Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/471

Rh one which gave it birth. The vegetable kingdom, vying with the others, displays its fertility in the formation of vast forests abounding in majestic trees of the finest foliage, in odoriferous flowers, in the richest fruits, and in those healing gums and balsams which, constantly distilling, exhale their ambrosial streams, and fill the air with fragrance. The spaces that are not occupied by the forests, are inhabited by the savage tribes of the Sipibos, Setebos, Panos, and Cocamas, who there enjoy the blessings which Nature has so amply provided for them.

This highly favoured portion of South America, would, in the event of Manoa being restored, and the Port del Mayro re-constructed and fortified, be in a manner surrounded by the Spanish possessions; at the same time that, every part of the banks of the Huallaga and Maranon being peopled by the missions of Caxamarquilla, Lamas, and Maynas, Manoa and the above-mentioned port would afford security to those of Mayro and Ucayali. By these means, also, the entrance into the immense territories of Enim and Paytiti would be facilitated. To ascertain the practicability of a project so useful to religion, to the monarch, and to Peru, it was indispensably necessary to follow the course of all the rivers by which the Pampa del Sacramento is intersected; to observe the difficulties which impede their navigation; to calculate the time it would require; and to remove the obstacles which the mountains present, in the tracks leading to the ports of embarkation. It was by such a plan alone that a knowledge could be obtained of the mode to be pursued, both to defend Manoa from the fierce and wanton attacks of the barbarians, and to open a ready communication with the capital of the viceroyalty, which necessarily becomes the centre of the springs that give an impulsion to, and sustain all similar enterprises.

To this great aim the peregrination which was undertaken in the middle of the last year, 1790, by the apostolical father, friar Manuel Sobreviela, guardian of the college of St. Anne of Ocopa, was directed. Being desirous to throw every possible light on a point of history and geography, little, if at all known, we brought forward the history of the missions of Caxamarquilla, to the end that, by presenting the facts from their origin, this interesting subject might be better understood. With the same design, we had some thoughts of prefacing this relation by a concise description of the Huallaga, freed from the errors which are to be found in all the maps that have been delineated, more especially as it was not in our power to