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The tall trunks of the pirijao palms formed in 

 our eyes the most beautiful ornament of these 

 plantations. In our walks, the president of the 

 mission gave us an animated account of his 

 incursions on the Rio Guaviare. He related to 

 us how much these journeys, undertaken " for 

 the conquest of souls/' are desired by the In- 

 dians of the missions. All, even women and 

 old men, take part in it. On the vain pretext 

 of recovering* neophytes who have deserted the 

 village, children above eight or ten years of 

 age are carried off, and distributed among the 

 Indians of the missions as serfs, or poitoes. The 

 journals, which father Bartholomew Mancilla 

 kindly communicated to us, contain very 

 valuable geographical materials. I shall give 

 farther on an abstract of these discoveries, in 

 treating of the principal tributary streams of 

 the Oroonoko, which are the Guaviare, the 

 Ventuari, the Meta, the Caura, and the Carony. 

 It will be sufficient here to observe, that, ac- 

 cording to the astronomical observations I took 

 on the banks of the Atabapo, and on the western 

 declivity of the Cordillera of the Andes, near 

 the Paramo de la suma Paz, the distance is 

 one hundred and seven leagues only from San 

 Fernando to the first villages of the provinces of 

 Caguan and San Juan de los Llanos. I was 

 assured also by some Indians, who dwelt for- 

 merly to the west of the Island of Amanaveni, 



