<S30 
NAVIGATION OF THE EIVEB. 
of two rivers which descend from the paramos of Chingasa 
and Suma Paz. The first is the Eio Negro,. which, lower 
down, receives the Pachnquiaro ; the second is the ltio de 
Aguas Blancas, or Umadea. Tlie junction takes place near 
the port of Marayal. It is only eight or ten leagues 
from the Passo de la Cabulla, where you quit the Eio 
Negro, to the capital of Santa he. From the villages 
of Xiramena and Cabullaro to those of Guanapalo and 
Santa Eosalia de Cabapuna, a distance of sixty leagues, the 
banks of the Meta are more inhabited than those of the 
Orinoco. We find in this space fourteen Christian settle- 
ments, in part very populous ; but from the mouths of the 
rivers Pauto and Casanare, for a space of more than fifty 
leagues, the Meta is infested by the Guahibos, a race of 
savages.* 
The navigation of this river was much more active m the 
time of the Jesuits, and particularly during the expedition 
of Iturriaga, in 1756, than it is at present. Missionaries of 
the same order then governed the banks of the Meta and of 
the Orinoco. The villages of Macuco, Zurimena, and Casi- 
mena, were founded by the Jesuits, as well as those of 
TJruana, Encaramada, and Carichana. 
These Fathers had conceived the project of forming a 
series of Missions from the junction of the Casanare with 
the Meta to that of the Meta with the Orinoco. A narrow 
zone of cultivated land would have crossed the vast steppes 
that separate the forests of Guiana from the Andes of New 
Grenada. 
At the period of the “harvest of turtles’ eggs,” not onlv 
the flour of Santa Fc descended the river, but the salt of 
Chita, t the cotton cloth of San Gil, and the printed coun- 
terpanes of Socorro. To give some security to the little 
traders who devoted themselves to this inland commerce, 
attacks were made from time to time from the castillo or 
fort of Carichana, on the Guahibos. 
To keep these Guahibos in awe, the Capuchin mission- 
aries, who succeeded the Jesuits in the government of the 
* I find the word written Guajihos, Guahivos, and Guagivos. They 
call themselves Gua-iva. , 
f East of Labranza Grande, and the north-west of Pore, now 
capital of the province of Casanare. 
