EXPLOEATION OF THE INTERIOR. 



13 



basins. Settlements were even formed in the Caravaya forests, which clothe 

 certain parts of this dividing region. But such was the greed of the Spaniards 

 that they murdered each other to prevent the coveted gold-mines from falling 

 into other hands. Of two small bands of adventurers who came into collision in 

 the mining district, not more than three persons escaped from the massacre.* 

 Solitude was thus restored to these regions, where millions might live in comfort, 

 and even now, after an interval of three hundred years, lands have to be again 

 discovered which were visited by the first conquerors, and by them connected with 

 the flourishing cities on the seaboard. t 



A similar fate overtook the numerous missions founded by the Franciscans, 

 the Dominicans, and esjDecially the Jesiiits, who grouped together the savage 

 populations for the purpose of instructing them in the simpler crafts of European 

 society, at the same time teaching them to recite the phrases translated from the 

 catechism and the Latin text of the prayers and responses. Doubtless the mis- 

 sionaries were not all attracted to these difficult regions inhabited by formidable 

 Indian tribes through zeal for the faith and the desire to evangelise the natives. 

 A certain number of them came to reduce their folds to the condition of slaves ; 

 nor did they yield to the leaders of military expeditions in greed for worldly things. 



But, on the whole, they were far superior to these adventurers in intellectual 

 and moral worth, and to them we are indebted for some valuable itineraries, 

 amongst others those made by Samuel Fritz in various parts of the Upper 

 Amazons basin. The Lettres Edifiantes, in which their reports are collected, 

 contain geographical and ethnological documents of the highest interest. Never- 

 theless there is scarcely an Indian village founded by these missionaries in the 

 wilderness that has survived to our days. In the struggle for existence that 

 raged amongst the surrounding populations, the wild tribes, being of bolder and 

 more independent spirit, proved to be by fur the stronger of the two elements. 

 The groups of neophytes, having too rapidly changed their habits, and being still 

 in an unstable or transitional stage of culture, yielded in far larger numbers to 

 the ravages of European epidemics. Nation after nation was seen to disappear 



