THE nVDIAH BEKEFB. 
481 
The passage of the canoe through the Great Cataract 
obliged us to stop two days at Maypures. Father Bernardo 
Zea, missionary at the Baudales, who had accompanied us to 
the Bio Negro, though ill, insisted on conducting us with 
his Indians as far as Atures. One of these Indians, Zerepe, 
the interpreter, who had been so unmercifully punished at 
the beach of Pararuma, riveited our attention by his ap- 
pearance of deep sorrow. We learned that his grief was 
caused by the loss of a young girl to whom he was engaged, 
and that he had lost her in consequence of false intelli- 
gence which had been spread respecting the direction of our 
journey. Zerepe, who was a native of Maypures, had been 
brought up in the woods by his parents, who were of the 
tribe of the Macos. He had brought with him to the 
mission a girl of twelve years of ago, whom he intended to 
marry at our return from the Cataracts. The Indian girl 
was little pleased with the life of the missions, and she was 
told that the whites would go to the country of the Portu- 
guese (Brazil), and would take Zerepe with them. Disap- 
pointed in her hopes, she seized a boat, and with another 
■girl of her own age, crossed the Great Cataract, and fled 
<tl monte. The recital of this courageous adventure was the 
great news of the place. The affliction of Zerepe, however, 
was not of long duration. Born among the Christians, 
having travelled as far as the foot of the llio Negro, under- 
standing Spanish and the language of the Macos, he thought 
himself superior to the people of his tribe, and he no doubt 
■soon forgot his forest love. 
Qn the 31st of May we passed the rapids of Guahihos 
and Garcita. The islands which rise in the middle of the 
waters of the river, were overspread with the purest verdure. 
The rains of winter had unfolded the spathes of the vadgiai 
palm-tree, the leaves of which rise straight toward the sky. 
The eye is never wearied of the view of those scenes, where 
the trees and rocks give the landscape that grand and severe 
character which we admire in the Background of the pic- 
tures ol Salvator Bosa. We landed before sunset on the 
eastern bank of the Orinoco, at the Puerto de la Expedition, 
in order to visit the cavern of Ataruipe, which is the place of 
sepulchre of a whole nation destroyed. I shall attempt to. 
describe this cavern, so celebrated among the natives. , 
VOL. IX. 2 I 
