ENTRANCES INTO THE MOUNTAINOUS TERRITOEIES OF PERU. 45C) 



the junftion of the Ene and Perene, navigating the whole extent of the Paro and 

 Ucayali, and ascending by the Maranon and Huallaga, to the river Moyobamba. 

 Having landed on its banks, he proceeded by land to Caxamarca. 



The details relative to the tragical end of father Biedma are as follows : being 

 desirous, in the year 1687, to pay another visit to his Conivos*, he embarked at 

 the above-mentioned junction of the Ene and Perene, having in his company two 

 priests, a lay friar and a lay brother, together with several converted Indians 

 whom he had engaged in his service at Sonomoro. After a few days had been 

 spent in the navigation of the Paro, the party fell into an ambush of Piros and 

 Comavos Indians, who made a general discharge of arrows, by which they were 

 all killed. This disastrous event was fatal to the projects of the provincials of the 

 Order of the Twelve Apostles, and was the cause of the entire loss of the convei-- 

 sions of Jauxaf ; on this account, that father Biedma having taken with him 

 nearly the whole of the persons Ke employed as his roacljntors at Sonomoro, the 

 few who still remained there being seized with a violent panic, abandoned the con- 

 verts. The latter, finding themselves without a pastor, returned to the moun- 

 tains, and to paganism. 



The conversions which have been just cited, remained in this abandoned state 

 until the year 1713|, when the venerable founder of Ocopa, obeying the impul- 

 sion of his ardent zeal, proceeded with hasty steps from frontier to frontier, and 

 having reached that of Jauxa, took the necessary measures for their re-establish- 

 ment. In the prosecution of this pious intention he was so successful, that, with 

 the help of several zealous co-operators belonging to the provincial order, the 

 most distinguished of whom were friar Fernando de San Joseph, a native of the 

 mountains of Burgos, and friar Juan de la Marca, by birth a Frenchman, in the 

 year 1730, four -populous and flourishing towns, entitled Sonomoro, Chavini, 

 Jesus Maria, and Catalipango, were to be reckoned. The last was destroyed in 

 the year 1737, by a cacique named Torote, who, after having barbarously put to 

 death a lay brother and several Indian converts, proceeded, in the course of the 

 same year, to the town of Sonomoro, where he massacred, with equal cruelty, the 

 venerable fathers, friar Manuel Baxo, friar Alonzo, belonging to the Order of 

 the Holy Ghost, and friar Cristoval Pacheco§. The governor, Don Benito Tron- 

 coso, was no sooner apprised of this tragical event, than he assembled all the 

 troops he could colle£l in the valley of Jauxa, and penetrated with them, and a few 



* Tena, lib. i. p. 123 

 t Amich, p. 76. 



3n2 



f Amich, p. 69. 

 § Amich, p. 101. 



mission a- 



