17 



mortality was very considerable at Carichana, 

 on the banks of the Meta, and at the Rau- 

 dal of Atures. The Indian of the forest con- 

 ceives a horror for the life of the civilized man, 

 when, I will not say any misfortune befalls his 

 family settled in the mission, but merely any 

 disagreable or unforeseen accident. Natives, 

 who were neophytes, have been known to desert 

 for ever the Christian establishments, on ac- 

 count of a great drought ; as if this calamity 

 would not have reached them equally in their 

 plantations, had they remained in their primi- 

 tive independence. 



What are the causes of those fevers, that pre- 

 vail during a great part of the year in the vil- 

 lages of Atures and Maypures, around the two 

 Great Cataracts of the Oroonoko, and which 

 render these spots so much to be dreaded by 

 European travellers ? They are violent heats 

 joined with the excessive humidity of the air, 

 bad nutriment, and, if we may believe the na- 

 tives, the pestilent exhalations, that rise from the 

 bare rocks of the Raudales. These fevers of 

 the Oroonoko appeared to us to resemble alto- 

 gether those, that are felt every year between 

 New-Barcelona, La Guayra, and Porto Cabello^ 

 in the vicinity of the sea ; and often degenerate 

 into adynamic fevers. " I have had my little 

 fever (mi calenturita) only eight months," said 

 the good missionary of the Atures, who accorn- 



vol. v. c 



