ANECDOTE OF AN INDIAN WOMAN. 957 
vanced slowly. It was night when they arrived 
at the mission of San Baltasar, where they lodged 
with a Catalan priest, a lively and agreeable person. 
The village was built with great regularity, and the 
plantations seemed better cultivated than elsewhere. 
At a late hour in the morning they left his abode, 
and after ascending the Atabipo for five miles en- 
tered the Rio Temi. A granitic rock on the west- 
ern bank of the former river attracted their atten- 
tion. It is called the Piedra de la Guahiba or 
Piedra de la Madre, and commemorates one of those 
acts of oppression of which Europeans are guilty in 
all countries whenever they come into contact with 
savages. In 1797, the missionary of San Fernando 
had led his people to the banks of the Rio Gua- 
viare on a hostile excursion. Inan Indian hut they 
found a Guahibo woman, with three children, oc- 
cupied in preparing cassava-flour. She and her 
little ones attempted to escape, but were seized and 
carried away. The unhappy female repeatedly fled 
with her children from the village, but was always 
traced by her Christian countrymen. At length 
the friar, after causing her to be severely beaten, 
resolved to separate her from her family, and sent 
her up the Atabipo toward the missions of the Rio 
Negro. Ignorant of the fate intended for her, but 
judging by the direction of the sun that her perse- 
eutors were carrying her far from her native coun- 
try, she burst her fetters, leaped from the boat, and 
swam to the left bank of the river. She landed ona 
rock ; but the president of the establishment ordered 
the Indians to row to the shore and lay lands on her. 
She was brought back in the evening, stretched upon 
the bare stone (the Piedra de la Madre), scourged 
Q 
