MANrrFAOTTTErfTG TBIBES. 
477 
fSiA. We were assured that a great lamp of massive silver, 
purchased at the expense of the neophytes, is expected from 
Madrid. Let us hope that, after the arrival of this treasure, 
they will think also of clothing the Indians, of procuring for 
them some instruments of agriculture, and assembling their 
children in a school. Although there are a few oxen in the 
savannahs round the mission, they are rarely employed in 
turning the mill (trapiche), to express the juice of the 
sugar-cane ; this is the occupation of the Indians, who work 
without pay here as they do everywhere when they are under- 
stood to work for the church. The pasturages at the foot 
of the mountains round Santa Barbara are not so rich as at 
Esmeralda, but superior to those at San Fernando de Ata- 
bapo. The grass is short and thick, yet the upper stratum 
of earth furnishes only a dry and parched granitic sand. 
The savannahs (far from fertile) of the banks of the G-ua- 
viare, the Meta, and the Upper Orinoco, are equally desti- 
tute of the mould which abounds in the surrounding "forests, 
and of the thick stratum of clay, which covers the sandstone 
of the Llanos, or steppes of Venezuela. The small herba- 
ceous mimosas contribute in this zone to fatten the cattle, 
but are very rare between the Eio Jao and the mouth of the 
Gtuaviare. 
During the few hours of our stay at the mission of Santa 
Barbara, we obtained pretty accurate ideas respecting the 
Eio Ventuari, which, next to the Guaviare, appeared to me 
to be the most considerable tributary of the Orinoco. Its 
banks, heretofore occupied by the Maypures, are still peo- 
pled by a great number of independent nations. On goino- 
up by the mouth of the Ventuari, which forms a delta 
covered with palm-trees, you find in the east, after three 
days’ journey, the Cumaruita and the Paru, two streams 
that rise at the foot of the lofty mountains of Cuneva. 
Higher up, on the west, lie the Mariata and the Manipiare, 
inhabited hy theMacos and Curacicanas. The latter nation 
is remarkable for their active cultivation of cotton. In a 
hostile incursion (entrada) a large house was found contain- 
ing more than thirty or forty hammocks of a very fine tex- 
ture of spun cotton, cordage, and fishing implements. The 
natives had fled ; and Father Valor informed us, that the 
Indians of the mission who accompanied Hm had set fire to 
