SAN JUAN DE LOS ATUltES. 
238 
his hut, towards the close of the rainy season, found a tigress 
settled in it with her two young. These animals had inha- 
bited the dwelling for several months; they were dislodged 
from it with difficulty, and it was only after an obstinflt® 
combat that the former master regained possession ol hi* 
dwelling. The jaguars are fond of retiring to deserts 
ruins, and I beiieve it is more prudent in general for a 
solitary traveller to encamp in the open air, between t"° 
fires, than to seek shelter in uninhabited huts. ' 
On quitting the island of Panumana, we perceived 
the western bank of the river the fires of an encampment o 
Guahibo savages. The missionary who accompanied « 
caused a few musket-shots to be fired in the air, which 0 e 
said would intimidate them, and shew that we were id 
state to defend ourselves. The savages most likely had » 
canoes, and w ere not desirous of troubling us in the mid<n 
of the river. We passed at sunrise the mouth of the F* 
Anaveni, which descends from the eastern mountains. C 
its banks, now deserted, Father Olinos had established, 11 ^ 
the time of the Jesuits, a small village of Japuins or Ja 1 ' 11 ' 
ros. The heat was so excessive that we rested a long 
in a woody spot, to fish with a hook and line, and it was u° 
without some trouble that we carried away all the fish W 
had caught. We did not arrive till very late at the foot « 
the Great Cataract, in a bay called the lower harbour (P uer *L 
de abaxo) ; and wo followed, not without difficulty, in a da' 
uight, the narrow path that leads to the Mission ot Ature’ 
a league distant from the river. We crossed a plain cover® 
with largo blocks of granite. . 
The little village of Ban Juan Nepomucono de los Atur 
was founded by the Jesuit Francisco Gonzales, in 1748. 
going up the river this is the last of the Christian K 11 
sious that owe their origin to the order of St. Ignatiy, 
The more southern establishments, those of Atabapo, 
Cassiquiare, and of Eio Negro, were formed by the f»w e 
of the Observance of St. Francis. The Orinoco appears ^ 
have flowed heretofore where the village of Atures 
stands, and the flat savannah that surrounds the village 
doubt formed part of the river. I saw to the east ol ^ 
mission a succession of rocks, which seemed to have 
the ancient shore of the Orinoco. In the lapse of ages 
