958 ANECDOTE OF AN INDIAN WOMAN. 
with straps of manatee leather, which are the or- 
dinary whips of the country, and then dragged to 
the mission of Javita, her hands bound behind her 
back. It was the rainy season, the night was ex- 
cessively dark, forests believed to be impenetrable 
stretched from that station to San Fernando over 
an extent of 86 miles, and the only communication 
between these places was by the river; yet the 
Guahibo mother, breaking her bonds, and eluding 
the vigilance of her guards, escaped under night, 
and on the fourth morning was seen at the vil- 
lage, hovering around the hut which contained 
her children. On this journey she must have un- 
dergone hardships from which the most robust man 
would have shrunk ; was forced to live upon ants, 
to swim numerous streams, and to make her way 
through thickets and thorny lianas. And the re- 
ward of all this courage and devotion was—her re- 
moval to one of the missions of the Upper Orinoco, 
where, despairing of ever seeing her beloved chil- 
dren, and refusing all kind of nourishment, she 
died, avictim to the bigotry and barbarity of wretches 
blasphemously calling themselves the ministers of a 
religion which inculcates universal benevolence. 
Above the mouth of the Guasucavi the travellers 
entered the Rio Temi, which runs from south to 
north. The ground was flat and covered with trees, 
over which rose the pirijao palm with its clusters of 
peach-like fruits, and the Maurttia aculeata, with 
fan-shaped leaves pointing downwards, and marked 
with concentric circles of blue and green. Wherever 
the river forms sinuosities the forest is flooded to 
a great extent; and, to shorten the route, the boat 
frequently pushed through the woods along open 
