Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/497

Rh Under these distressing circumstances, he assumed an outward gaiety and content, while his heart was a prey to the most harassing reflections; and remained until the 20th, making every arrangement which prudence could suggest, to accomplish his project of effecting a passage to Cumbasa, with thirty uncivilized Indians, of either age and sex, who were desirous to accompany him.

By what grateful object was this retinue of Indians, dwelling on the banks of the Ucayali, impelled to plough the waters of the Huallaga? The utmost extent of their intelligence was bounded by their wishes, which were their sole guide, in engaging in this hazardous enterprise. Undertaking to force a passage across mountains covered with briars, to make good their way over the formidable crags and precipices which descend from the Cordillera, and to pass rivers not yet recorded, the waters of which had but just begun to flow, what had they to expert beside misery, hunger, and shipwreck? Father Girbal had to encounter the whole of this series of calamities, to the extreme degree of not having any other shelter than a piece of coarse cloth in which to wrap himself, or any other food than the wild fruits the forests presented to him. When, allowing himself to be swept along by the current of a rivers he fancied that he was impelled towards the wished-for banks of the Huallaga, he unexpectedly encountered those of the Manoa. Such a disappointment would have entirely overpowered his wearied spirit, if it were not, that in great trials, there is a certain description of lenitive which enables us to shun despair.

Finding himself once more, on the 13th of November, in the midst of the Manoa tribes, father Girbal’s sole intention was to return by the track he had originally followed. The rivers Cuxhiabatay and Ucayali had been considerably swollen by the rains. Having provided two canoes, he abandoned himself, on the 14th, to the impulsion of the one and the other; and on the 18th, reached the first town of Sarayacu, which he had fallen in with at the time of his ascent. He remained there until the 20th, when he again prosecuted his route; and on the 28th, at nine in the morning, reached the town of San Regis, belonging to the Maynas missions, having passed from the Ucayali to the Maranon by the channel named Pocati; insomuch, that in twelve days, deducing the two he had spent in the above town of Sarayacu, he descended from the first Manoa settlement to the Maranon; while, in the ascent, he employed nearly treble that time, in going over the same distance. The unconverted Indians who accompanied him, entertained certain apprehensions, which prevented them from descending as far as the Maynas tribes; and being desirous, on that account, not to proceed any further in the navigation of the Maranon, he dismissed them with many caresses, and with a grateful