TO CATARACTS OF MAYPURES 455 
he remarks — " Her only article of clothing was the 
strings of red beads I threw over her neck to induce 
her to keep still while I took her portrait." 
The pilot of the falls, named Macapo, was a 
Piaroa Indian, and it was in his house that Spruce 
lodged during his ten days' stay at Maypures. 
This man had in his possession an old oil-painting 
of San Jose, the patron saint of Maypures, which 
was formerly in the church, but 
was removed for safety to the 
pilot's house when the former 
building fell into decay. It repre- 
sented a sitting figure of life size, 
very much battered, and looking 
more like that of a woman than \^ 
of a man. Of this Spruce says : ^ 
\ 
" Talking one day to Macapo 
of the very great number of times ^ | Ir. \ 
he must have passed the falls, he 
said to me : ' If 1 have conducted oulm^o wo™ seen 
so many vessels over these cata- at the Cataracts of 
racts without an accident ever Maypures. 
happening either to them or to myself, it is not 
because of my skill or dexterity, but because, before 
leaving my house on such occasions, I have never 
failed to devoutly beseech the aid and protection of 
San Jose' — pointing to the tattered picture, and 
laying his hand on his heart with an expression of 
the most profound gratitude. To myself the picture 
was an object of deep interest, not so much on 
account of the veneration with which Macapo 
regarded it, as because it was almost the only relic 
I had seen of those devoted missionaries who sowed 
the germs of civilisation on the wilds of the Upper 
