MISSI05 0E SAW FEAff CISCO. 
405 
mountains are only found more to the east, towards the 
sources of the Pacimoni, Siapa, and Mavaca. Having 
arrived on the south of tho Eaudal of Caravine, we per- 
ceived that the Cassiquiare, by tho windings of its course, 
again approached San Carlos. The distance from this fort 
to the mission of San Francisco Solano, where, we slept, is 
only two leagues and a half by land, but it is reckoned 
seven or eight by the river. I passed a part of the night in 
the open air, waiting vainly for stars. The air was misty, 
notwithstanding the aguas blancas, which were to lead us 
beneath an ever-starry sky. 
The mission of San Francisco Solano, situated on the left 
bank of the Cassiquiare, was founded, as were most of the 
Christian settlements south of the Great Cataracts of the 
Orinoco, not by monks, but by military authority. At the 
time of the expedition of the boundaries, villages were built 
in proportion as a subleniente, or a corporal, advanced with 
his troops. Part of the natives, in order to preserve their 
independence, retired without a struggle ; others, of whom 
the most powerful chiefs had been gained, joined the mis- 
sions. Where there was no church, they contented them- 
selves with erecting a great cross ot red wood, close to 
which they constructed a casa fuerte, or block-house, the 
walls of which were formed of large beams resting hori- 
zontally upon each other. This house had two stories ; in 
the upper story two cannon of small calibre were placed ; 
and two soldiers lived on the ground-floor, and were served 
by an Indian family. Those of the natives with whom they 
were at peace cultivated spots of land round the casa fuerte. 
The soldiers called them together by the sound of the horn, 
or a botuto of baked earth, whenever any hostile attack was 
dreaded. Such were the pretended nineteen Christian 
settlements founded by Hon Antonio Santos in the wav 
from Esmeralda to the Erevato. Military posts, which had 
no influence on the civilization of the natives, figured on the 
maps, and in the works of the missionaries, as villages 
( pueblos ) and reducciones apostolicas.* The preponderance 
of the military was maintained on the banks of the Orinoco 
till 1785, when the system of the monks of San Francisco 
* Signifying apostolic conquests or conversion?* 
