Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/509

Rh Providence, embarked at Quimiri, and after having explored every part of the river Perene, prosecuted their voyage by the Paro and Ucayali. Having reached the vicinity of the river Aguaitai, they were slain by the cruel Sipibos, or Callisecas.

The common report, that the mountain of salt abounded in mines of gold, excited at that time the avarice of several Spaniards, who, having selected a chief, and prevailed on two Franciscan monks to bear them company, proceeded thither. Although their presence gave great umbrage to the Indians, the latter dissembled, and treated them with an apparent friendship and submission. The Spaniards being desirous to penetrate still further into the mountainous territory, embarked with the two monks, and proceeded on their voyage, with the aid of the barbarians, who still persisted in their fictitious friendship until the third day of the navigation, when they recommended to them to lay aside their arms, on the pretext that they might, with more convenience, be stowed in the canoes, and would be less exposed to the wet. The Spaniards having yielded to their treacherous suggestion, came to a winding of the river, where an ambush had been provided. They were there, as well as the monks, slain by the arrows of the Indians, who had concealed themselves on the bank, with the exception of two, who had the presence of mind to snatch up each of them a pistol, with which they made head against the savages. The latter, terrified at the fire-arms, allowed them to pass unmolested, and fled to the mountains, where they concealed themselves. By this miscarriage, and others which succeeded, the conversion of the heathens inhabiting the mountain of salt was irrecoverably lost.

In the year 1671, friar Alonzo Robles, accompanied by several priests and lay brothers, proceeded from Huancabamba to the mountain of salt, where he succeeded in the conversion of eight hundred Indians belonging to the tribes of Omages and Pacages. In the year 1673, he augmented his spiritual conquest by upwards of two hundred Indians, whom he fixed in a town to which he gave the name of Santa Rosa of Quimiri, at a little distance from the spot where he had made a settlement for the former. Other barbarians belonging to the Omages tribe were converted daily, until at length several individuals, whose bounden duty it was to watch over the prosperity of the church and state, instigated by base motives of self interest, obtained, in the year 1674, the government and direction of