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APPENDIX.
INTERESTING NOTICES RELATIVE TO THE ENTRANCES MADE BY THE MONKS OF THE ORDER OF ST. FRANCIS, INTO THE MOUNTAINOUS TERRITORIES OF PERU, FROM EACH OF THE PARTS BORDERING ON THE CORDILLERA OF THE ANDES; COMMUNICATED TO THE ACADEMICAL SOCIETY OF LIMA BY FATHER MANUEL SOBREVIELA,[1] GUARDIAN OF THE COLLEGE OF SANTA ROSA OF OCOPA.
ENTRANCES INTO THE MOUNTAINOUS TERRITORY FROM THE SIDE OF HUANUCO.
Friar Philip Luyando, belonging to the provincial Order of the Twelve Apostles of Lima, was the first to engage in this enterprise. In the year 1631,
he
- ↑ In making this communication, the reverend father thanks the members of the Academical Society, for having exercised their talents in drawing up the history of the missions of Caxamarquilla, and that of the travels which had been recently undertaken by father Girbal and himself, by the rivers Huallaga and Ucayali, with a view to restore the Manoa missions. "Throughout the whole of these estimable productions," he observes, "perspicuousness, brevity, exactitude, erudition, and method, are apparent, stamping an additional value on the discourse relative to the costumes, superstitions, and exercises, of the barbarous tribes inhabiting the mountainous territory." [See p. 264.] He next expresses his obligations to the Society for having effectually contributed to the publication of the map of the course of the above-mentioned rivers, drawn up by him, and which the Editor again laments he has not been able, by any exertion, to obtain. "The principal motive of father Sobreviela, in causing this map to be engraved, appears to have been, to demonstrate, in a sensible manner, to each of the priests under his orders, the tracks they ought to follow, in proceeding to the towns of the existing missions, in the mountainous regions of the viceroyalty of Lima, and to those belonging to the innumerable barbarous tribes, in whose conversion his predecessors had employed so fervid a zeal, at the expence of immense labours and fatigues, leaving every part of the ground they had trodden bathed with their blood." [From the year 1637 up to that of 1790, the number of priests who perished by the hands of the infidels, in the mountainous territories of Peru, amounts to fifty-four.—Amich, Comp. Hist. p. 174.] "Their footsteps and example," he continues to observe, "ought to be followed, with equal fervour, by the missionaries be-longing to the college of Ocopa, in compliance with the strict obligation imposed on them to propagate the faith; in discharge of the royal conscience; and in eternal gratitude to our Catholic monarch, who for that purpose sent us from Spain, and maintains us, with a liberal hand, at his own expence. "The same tracks may likewise serve as a guide to the inhabitants of Peru, who may be desirous to penetrate these vast regions, to enrich themselves with the valuable productions with which they abound [Perigrination by the Huallaga, p. 412], since their immense and fertile plains are replete with useful trees and medicinal herbs. The multitude of animals, as well terrestrial, as belonging to the feathered tribes, is immense; the rivers are filled with an innumerable variety of fishes; and on their banks the savages wash and collect the gold and silver with which they fabricate the bracelets, half moons, breastplates, &c. they wear as ornaments. [Tena—Mision. lib. i. p. 100.]
“To
