IN SOUTH AMERICA. 219 



On the loth, I arrived at Sant Yago de las Montanas, a hamlet fituate at the fhouth 

 of the river of fimilar name, and built frqjn the ruins of a town which had given de- 

 nomination to the river. The banks of it are inhabited by an American na^on called 

 Xibaros, formerly Chriftians, but who fliook off the Spanifti yoke a century ago, to 

 efcape from the toil exacted from them in working the gold mines of their country : 

 ever fmce, fecluded in inacceffible woods, they preferve themfelves independent, and 

 impede the navigation of this river, by which it would be eafy to fall down in the fpace 

 of a week, from the vicinage of Loxa and Cuenca, the tranfit whence had taken me 

 two months. The dread infpired by thefe Indians has twice obliged the inhabitants of 

 Sant Yago to change their abode, and, in courfe of the laft forty years, to defcend to 

 the fpot where that river empties itfelf into the Maraiion. 



Below Sant Yago is Borja, a town of much the fame flamp as the preceding, though 

 the capital of the government of Maynas, a government which comprehends all the 

 Spanifh miflions on the banks of the Maraiion. Borja is divided from Sant Yago 

 merely by the famous Pongo de Manferiche. Pongo, anciently Poncu, fignifies in the 

 Peruvian language a gate. It is a term, in this language, given to all narrow pafles, 

 but to this as a mark" of excellence. This ftrait is a road worked for itfelf by the 

 Maraiion in its paflage eaflward, after a courfe of two hundred leagues towards the 

 north and the mountains of the Cordilleras, its bed being dug between two parallel 

 walls of rock almoft perpendicular. Little more than a century has elapfed fmce certain 

 Spanifh foldiers of Sant Yago difcovered this paflage, and went through it. Two Je- 

 fuit miffionaries followed them {hortly after, and, in 1639, founded the miflion of 

 Maynas, which extends to a confiderable diftance down the river. Arrived at Sant 

 Yago, I hoped to crofs over to Borja the fame day, and, indeed, an hour would have 

 carried me thither, but fpite of reiterated exprefles, fpite of the orders and recommend- 

 ations with which we were conftantly well provided, but which were fo feldom duly 

 attended to, the timber of the large raft with which I was to pafs the Pongo was not 

 yet felled. I contented myfelf with ftrengthening mine by a new fence, with which 

 I caufed it to be furrounded, to enable it to refifl: the firft effeft of the almoft inevit- 

 able Ihocks to which the rafts, from their mode of ftrudure, and being without any 

 rudder, are unavoidably liable in the windings of the ftrait. As for the canoes, they 

 are fo light, that they are guided by the fame paddles with which they are rowed. 



I was unable to overcome the repugnance of my mariners to attempt the paflage on 

 the day after my arrival, owing to the waters, as they faid, not being fufficiently low. 

 All I could induce them to, was to crofs over to the oppofite fide, there to wait a fa- 

 vourable opportunity in a fmall bay at the entrance of the Pongo j in this, the violence 

 of the current is fuch that, although properly fpeaking there be no cataraft, the waters 

 feem to plunge, while the fliock of them, as they dafli againft the rocks, deafens the 

 ear with Its tremendous noife. 



The four Americans who had followed me thus far from the port of Jaen, lefs foli- 

 citous than I of a near view of the Pongo, proceeded onwards by a footpath, or 

 rather a ftaircafe cut in the rock, to wait for me at Borja. In confequence, this night, 

 as the preceding, I was left on the raft with no other companion than an old negro 

 flave. Lucky for me it was, that I determined on not leaving him alone, as I was 

 threatened with an accident perhaps without a parallel. The river, which in thirty-fix 

 hours fell five and twenty feet, flill continued vifibly to fink. In the middle of the 

 night, the fplinter of an immenfe branch of a tree, concealed under water, penetrated 

 between the timbers of my raft, and, in proportion as the waters abated of their height, 

 became more deeply entangled, fo that, had I not been prefent and awake, I fhould in 



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