ENTRANCES INTO THE MOUNTAINOUS TERRIT0I5IES OP PERU. 447 



of two thousand souls, who were settled in two towns, which did not subsist, how- 

 ever, for any considerable time. The commander of the escort being charmed 

 with the climate of the mountainous territory, quitted the new settlements with 

 his soldiery, and the treacherous Callisecas no sooner perceived that the priests were 

 left unprotected, than they attacked them in the town named Chupasnao, the latter 

 defending themselves against the invasion with fire-arms. They at length found it 

 prudent to flee from the danger, and retreated to Tulumayo, with a hundred Se- 

 tebos, who followed them with an anxious wish to become christians. Notwith- 

 standing the necessity of this retreat, and the imminent danger to which the above 

 missionaries had been exposed, father Alonzo Caballero did not abandon the hope 

 of the reduction of the Callisecas. Having been joined by friar Manuel Biedma, 

 he returned with a few soldiers in the year 1663 •, and in that of 1665, a town, 

 provided with a church, was completed *. In this place he left, as converter, the 

 above-mentioned friar Manuel Biedma, who was succeeded by friar Rodrigo Vaza- 

 bil. The establishment remained without any particular occurrence until the year 

 1667, when, for want of the necessary support, the conversion was most lamen- 

 tably reduced : the Callisecas having entered into a confederacy with several other 

 nations, made an irruption into the territory of the Payansos, where they put to 

 death many christians, and among them the reverend fathers, friar Francisco 

 Mexia, president of the Panataguas missions, and friar Alonzo of Madrid, toge- 

 ther with five lay brothers. On this account, and in consequence of the small-pox, 

 which raged with extreme violence among the converted Indians, from the above 

 time to the year 1670, the conversions of Panataguas went on gradually diminish- 

 ing, insomuch that in the year 1691, four towns only were to be reckoned, and in 

 them not more than two hundred souls of either sex, and of the different ages, 

 but so vicious, that scarcely a trace of Christianity was to be found among them. In 

 the year 1704, these conversions were completely lost, by the death of friar Gero- 

 nimo de los Rios, who was barbarously murdered by a band of infidels, conjec- 

 tured to belong to the tribe of Casibos. Not any further vestige of them was now 

 to be found, beside the little town of Cuchero, inhabited by a very few In- 

 dians f. 



In the year 1712, the venerable founder of the college of Ocopa, friar Francisco 

 de San Joseph, native of the city of Mondejar in Alcarria, arrived at Huanuco, 

 and seeing the impossibility of re-establishing the Panataguas missions, penetrated 



* Amich, p. 9. 



f Amich, p. 73. 



into 



