342 



TOPOGRAPHY. 



labourers, he came to a resolution to open the road at his own 

 expence, so as to give a new vigour to the province, and to 

 reap all the advantages he had figured to himself at the com- 

 mencement, but which were not obtainable without this mean. 

 Having drawn up a map of the territory, he presented his 

 proje6t to the viceroy, whom he beseeched to further its exe- 

 cution by the most seasonable aid. In enforcing his preten- 

 sions, he represented : 



" That the mountains and towns situated to the south of 

 the river Maranon, in the part contained between Pataz, Gua- 

 malies, Huanuco, and the Pampa del Sacramento, having 

 been abandoned for two centuries ; and he having witnessed 

 with his own eyes a great part of the grandeur of that terri- 

 tory, its fertility, good temperature, and the riches it is sus- 

 ceptible of producing, not inferior to what he had always 

 imagined, and which had never been obtained from the other 

 mountains of those Andes, notwithstanding the multiplied ex- 

 peditions undertaken, the immense sums drawn from the royal 

 treasury, and the many missionaries and troops who had 

 there perished ; entirely on account of not having cleared the 

 roads of access; of having proceeded with more zeal than 

 prudence ; of having had recourse to gratuitous erogations, 

 which constantly produce, in the brea -t of the Indian, dread 

 and anxiety when the tribute is colle61:ed by one part of the 

 community, and avarice, jealousy, and bloodshed, when the 

 other part is deficient; and more particularly in consequence 

 of not having adopted the maxim of other nations, by the 

 introdLi61:ion of the cange^ or commerce, as has been seen in 

 Canada, Batavia, Kamschatka, Paru on the side of the Ma- 

 ranon, and other foreign colonies ; by the means of which the 



barbarians 



