trict of Cumbasa, with father Sobreviela, ten of his Indian parishioners insisted on accompanying him, binding themselves by the most solemn promises to brave with him the utmost perils.[1] In despite, however, of this fidelity and attachment, father Girbal was aware, that to venture himself with them by the Ucayali, would be to expose himself to a manifest danger. They were already fatigued by the service they had performed; the climate was not congenial to them; and they had not the least knowledge of the new route that was to be followed. For these reasons he obliged them to return to their own country, thus depriving himself of the consolation of reckoning, in the prosecution of his labours, and until they should be brought to a conclusion, on a few faithful and compassionate friends. In their stead, fourteen stout Indians, belonging to the Omaguas tribe, all of them skilful navigators, were engaged; and with these Indians, in two canoes, he ploughed the Maranon on the 12th, in quest of the mouth of the Ucayali. They did not reach it until the evening of the 13th; and at that station they passed the night in the canoes.
The dawn of the morning of the 14th of September had begun to illumine the extensive and dreary forests through which flows the ancient and opulent Paro, when the sight of this immense solitude brought to the recollection of father Girbal the tragical scene of fourteen brethren put to death by the very barbarians in search of whom he had undertaken his peregrination. Oppressed by this melancholy idea, and by the reflection of the little fruit that had been derived from the spilling of so much innocent blood, he directed his clamours to Heaven from the inmost recesses of his heart, “not that he should be freed from the fatigues, hunger, thirst, and other sufferings which might supervene, and terminate in his death; but that his soul might be penetrated by a ray of that divine light which was solely capable of exciting and kindling in his breast the charity necessary to instruct, reduce, and convert this portion of infidels, surrounded by the thick gloom of paganism.” Relying on the protection of the Supreme Being, whom he implored with the humble and fervent supplications which have been cited, he began to struggle against the currents of the above-mentioned river. In proportion as he overcame them, and penetrated by its great windings, he admired the spacious banks, which
- ↑ The noble firmness of these Indians may be collected from their behaviour in the town of Gran Cocama. Being strongly impressed with a persuasion that they were about to perish by the hands of the savages, they prepared themselves for death with a truly christian resignation. Each of them made his will, and turned his face, in imploring forgiveness of his Maker, towards the horizon which bounded his native country, without displaying the least change of countenance.
