TRAVELS OP THE MISSIONARIES. 



Under these distressing circumstances, he assumed an outward gaiety and content, 

 while his heart was a prey to the most harassing reflections ; and remained until 

 the 20tli, making every arrangement which prudence could suggest, to accom- 

 plish his projeft of eftefting a passage to Cumbasa, with thirty uncivilized Indians, 

 of either age and sex, who were desirous to accompany him. 



By what grateful objeft was this retinue of Indians, dwelling on the banks of the 

 Ucayali, impelled to plough the waters of the Huallaga ? The utmost extent of their 

 intelligence was bounded by their wishes, which were their sole guide, in engaging 

 in this hazardous enterprise. Undertaking to force a passage across mountains 

 covered with briars, to make gond their way over the formidable crags and pre- 

 cipices which descend from the Cordillera, and to pass rivers not yet recorded, 

 the waters of which had but just begun to flow, what had they to expeft beside 

 misery, hunger, and shipwreck ? Father Girbal had to encounter the whole of 

 this series of calamities, to the extreme degree of not having any other shelter 

 tlian a piece of coarse cloth in which to wrap himself, or any other food than tlae 

 wild fruits the forests presented to him. When, allowing himself to be swept 

 along by the current of a river, he fancied that he was impelled towards the 

 wished-for banks of the Huallaga, he unexpectedly encountered those of the 

 Manoa. Such a disappointment would have entirely overpowered his wearied 

 spirit, if it were not, that in great trials, there is a certain description of lenitive 

 which enables us to shun despair. 



Finding himself once more, on the 13th of November, in the midst of the 

 Manoa tribes, father Glrbal's sole intention was to return by the track he had 

 originally followed. The rivers Cuxhiabatay and Ucayali had been considerably 

 swollen by the rains. Having provided two canoes, he abandoned himself, on 

 the 14th, to the impulsion of the one and the other; and on the ISth, reached 

 the first town of Sarayacu, which he had fallen in with at the time of his ascent. 

 He remained there until the 20th, when he again prosecuted his route ; and on the 

 28th, at nine in the morning, reached the town of San Regis, belonging to the 

 Maynas missions, having passed from the Ucayali to the Maranon by the channel 

 named Pocati ; insomuch, that in twelve days, deducing the two he had spent in 

 the above town of Sarayacu, he descended from the first Manoa settlement to the 

 Maranon ; while, in the ascent, he employed nearly treble that time, in going 

 over the same distance. The unconverted Indians who accompanied him, enter- 

 tained certain apprehensions, which prevented them from descending as far as the 

 Maynas tribes ; and being desirous, on that account, not to proceed any further in 

 the navigation of the Maranon, he dismissed them with many caresses, and with 



a grateful 



