545 



house, or convento, from the recommendation of 

 the worthy missionary, Fray Jose Antonio de 

 Torre. It was nearly a fortnight since we had 

 slept under a roof. 



April the 11th. To avoid the effects of the 

 inundations, often so fatal to health, the mission 

 of Carichana has been placed at three quarters 

 of a league distance from the river. The Indians 

 are of the nation of Salivas ; they have a dis- 

 agreeable and nasal pronunciation. Their lan- 

 guage, of which the Jesuit Anisson has composed 

 a grammar still in manuscript, is, with the Carib- 

 bean, the Tamanack, the Maypure, the Otto- 

 mack, the Guahive, and the Jaruro> one of the 

 mother tongues most general on the Oroonoko. 

 Father Gili * thinks, that the Ature, the Piraoa, 

 and the Quaqua or Mapoje, are only dialects of 

 the Saliva. My journey was much too rapid to 

 enable me to judge of the accuracy of this asser- 

 tion ; but we shall soon see, that in the village 

 of Atures, celebrated on account of it's situation 

 near the great cataracts, neither the Saliva nor 

 the Ature is now spoken, but the language of 

 the Maypures. In the Saliva of Carichana, man 

 is called cogco, woman gnacu, Water cagna, fire 

 egussa, the earth seke, the sky-}- mumeseke y 

 (earth on high), the jaguar impii, the croco- 



* Vol iii, p. 205. 

 f lb, p. 212. 



VOL. IV. 2 N 



