Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v1.djvu/101

 lish missionaries, but they were on a much larger scale. The Jesuits, as far as I could glean from tradition and history, were actuated by the same motives as our missionaries; and they seemed like them to have been, in great measure, successful in teaching the pure and elevated Christian morality to the simple natives. But the attempt was vain to protect the weaker race from the inevitable ruin which awaited it in the natural struggle with the stronger one; which, although calling itself Christian, seemed to have stood in need of missionary instruction quite as much as the natives themselves. In 1759, the white colonists finally prevailed, the Jesuits were forced to leave the country, and the 51 happy mission villages went to ruin. Since then, the aboriginal race has gone on decreasing in numbers under the treatment which it has received; it is now, as I have already stated, protected by the laws of the central government.

On our second visit to the mills, we stayed ten days. There is a large reservoir and also a natural lake near the place both containing aquatic plants, whose leaves rest on the surface like our water lilies, but they are not so elegant as our nymphæa, either in leaf or flower. On the banks of these pools grow quantities of a species of fan-leaved palm-tree, the Caraná, whose stems are surrounded by whorls of strong spines. I sometimes took a montaria, and paddled myself alone down the creek. One day I got upset, and had to land on a grassy slope leading to an old plantation, where I ran about naked whilst my clothes were being dried on a bush. The creek Iritirí is not so picturesque as many others which I