she was seated at the bow of the boat, 

 ignorant of the fate that awaited her ; but she judged by 

 the direction of the sun, that she was removing farther 



