and humanity inspire. Rewards like these are solely due to the adventurous propragators of Christianity. Their memory, were it even possible to efface it from the fragile altars erected by our veneration, would find a fixed asylum in the breast of the sage, who, in his silent meditations, does justice to the ferocious warrior, to the pacificator, and to the virtuous citizen.
As, however, the enterprises of the latter are not accompanied with the pomp and splendour, the seductive charms of which lead man to soar to the pitch of the works of the great world, they would not have been executed, had they not been dictated and cherished by a philosophy which is purely celestial. By its means alone can such a religion of charity have been established, and so many weak mortals inspired with a zeal which has propelled them to travel over the four quarters of the globe, with the sole view of being useful to their fellow creatures.
America, amid the calamities of which it has been the theatre, has oftentimes felt the benign influence of the evangelical spirit. By the consolatory voice of its apostles, the savages have been collected together, and formed into intelligent and industrious tribes. Gentle persuasives, tender offices, example, and the repeated sacrifice of life, without any other motive than that of rendering them service, have had a more powerful effect on them than would have been produced by harsh and coercive measures. A relation of all the missions to the Andes of Peru would fully establish this truth, and would give rise to many deep and serious reflections. On the present occasion, we shall confine ourselves to the history of those of Caxamarquilla, in which are comprehended the discovery and loss of those of Manoa, and of those directed towards the banks of the famous Ucayali. The measures adopted by the court of Spain for the re-establishment of the latter;[1] the peregrinations, by the river Huallaga, which have been recently concluded by father Manuel Sobreviela, superior of the college of Ocopa; and those which, by his order, have been likewise undertaken with the same view, by the river Ucayali, by Father Narciso Girbal, demand an elucidation which will be best conveyed by a detailed account of the aforesaid missions.
The province of Caxamarquilla, or Patas, belongs to the Intendency of Truxillo. It runs, north and south, from seven to eight degrees thirty minutes south latitude. It is bounded to the north and north-east by the province of Chacapoyas; to the north-west by the junction of the river Maranon with that of Caxa-
- ↑ In the year 1787, five royal ordonnances, and as many decrees, were published, relatively to the reestablishment and preservation of the Manoa missions. For this purpose, a fortified town was planned at the confluence of the rivers Mayro and Pozuzo.
