220 
MISSION or CAIUCHANA. 
narrows. Full of little islands and masses of granite rock, 
it presents rapids, or small cascades (remolinos), which at 
first sight may alarm the traveller by the continual eddies 
of the water, "but which at no season of the year are dan- 
gerous for boats. A range of shoals, that crosses almost 
the whole river, hears the name of the Randal de Mar imam ■ 
We passed it without difficulty by a narrow channel, in 
which the water seems to boil up as it issues out impetu- 
ously* below the Picdra de Marmara, a compact mass of 
granite eighty feet high, and three hundred feet in cir- 
cumference, without fissures, or any trace of stratification- 
The river penetrates far into the land, and forms spacious 
bays in the rocks. One of these bays, inclosed between 
two promontories destitute of vegetation, is called the Port 
of Carichana. f The spot has a very wild aspect. In the 
evening the rocky coasts project their vast shadows over 
the surface of the river. The waters appear black from 
reflecting the image of these granitic masses, which, in tlm 
colour of their external surface, sometimes resemble coal 
and sometimes lead-ore. Wo passed the night in the small 
village of Carichana, where we were received at the priest’s 
house, or convento. It was nearly a fortnight since we had 
slept under a roof. 
To avoid the effects of the inundations, often so fatal 
health, the Mission of Carichana has been established at 
three quarters of a league from the river. The Indians m 
this Mission are of the nation of the Salives, and they have 
a disagreeable and nasal pronunciation. Their language, ot 
which the Jesuit Anisson has composed a grammar still h* 
manuscript, is, with the Caribbean, the Tamanae, the MAI' 
pure, the Ottoman, the Guahive, and the Jaruro, one of th® 
mother-tongues most general on the Orinoco. Father Gib 
thinks that the Ature, the Piraoa, and the Quaqua ° r 
Mapoye, are only dialects of the Salive. My journey ' va ® 
much too rapid to enable me to judge of the' accuracy m 
this opinion ; but we shall soon see that, in the village 0 
Ature, celebrated on account of its. situation near the gre a " 
cataracts, neither the Salive nor the Ature is now spokem 
hut the language of the May pares. In the Salive of Car 1 * 
* These places are called chorreras in the Spanish colonies. 
+ Piedra y puerto de Carichana. 
