34 



The Padre-guardian of the Observations, 

 alarmed at the rapid depopulation of two villages 

 situate near the cataracts, had some years before 

 proposed to the governor of the province, who 

 resides at Angostura, to supply the loss of 

 Indians by Negroes. It is well known, that the 

 African race wonderfully resists hot and damp 

 climates. A colony of free Negroes has pros- 

 pered completely on the unhealthy banks of the 

 Caura, in the mission of San Luis Guaragua- 

 raico, where they obtain the richest harvests of 

 maize. The Padre-guardian wished to remove 

 a part of these black planters to the cataracts of 

 the Oroonoko, or purchase slaves in the West 



The proportions present great differences, because they are 

 taken from one year only. Since, according to the calculation 

 of probabilities, the accuracy of the result increases as the 

 total sum of the population is more considerable, I shall add, 

 that 38 villages gave me, on a total population of 24,778 souls, 

 1934 births, and 961 deaths. The proportions of the births 

 and deaths to the total population therefore were 12 to 1 and 

 25 to 1. In France these proportions are 28 to 1 and 30 to 1. 

 Thus the 38 villages of the missions of Piritu had increased 

 in one year 4 per cent, or I-24th of the population j while 

 near the Oroonoko the increase was not 1 and l-5th per cent, 

 or l-85th of the population. It is almost superfluous to add, 

 that the great difference of these results must be attributed to 

 physical and moral causes, extremely complicated. It ap- 

 peared to me in general, that the population in the missions of 

 Piritu, near the coast, increases in 10 years 30 per cent. In 

 Great Britain this increase was found from 1801 to 1811 to be 

 14 per cent ; in the United States of America, 36 per cent. 



