440 



APPENDIX. 



a grateful sense of the urbanity they had displayed, in escorting him as far as San 

 Regis. The Indians attached to the Maynas missions, having, with great genero- 

 sity, supplied him with the same number of canoes, and with whatever he might 

 need in his ascent to Cumbasa, father Girbal proceeded on his voyage by the 

 Maranon. On the 11th of December he reached the town of the lake of Gran 

 Cocoma, and contending against the current of the Huallaga, entered, on the 

 '29th, his doEirinay or spiritual jurisdidlion, of Cumbasa, after an absence of up- 

 wards of four months. Thus terminated his long and painful peregrination. 



It may be attended by great and manifest advantages both to religion and to 

 the state. The idea of the ferociousness and barbarity of the uncivilized Indians 

 inhabiting the Pampa del Sacramento has been done away ; and the dread which 

 prevented their reduction has vanished like a fanciful dream. They are heartily 

 desirous to be instructed in the maxims of Christianity ; — maxims which, being 

 diredled to the welfare and felicity of man, penetrate without violence into his 

 spirit, and obtain a complete mastery over his passions. Religion, in benefits 

 ing man, has an infinitely greater power to civilize him, to keep him in good 

 order and subjeClion, and to sustain the august thrones of legitimate and benign 

 potentates, than all the accumulated artifices which despots have invented to ty- 

 rannize over him. 



The navigation of the Ucayali having been explored, it has been ascertained 

 that it may be undertaken at any of the seasons of the year, without dread of 

 encountering the impediment of rock or shoal ; and experience has demonstrated 

 the celerity with which the descent from Manoa to the Maynas settlements may 

 be accomplished ; — a circumstance v/hich, in the first instance, presents a prompt 

 refuge to the missionaries, in the case of sudden attacks. These favourable prin- 

 ciples having been combined with others which prudence may dictate, may give 

 rise to several flourishing missions, which may not be exposed to the disasters 

 that attended the former. What alone is necessary, is to seize on the occasion 

 as it presents itself. Supported by the protection and authority of our excellent 

 governor*, father Manuel Sobreviela has already had recourse to the most 

 effectual expedients. Father Narciso Girbal y Barcelo, who, at the commence- 

 ment of the present year, 1791, reached Lima to render an account of his pere- 



* Don Francisco Gil y Lemos, the then viceroy, a man of a most liberal and patriotic spirit. He was 

 before at Sante Fe, as was likewise his secretary, Don Dionysio Franco, to whose patriotism and en- 

 couragement, the estabhshment of the Academical Society of Lima is, as well as that of the Peruvian 

 Mercury, in a great measure to be ascribed. 



grination, 



