trated into the interior with a few companions, and directed his route from Ocopa towards Huancayo, Acopalca, Cochangara, Laloma, Surcubamba, Tintaybamba, Palmapampa, Churubamba, and Sanabamba. Having fully ascertained the rugged nature of the roads, he returned without any other fruit beside that of having baptised the children of several of the Indians who had sought a refuge in the mountainous territory, either in escaping from the pursuit of justice, or in fleeing from the restraints imposed on them in the spiritual jurisdictions in which they had been established. Having thus expatriated themselves, they dwelt in the above morasses and broken grounds, in such a state of ignorance and barbarity, as to be scarcely distinguishable from the savages.
In the year 1747, the venerable father, friar Manuel Albaran,[1] accompanied by a lay priest, and a lay brother, set out with the same intention, and with a view to promote a readier access to the mountainous territory, to the end that the rebel Atahualpa might be made to surrender. Having descended, however, by the marshy grounds of Acon, to the banks of the river Apurimac, he was, together with his retinue, slain by the arrows of the barbarians belonging to the tribes of Antis, Simirinches, and Piros.
Information having been brought to Ocopa, that the Antis or Andes Indians had repeatedly come down from the mountains, in the years 1778 and 1779, by the morasses of Viscatan and Sanabamba, and had manifested a wish to become christians, friars Valentin Arrieta, and Joachim Soler, penetrated into the interior, in the year 1781, by the above-mentioned morasses. A chapel was built, in the course of the following year, in the vicinity of the banks of the river of Jauxa, named by the Indians Mantaro. Several individuals belonging to the uncivilized tribes, visited the reverend fathers, with a docility which afforded great hope of their conversion; but the latter fell sick, and quitted the spot. In the year 1786, friars Bernardo Ximenes Berajano, and Tadeo Giles, proceeded thither; but falling sick likewise in the course of a few months, the conversion to which a reference has been made, was entirely abandoned.
Although at the commencement of my government, I had determined on an entrance in the above direction, I was deterred from carrying this plan into effect, by the reflections I made on the great extent and ruggedness of the road thither, and on the practicability of approaching the above idolatrous nations more readily, by navigating in balsas, by the river Apurimac, from the conversion of Simariba. On this head I now proceed to speak with my accustomed brevity.
- ↑ Amich, p. 126.
