STATE 0E THE MISSION. 
239 
rwer has been impelled westward, in consequence of the 
^cumulations of earth, which occur more frequently on the 
*-h e ea stern mountains, that are furrowed by torrents, 
jj-.he cataract bears the name of Mapara,* as we have men- 
Jjoned above ; while the name of the village is derived from 
that of the nation of Atures, now believed to be extinct. 
* find on the maps of the seventeenth century, Island and 
La (aract of Athule ; which is the word Atures written ac- 
cording to the pronunciation of the Tamanacs, who con- 
.pO.od, like so many other people, the consonants l and r. 
his mountainous region was so little known in Europe, 
.' Ve n in the middle of the eighteenth century, that D'Anvilie, 
-h the first edition of his South America, makes a branch 
ss *ue from the Orinoco, near Salto de los Atures, and fall 
A. 0 the Amazon, to which branch he gives the name of 
Negro. 
Early maps, as well as Father Gumilla’s work, place 
j ® Mission in latitude 1° 30'. Abbe Gili gives it 3“ 50'. 
j, t°und, by meridian altitudes of Canopus and a of the 
cithern Cross, 5° 38' 4" for the latitude ; and by the chro- 
cnieter 4 !> 41' 17" of longitude west of the meridian of 
“aris, 
P ^ e found this small Mission in the most deplorable state. 
e e °ntained, even at the time of the expedition of Solano, 
, ttunonly called the ‘expedition of the boundaries,’ three 
yt'^hred and twenty Indians. This number had diminished, 
an l t * me °*' our P assa g e hy the Cataracts, to forty-seven ; 
ly f ^he missionary assured us that this diminution became 
111 year to year more sensible. He showed us, that in the 
°„1 an> Ignorant of the etymology of this woi d, which I believe means 
r r J a fli of water. Gili translates into Maypure a small cascade 
S M1 f . °) by uccamatisi rnapara canacapatirri. Should we not 
a nd 1IS , w °rd malpara ? mat being a radical of the Maypure tongue, 
fo), n( j" ean ' n g tad (Hervas, Sayyio, N. 29). The radical par ( para ) is 
from .T 0n S American tribes more than five hundred leagues distant 
'" tl r l f s edl: 1 ot * lc r, the Caribs, Maypures, Brazilians, and Peruvians, in the 
tlii s j sea ' rain, water, lake. We must not confound mapara with 'mapaja ; 
tree, dst '' -or d signifies, in Maypure and Tamanac, the papaw or melon- 
>U ti, e l ? r aou ^ t 011 account of the sweetness of its fruit, for mapa means 
of ; a ypnr;, as well as in the Peruvian and Omaguu tongues, 1 the honey 
Hie Gc Tamanacs call a cascade, or raudal, in general uatapurutpe 
4 * a J'pures, nca. 
