300 



should be reckoned from the centre of the island 

 of St. Nicholas, or (as the court of Portugal 

 asserted), from the western extremity of the little 

 island of Saint Antonio. In the year 1754, the 

 time of the expedition of Ituriaga and Solano, 

 negotiations were entered into on the possession 

 of the banks of the Tuamini, then desert, and of 

 a marshy ground which we crossed in one even- 

 ing going from Javita to Canno Pimichin. The 

 Spanish commissioners very recently would 

 have placed the divisional line at the opening of 

 the Apoporis into the Jupura * 9 while the Portu- 

 gueze astronomers carried it back as far as Salto 

 Grande <f\ The missionaries, and the public in 

 general, take a lively interest in these territorial 

 disputes. In the Spanish as well as in the Portu- 

 gueze colonies, the government is accused of in- 

 dolent supineness. Whenever the people have 

 no institutions founded on liberty, public spirit 



* More accurately Hyapura, or Caqueta. 



+ Mapa del Rio Marannon para accompannar a la relation 

 sobre las operationes projectadas en la demarcation de limites por 

 la quarta partida de division, construida por el Ten. Coronet y 

 lngen, ordinario Don Francisco Requena, Primer Comisario de la 

 misma division, Governador y Cornand. general de la prov. de 

 Maynas, 1783 (manuscript). From this map, which I copied 

 during my stay at Quito, I gathered some geographical in- 

 formation altogether unknown respecting the countries be- 

 tween the Napo, the Putumayo, the Jupura, and the Rio 

 Negro. 



