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with the natives. It is supposed, that these 

 Portugueze sunk beneath the epidemic maladies 

 so common in the raudales, and that their trunks 

 became the property of the Indians, the wealth- 

 iest of whom are accustomed to cause them- 

 selves to be buried with all they possessed most 

 valuable during* their lives. From tliese very 

 uncertain traditions the tale of a hidden trea- 

 sure has been fabricated. As in the Andes of 

 Quito every ruined building, without excepting 

 the foundations of the pyramids erected by the 

 French academicians for the measurement of the 

 meridian, is regarded as Inga pilca*, that is, the 

 work of the Inca ; so at Oroonoko every hidden 

 treasure can belong only to an order, which, no 

 doubt, governed the missions better than the 

 capuchins and the monks of the Observance, 

 but of which the riches and success in the civiliza- 

 tion of the Indians have been much exaggerated. 

 When the jesuits of Santa Fe were arrested, those 

 heaps of piastres, those emeralds of Muzo, those 

 bars of gold of Choco, which the enemies of the 

 company supposed they possessed, were not found 

 in their dwellings. Still it was wrong to con- 

 clude from this, that the treasures did not the less 

 exist ; but that, entrusted to faithful Indians, 

 they had been hidden amid the cataracts of the 

 Oroonoko, to be recovered at some future day, 



* Pilea (properly in Quichua pirca), wall of the Inca. 



