490 



whites, who were Portugueze slave-traders of 

 the Rio Negro, recognized with marks of joy 

 the habit of the order of saint Ignatius. They 

 heard with astonishment, that the river, on 

 which this interview took place, was the Oroo- 

 noko ; and they brought father Roman by the 

 Cassiquiare to the Brazilian Settlements on the 

 Rio Negro. The superiour of the Spanish mis- 

 sions was forced to remain near the flying camp 

 of the troop of ransomers, till the arrival of the 

 Portugueze jesuit Avogadri, who was gone upon 

 business to Grand Para. Father Manuel Ro- 

 man returned with his Saliva Indians by the 

 same way, that of the Cassiquiare and the Up- 

 per Oroonoko, to Pararuma*, a little to the north 

 of Carichana, after an absence of seven months. 

 He was the first white man, who went from the 

 Rio Negro, consequently from the basin of the 



* The 15th of October, 1774. M. de la Condamine quitted 

 the town of Grand Para December the 29th, 1743 j it follows 

 from a comparison of the dates, which I gave in the histori- 

 cal sketch of the discoveries in Guyana, that the Indian 

 woman of Pararnma, carried off by the Portugueze, and to 

 whom the French traveller had spoken, had not come with 

 father Roman, as was erroneously affirmed. The appearance 

 of this woman on the banks of the Amazon is inter esting with 

 respect to the researches lately made on the mixture of 

 races and languages ; it proves the enormous distances, at 

 which the individuals of one tribe are compelled to mix with 

 those of another. 



