OBIGTN OF THE COLONY. 
435 
[ orsuaded the whites, and those who fancy they are so, that 
to till the ground is a task fit only for slaves (poitos) and 
the native neophytes. The colony of Esmeralda had been 
founded on the principles of that of Australia ; but it was 
far from being governed with the same wisdom. The Ame- 
rican colonists, being separated from their native soil, not 
by seas, but by forests and savannahs, dispersed; some 
taking the road northward, towards the Caura and the 
Carony; others proceeding southward to the Portuguese 
possessions. Thus the celebrity of this villa, and of the 
emerald-mines of Duida, vanished in a few years ; and Esme- 
ralda, on account of the immense number of insects that ob- 
scure the ah' at all seasons of the year, was regarded by the 
monks as a place of banishment. The superior of the mis- 
sions, when lie w ould make the lay-brothers mindful of their 
duty, threatens sometimes to send them to Esmeralda; 
“ that is,” say the monks, “ to be condemned to the mos- 
quitos ; to be devoured by those buzzing flies (zancudos gri- 
tones), which God appears to have created lor the torment 
and chastisement of man.”* These strange punishments 
have not always been confined to the lay-brothers. There 
happened in 1788 one of those monastic revolutions, of which 
it is difficult to form a conception in Europe, according to 
the ideas that prevail of the peaceful state of the Christian 
settlements in the New World. Por a long period the 
Eranciscau monks settled in Guiana had been desirous of 
forming a separate republic, and rendering themselves inde- 
pendent of the college of Piritu at Mueva Barcelona. Dis- 
contented with the election of Pray Gutierez de Aguilera, 
chosen by a general chapter, and confirmed by the king in 
the important office of president of the missions, five or six 
monks of the Upper Orinoco, the Cassiquiare, and the Eio 
Negro, assembled together at San Pernando de Atabapo ; 
chose hastily a new superior from then own body; and 
caused the old one, who, unfortunately for himself, had come 
to visit those parts, to be arrested. They put him in irons, 
threw him into a boat, and conducted him to Esmeralda, as 
* “ Estos mosquitos que llaman zancudos gritoncs los pareee cria la 
naturaleza para castigo y tormento de los hombres.” — “ Those mosquitos 
which are called buzzing zancudos, Nature seems to have created for the 
Special punishment and torture of man.” (Fray Pedro Simon.) 
2 F 2 
