TRA.VELS OF' THE MISSIONARIES. 



411 



PEREGRINATION BY THE KIVER HUALLAGA TO THE LAKE OF GRAN 

 COCAMA, UNDERTAKEN BY FATHER ^MANUEL SOBREVIELA IN THE 

 YEAR 1790. 



The failure of the missions to the Manoa tribes is the more to be lamented* 

 as it contributed to the loss of the celebrated Pampa del Sacramento*. There is 

 not, perhaps, in any part of the two Americas a territory more advantageously 

 situated, or which boasts an equal fertility. It is bounded to the south by the 

 rivers Pozuzu and Mayro ; to the west by the Huallaga ; to the north by the 

 Maranon; and to the east by the Ucayalif. It is thus surrounded by the most 

 capacious rivers in the world, which communicate with the North Sea, and 

 with the principal provinces of the three viceroyalties of South America. It 

 is intersected by several other considerable rivers, which empty themselves 

 into the former ; and describes a peninsula, from the centre of which a mari- 

 time commerce may be carried on to every part of the globe. Its greatest ex- 

 tent runs north and south between four degrees and a half, and nine de- 

 grees fifty-seven minutes, from the confluence of the Ucayali with the Ma- 

 ranon, to the river Mayro. Its breadth varies in consequence of the great 

 windings of the Ucayali ; but may in general be taken at between 302 and 305 



* This great plain was discovered on the 21st of June 1726, by the converts of Pozuzu, attached to 

 the Panataguas missions, belonging to the provincials of the order of the Twelve Apostles : it was en- 

 titled dd Sacramento, in consequence of the discovery having been made on the day of the feast of Corlivs 

 Christi. This appears by a MS. History, in the possession of the author, of the Missions of the Monks 

 of the Seraphic Order on the Andes mountains. Father Rodriguez Tena, in his great MS. work on the 

 above missions, ascribes this name to friar Simon Xara, by whom the plain was explored in 1732. 



f We have before us several manuscripts belonging to the libraries of the convent of San Francisco, and 

 of the college of Ocopa, which differ from us as to the eastern boundaries ; some of them contending, 

 that by the Pampa del Sacramento should be understood the immense plain which runs eastward between 

 the Cordillera of Brazil and the Andes mountains. In such a case it would extend at least 600 leagues 

 north and south, and 300 west and east, comprehending one hundred and eighty thousand square 

 leagues of a level superficies, fertile, and intersedled by rivers, which might contain with ease the one 

 hundred and thirty millions of souls allotted to Europe by the German writer Susmilk, leavingsufficient 

 ground for forests and pastures. It is certain, liowever, that the most ancient manuscripts understand 

 by the Pampa del Sacramento the peninsula which we have described, assigning to it the same bounda* 

 ries. The midland which runs eastward of the Ucayali, to the river Mamore, is the territory on which 

 the ancients placed the empire of Enim, or Gran Paru. That which extends from the river Madera, 

 ConstttuKs a part of Gran Paytiti. 



3 G 2 degrees 



