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Conquistadores had ceased to ravage. Poor 

 monks only were then permitted to advance to 

 the South of the Steppes. An unknown world 

 commenced for the Spanish colonists beyond the 

 Uritucu ; and the descendants of those intrepid 

 warriors, who had pushed their conquests from 

 Peru to the coasts of New Grenada and the 

 mouth of the Amazon, were ignorant of the 

 roads that lead from Coro to the Rio Meta. 

 The shore of Venezuela remained a separate 

 country ; and the slow conquests of the Jesuit 

 missionaries were successful only by skirting the 

 banks of the Oroonoko. These fathers had 

 already penetrated beyond the great cataracts 

 of Atures and Maypures, when the Andalusian 

 Capuchins had scarcely reached the plains of 

 Calabozo, from the coast and the valleys of 

 Aragua. It would be difficult to explain these 

 contrasts by the system according to which the 

 different monastic orders are governed ; it is the 

 aspect of the country, that contributes power- 

 fully to the more or less rapid progress of the 

 missions. They extend slowly into the interior 

 of the land on mountains, or in steppes wherever 

 they do not follow the course of a particular 

 river. It will scarcely be believed, that the 

 Villa de Fernando de Apure, only fifty leagues 

 distant in a direct line from that part of the 

 coast of Caraccas the longest inhabited, was 

 founded only in 1789. We were shown a parch- 



