392 
THE GLOKIETA HE COCUY. 
going to visit the missions of the Rio Negro, and examine 
the natural canal which unites two great systems of rivers. 
In those desert forests instruments had been seen only in the 
hands of the commissioners of the boundaries ; and at that 
time the subaltern agents of the Portuguese government 
could not conceive how a man of sense could expose himself 
to the fatigues of a long journey, “ to measure lands that 
did not belong to him.” Orders had been issued to seizo 
my person, my instruments, and, above all, those registers 
of astronomical observations, so dangerous to the safety of 
states. "We were to be conducted bv way of the Amazon 
to Grand Para, and thence sent back to Lisbon. But 
fortunately for me, the government at Lisbon, on being 
informed of the zeal of its subaltern agents, instantly gave 
orders that I should not be disturbed in my operations; 
but that on the contrary they should be encouraged, if I 
traversed any .part of the Portuguese possessions. 
In going down the Guaiuia, or Eio Negro, you pass on 
the right tho Cano Maliapo, and on the left the Canos 
Dariba and Eny. At five leagues distance, nearly in 1° 3S' 
of north latitude, is the island of San J osef. A little below 
that island, in a spot where there are a great number of 
orange-trees now growing wild, the traveller is shown a 
small rock, two hundred feet high, with a cavern called by 
the missionaries the Glorieta de Cocuy. This summer- 
house (for such is the signification of the word glorieta in 
Spanish) recalls remembrances that are not the most agree- 
able. It was here that Cocuy, the chief of the Manitivi- 
tanos,* had his harem of women, and where he devoured 
the finest and fattest. The tradition of the harem and the 
orgies of Cocuy is more current in the Lower Orinoco than 
on the banks of the Guainia. At San Carlos the very idea 
that the chief of the Manitivitanos could be guiity ot 
cannibalism is indignantly rejected. 
The Portuguese government has established many settle- 
ments even in this remote part of Brazil. Below the 
Glorieta, in the Portuguese territory, there are eleven 
villages in an extent of twenty-five leagues. I know of 
* At San Carlos there is still preserved an instrument of music, a 
kind of large drum, ornamented with very rude Indian paintings, which 
relate to the exploits of Cocuy. 
