I 



INTRODUCTORY. 21 



the missionary rule ; some seventy or eighty of the priests perishing 

 in the wreck. 



It is quite evident that no distaste for the Catholic religion induced 

 this rebellion; for in the year 1750, eight years afterward, the Marquis 

 of Minahermosa, marching into this country for the punishment of the 

 rebels, found the church at Quimiri, on the river Perene, in perfect 

 order, with candles burnino- before the images. He burned the town 

 and church. And six years after this, when another entrance into this 

 country was made by Gen. Bustamente, he found the town rebuilt, and a 

 large cross erected in the middle of the plaza, or public square. I have 

 had occasion myself to notice the respect and reverence of these Indians 

 for their pastors, and their delight in participating in the ceremonial, 

 and sense-striking worship of the Roman Church. 



It remains but to speak of the conversions of the Ucayali, in the 

 Pampa del Sacramento, made by the Franciscans of Ocopa, and which 

 are the only trophies that now remain of the zeal, patience, and suffering 

 of these devoted men. 



The missions established on the Ucayali by Fathers Biedma and 

 Caballero, in the years 1673 to 1686, were lost by insurrections of the 

 Indians in 1704. In 1726, the converted Indians about the head of 

 canoe navigation on the Huallaga, (the tidings of the gospel were first 

 carried to these from Huanuco, by Felipe Luyendo, in 1631,) crossing 

 the hills that border that river on its eastern bank, discovered a wooded 

 plain, which was named Pampa del Sacramento, from the day of its 

 discovery being the festival of Corpus Cristi. This was a new field 

 for the missionary; and by 1760, the Fathers of the college at Ocopa 

 had penetrated across this plain to the Ucayali, and re-established 

 the missions of Manoa, the former spiritual conquests of Biedma. To 

 get at these missions with less difficulty, expeditions were made from 

 Huanuco by the way of Pozuzu, Mayro, and the Pachitea, in the years 

 1763 to 1767. Several missionaries lost their lives by the Cashibos 

 Indians of the Pachitea; and in this last year the Indians of the 

 Ucayali rose upon the missionaries, killed nine of them, and broke up 

 their settlements. But not for this were they to be deterred. In 1790 

 Father JWarciso Girbal, with two others, under^the direction of Sobre- 

 viela, then guardian of the college at Ocopa, went down the Pachitea 

 ■end again established these missions, of which there remain three at 

 this time, called, respectively, Sarayacu, Tierra Blanca, and Sta. 

 Catalina. 



The difficulties of penetrating into these countries, where the path is 

 to be broken for the first time, can only be conceived by one who has 



