TRAVELS OF THE MISSIONARIES. 



429 



when, taking a bend to the N. E., in 1 1 degrees 1 8 minutes, the Perene incorpo- 

 rates itself with its mass of waters. This latter river, originating within two 

 leagues of Tarnia, divides that city, and receives various streams from the Cordil- 

 lera of Bombon, and from Pasco. 



From the confluence of the Perene to that of the Pachitea, forty capacious rivers 

 empty themselves into the Apurimac. Of the two which are of particular note, 

 the one that flows into it on the eastern side, in 10 degrees 45 minutes, is the Pau- 

 cartambo* ; and the other, which disembogues three leagues below, with such an 

 impetuosity as to propel it against the mountains, and to cause it to change its di- 

 redlion to the N. W., is unquestionably the Benif. After this junction it acquires 



the 



its origin, and forms the peninsula named Tallacaxa. Having resumed its eastern direcftion, it follows it 

 to its mouth. Doftor Cosme Bueno is mistaken when he asserts, in the description of Jauxa, that this 

 river, likewise named Pari, is the one which was anciently beUeved to be the origin of the Maranon. 

 Herrara is guilty of a gross absurdity, in the passage of his Decades [t. iii. Decad. 5, 1.4. c. 10], in 

 which he considers it as the source of the river of la Plata. 



* Doubts have been entertained whether this river, at the confluence of which the Comavos and 

 Ruanaguas are settled, is in reality the Paucartambo. Our opinion on this head is affirmative, because, 

 according to the relations of the Franciscan missionaries, more especially that of the travels in those re- 

 gions, undertaken, in the year 1686, by friar Manuel Biedma; and conformably to the information 

 given by the Indians, the river to which a reference has been made, originates on the heights of Cusco, 

 and enters with a quantity of water greater by the one half than that which the Apurimac contains. 

 Now, throughout the whole extent of the mountainous territory of Cusco, there is not any river beside 

 the Paucartambo, that manifests such qualities. In his introdudUon to the missions [p. 41], the learned 

 father Rodriguez Tena hazards an opinion, that the Paucartambo is the celebrated Amarumayu, by which 

 the Ynca Yupanqui [Garcilaso, t.i. 1. 7, c. 13, 14, &c.] entered, in imdertaking the conquest of the Moxos, 

 which enterprise was afterwards meditated by Alvarez Maldonado; and that the Ynca could not have na- 

 vigated to the Moxos by the Paucartambo, provided it disembogues in the Apurimac, and not in the 

 Beni. To this we reply, that the Ynca navigated by the Paucartambo, until he reached the mountains 

 of Chunchos, the population of which he, in the first instance, subjugated, and was afterwards enabled 

 to pass to the Beni by some arm of communication, or, perhaps, by land; since this river, having its 

 source in the Cordillera of Vilcanota, in the same parallel line as the Apurimac, and running, by the 

 province of Paucartambo, to the west of that of Cusco, forms such an arc towards the east, that when 

 it winds to the north, to enter the Apurimac, its position is so near to the site of the Beni, that at the 

 confluences theie is not a greater space than the one above pointed out. 



f Among our geographers, some contend that the Beni forms, conjointly with the Itenes, the river of 

 la Madera ; while others are of opinion, that it descends to the Maranon, with the name of Yavari. We 

 can trace the origin of these contrarieties. The most remote springs of the Beni lie to the east of the 

 province of Sicasica, in about 19 degrees of latitude. It runs from S. to N. with some infledlions, re- 

 ceiving various rivers from the mountainous territory it intersects. Among the most noticeable of these 

 K the Coroyco, which, issuing from the province of la Paz, enters it to the west. Pursuing its course, in 



13 degrees 



