373 



part of Brazil. There are eleven villages in an 

 extent of twenty-five leagues. I know of nine- 

 teen more as far as the mouth of the Rio Negro, 

 beside thesixtownsofThomare, Moreira (near the 

 Rio Demenene or Uaraca, where dwelt anciently 

 the Guyana Indians), Barcellos*, San Miguel 

 del Rio Branco, near the river of the same name, 

 so well known in the fictions on El Dorado, 

 Moura, and Villa do Rio Negro. The banks of 

 this tributary stream of the Amazon alone are con- 

 sequently ten times more peopled than all those of 

 the Upper and Lower Oroonoko, the Cassiquiare, 

 theAtabapo,and the Spanish Rio Negro, together. 

 This contrast depends little on the different ferti- 

 lity of the soil, or the greater facility of navigation 

 which the Rio Negro affords, by preserving the 

 same direction from north-west to south-east. 

 It is the effect of political institutions. Under 

 the colonial system of the Portugueze, the In- 

 dians are dependant at the same time on the 

 civil and military chiefs, and the ecclesiastics of 

 Mount Carmel; it is a mixed government, in 

 which the secular power preserves it's indepen- 

 dance. The monks of the Observance,, who are 

 the missionaries of the Oroonoko, unite on the 

 contrary all power in one hand. Both these 



* At the confluence of the Rio Buhybuhy. The town 

 heretofore stood forty leagues higher up, a circumstance 

 which has occasioned great confusion in the modern maps. 



