488 



appeared to him to be the unsuspected testimony 

 of a Cauriacani Indian woman, with whom he 

 had conversed, and who had come in a boat 

 from the banks of the Oroonoko (from the mis- 

 sion of Pararuma*) to Grand Para. Before the 

 return of M. de la Condamine to his own coun- 

 try, the voyage of father Manuel Roman, and 

 the fortuitous meeting of the missionaries of the 

 Oroonoko and the Amazon, left no doubt of 

 this fact, of which Acunha first obtained the 

 knowledge. 



The incursions undertaken from the middle 

 of the seventeenth century, to procure slaves^ 

 had gradually led the Portugueze from the Rio 

 Negro by the Cassiquiare, to the bed of a great 

 river, which they did not know to be the Upper 

 Oroonoko. A flying camp, composed of the troop 

 of 'ransomers^c, favoured this inhuman commerce. 

 After having excited the natives to make war, 

 they ransomed the prisoners ; and, to give an 

 appearance of equity to the trade, monks ac- 

 companied the troop of ransomers, to examine 

 " whether those who sold the slaves had a right 

 to do so, by having made them prisoners in 

 open war." From the year 1737, these voyages 

 of the Portugueze to the Upper Oroonoko be- 

 came very frequent. The desire of exchanging 



* See above, chap. 19, vol. iv, p. 537. 

 + Tropa de rescate ; from rescatar, redimere. 



