MOSQUITOES—INDIANS. 269 
the equator had been considered as the boundary 
between the Spanish and Portuguese possessions. 
Leaving the Rock of Culimacari at half after one 
in the morning, they proceeded against the current, 
which was very rapid. The waters of the Casi- 
quiare are white, and the mosquitoes again com- 
menced their invasions, becoming more numerous 
as the boat receded from the black stream of the Rio 
Negro. In the whole course of the Casiquiare they 
did not find in the Christian settlements a popula- 
tion of 200 individuals, and the free Indians have 
retired from its banks. During a great part of the 
year the natives subsist on ants. At the mission 
of Mandavaca, which they reached in the evening, 
they found a monk who had spent twenty years in 
the country, and whose legs were so spotted by the 
stings of insects that the whiteness of the skin could 
scarcely be perceived. He complained of his soli- 
tude, and the sad necessity which often compelled 
him to leave the most atrocious crimes unpunished. 
An indigenous alcayde, or overseer, had a few years 
before eaten one of his wives, after fattening her by 
good feeding. “‘ You cannot imagine,” said the 
missionary, “all the perversity of this Indian family. 
You receive men of a new tribe into the village ; 
they appear to be good, mild, and industrious ; but 
suffer them to take part in an incursion to bring in 
_ the natives, and you can scarcely prevent them from 
murdering all they meet, and hiding some portions 
of the dead bodies.” The travellers had in their 
canoe a fugitive Indian from the Guaisia, who in a 
few weeks had become sufficiently civilized to be 
very useful. As he was mild and intelligent, they 
had some desire of taking him into their service ; 
