133 



tion. Under the absolute and sometimes vexa- 

 tious government of the monks, he seeks to 

 meliorate his condition by those little artifices, 

 which are the weapons of childhood, and of all 

 physical and intellectual weakness. 



Having arrived during the night at San Jose 

 de Maypures, we were forcibly struck by the 

 aspect and solitude of the place ; the Indians 

 were plunged in profound sleep, and nothing 

 was heard but the cries of nocturnal birds, and 

 the distant sound of the cataract. In the calm 

 of the night, amid the deep repose of nature, 

 the monotonous sound of a fall of water has 

 something in it sad and solemn. We remained 

 three days at Maypures, a small village founded 

 by Don Jose Solano at the time of the expedi- 

 tion of the boundaries, the situation of which is 

 more picturesque, it might be said still more 

 admirable, than that of Atures. 



The raudal of Maypures, called by the In- 

 dians Quittuna, is formed, as all cataracts are, 

 by the resistance which the river finds in it's 

 way across a ridge of rocks, or a chain of 

 mountains. The nature of this scene may be 

 studied by examining the plan, which I sketched 

 on the spot, to show the Governor-General of 

 Caraccas the possibility of avoiding the raudal, 

 and of facilitating the navigation, by digging a 

 canal between two tributary streams of the 

 Oroonoko, in a valley that appears to have been 



