290 
SUPPOSED HIDDEN TREASURE. 
as concealing a treasure I liad discovered, jointly with the 
missionary of Carichana, amid the tombs of the Indians. 
It is asserted t.iat the Jesuits of Santa Fe de Bogota were 
apprised beforehand of the destruction of their company ; 
and that, in order to save the riches they possessed W 
money and precious vases, they sent them, either by the 
Bio Meta or the Yichada,_to the Orinoco, with orders to . 
have them hidden in the islets amid the raudales. These 
treasures I am supposed to have appropriated unknown to 
my superiors. The Audencia of Caracas brought a com' 
plaint before the governor of Guiana, and we were ordere 
to appear in person. We uselessly performed a journey ot 
one hundred and fifty leagues ; and, although we declare^ 
that we had found in the cavern only human bones, an« 
dried bats and polecats, commissioners were gravely no- 
minated to come hither and search on the spot for th e 
supposed treasures of the Jesuits. We shall wait long i°. r 
these commissioners. When they have gone up the Ori- 
noco as far as San Borja, the fear of the mosquitos wm 
prevent them from going farther. The cloud of flies whic » 
envelopes us in the raudales is a good defence.” 
The account given by the missionary was entirely con- 
formable to what we afterwards learned at Angostura froin 
the governor himself. Fortuitous circumstances had g>r®® 
rise To the strangest suspicions. In the caverns where tb_ 
mummies and skeletons of the nation of the Atures nn- 
found, even in the midst of the cataracts, and in the m° s g 
inaccessible islets, the Indians long ago discovered bos* 
bound with iron, containing various European tools, y® 
nants of clothes, rosaries, and glass trinkets. These °h] e ® 
are thought to have belonged to Portuguese traders oi t 
Bio Xegro and Grand Para, who, before the establishmd 
of the Jesuits on the hanks of the Orinoco, went up , 
Atures by the portages and interior communications ^ ^ 
rivers, to trade with the natives. It is supposed that thes 
men sunk beneath the epidemic maladies so common in * 
raudales, and that them chests became the property ol W 
Indians, the wealthiest of whom were usually buried 
all they possessed most valuable during their lives. Fr 
these very uncertain traditions the tale of hidden treasm 
has been fabricated. As in the Andes of Quito every 
