SCPEBIOB ACTIVITY OP OTHEBS. 
417 
employed. “ When I seeing Padre, Padre to me saying •”* 
uistead of, when I saw the missionary, he said to me.” 
1 have mentioned in another place, how wise it appeared 
"O .™ e j n . tlle Jesuits to generalize one of the languages of 
mvilized America, for instance that of the Peruvians, f and 
instruct the Indians, in an idiom which is foreign to them 
m its roots, but not in its structure and grammatical forms 
this was following the system which the Incas, or khm- 
priests of Peru had employed for ages, in order to humanize 
the barbarous nations of the Upper Maraiion, and maintain 
iem under their domination; a system somewhat more 
reasonable than that of making the natives of America 
atMexS*’ 38 ^ graTCly proposed in a P rovill cial concilio 
We were told that the Indians of the Cassiquiare and 
the Eio Negro are preferred on the Lower Orinoco, and 
especially at Angostura, to the inhabitants of the other 
missions, on account of their intelligence and activity. 
Inose of Mandavaca are celebrated among the tribes of 
their own race for the preparation of the curare poison 
which does not yield in strength to the curare of Esmeralda’ 
Unhappily the natives devote themselves to this employ- 
ment more than to agriculture. Yet the soil on the banks 
ol the Cassiquiare is excellent. ¥e find there a granitic 
sand, ot a blackish-brown colour, which is covered in the 
forests with thick layers of rich earth, and on the banks of 
the river with clay almost impermeable to water. The soil 
of the Cassiquiare appears more fertile than that of the 
valley of the Eio Negro, where maize does not prosper 
liice, beans, cotton, sugar, and indigo yield rich harvests 
wherever them cultivation has been tried.J We saw wild 
indigo around the missions of San Miguel de Davipe, San 
Uarlos, and Mandavaca. No doubt can exist that several 
iiations of America, particularly the Mexicans, long before 
the conquest, employed real indigo in their hieroglyphic 
2 “ Quando io mirando Padre, Padre me diciendo.” 
T The Quiehua or Inca language ( Lengua del Inga), 
t M. Bonpland found at Mandavaca, in the huts of the natives, a plant 
with tuberous roots, exactly like cassava (yucca). It is called cumapana , 
“nd is cooked by being baked on the ashes. It grows spontaneously ou 
t he banks of the Cassiquiare. 
VOL. II. 2 II 
