84 GUANAGUANA AND SAN ANTONIO. 



forest and two very steep ridges, they came to a 

 beautiful valley, about twenty miles in length, in 

 which are situated the missions of San Antonio and 

 Guanaguana. Stopping at the former only to open 

 the barometer and take a few altitudes of the sun, 

 they forded the rivers Colorado and Guarapiche, and 

 proceeding along a level and narrow road covered 

 with thick mud, amid torrents of rain, reached in the 

 evening the latter of these stations, where they 

 were cordially received by the missionary. This 

 village had existed only thirty years on the spot 

 which it then occupied, having been transferred 

 from a place more to the south. Humboldt remarks, 

 that the facility with which the Indians remove their 

 dwellings is astonishing, there being several small 

 towns in South America which have thrice changed 

 their situation in le-ss than half a century. These 

 compulsory migrations are not unfrequently caused 

 by the caprice of an ecclesiastic ; and as the houses 

 are constructed of clay, reeds, and palm-leaves, a 

 hamlet shifts its position like a camp. 



The mission of San Antonio had a small church 

 with two towers, built of brick and ornamented with 

 Doric columns, the wonder of the country ; but that 

 of Guanaguana possessed as yet no place of worship, 

 although a spacious house had been built for the 

 padre, the terraced roof of which was ornamented 

 with numerous chimneys like turrets, and which, he 

 informed the travellers, had been erected for no 

 other purpose than to remind him of his native coun- 

 try. The Indians cultivate cotton. The machines 

 by which they separate the wool from the seeds are 

 of very simple construction, consisting of wooden 

 cylinders of very small diameter, made to revolve 

 by a treadle. Maize is the article on which they 

 principally depend for food ; and when it happens 

 to be destroyed by a protracted drought, they be- 

 take themselves to the surrounding forest, where 

 they find subsistence in succulent plants, cabbage- 



