37C 
NATIONAL ANIMOSITIES. 
were hurt by the motives which we alleged with the view 
to give them confidence. A people who have preserved in 
vigour, through the revolutions of ages, a national hatred, 
like occasions of giving it vent. The mind delights in every- 
thing impassioned, in the consciousness of an energetic 
feeling, in the affections, and in rival hatreds that are 
founded on antiquated prejudices. Whatever constitutes 
the individuality ol nations flows from the mother-countrv 
to the most remote colonies; and national antipathies are 
not effaced where the influence of the same languages 
ceases. We know, from the interesting narrative of Kru- 
senstern’s voyage, that the hatred of two fugitive sailors, one 
a Frenchman and the other an Englishman, was the cause 
of a long war between the inhabitants of the Marquesas 
Islands. On the banks of the Amazon and the Rio Negro, 
the Indians of the neighbouring Portuguese and Spanish 
villages detest each other. These poor people speak only 
the native tongues; they are ignorant of what passes ‘on 
the other bank of the ocean, beyond the great salt-pool 
but the gowns ol their missionaries are of a different colour, 
and this displeases them extremely. 
I have stopped to paint the effects of national animosi- 
ties, which wise statesmen have endeavoured to calm, but 
have been unable entirely to set at rest. This rivalry has 
contributed to the imperfection of the geographical know- 
ledge hitherto obtained respecting the tributary rivers of 
the Amazon. When the communications of the natives 
are impeded, and one nation is established near the mouth, 
and another in the upper part of the same river, it is 
difficult for persons who attempt to construct maps to 
acquire precise information. The periodical inundations, 
and still more the portages, by which boats are passed from 
one stream to another, "the sources of which are in the same 
neighbourhood, have led to erroneous ideas of the bifur- 
cations and branchings of rivers. The Indians of the Por- 
tuguese missions, for instance, enter (as I was informed 
upon the spot) the Spanish Rio Negro on one side by the 
Rio Guainia and the Rio Tomo ; and the Upper Orinoco 
on the other, by the portages between the Cababuri, the 
Pacimoni, the Idapa, and the Macava, to gather the aro- 
matic seeds of the pichero laurel beyond the Esmeralda. 
