Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/485

Rh now proceed to illustrate the fertile Plains of the Sacrament, by publishing the peregrination which was undertaken, by the Maranon and Ucayali, to the Manoa tribes, by father Narciso Girbal, rector of Cumbasa. It being a continuation of that of father Sobreviela, given above, we adopt the same method, commencing by a compendious description of the latter of these rivers. We pass over the former in silence, because we have nothing new to offer, in addition to what is contained in the travels and hydrographical charts in which it has been delineated by authors of high respectability.

The history of the celebrated Ucayali has been disfigured by a thousand errors, which have originated, as well in the imperfect knowledge of the territories through which it flows, as in the partiality and interest of the missionaries by whom these regions have been frequented. Having been regarded, at the time of the conquest of Peru, as the real trunk of the Maranon, and being entitled to such a pre-eminence by the copiousness of its waters, by the number and magnitude of the rivers which pay it tribute, and by the remoteness of its sources, it was stripped of this prerogative, and received the name it still bears. The same causes have induced a doubt which is the principal of its branches; and on this head opinions have been divided between the Beni and the Apurimac. The latter