Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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Father Zea
Had Repeatedly Described To Us This Extraordinary Cavern, The
Skeletons Painted With Anoto, The Large Vases Of Baked Earth, In Which
The Bones Of Separate Families Appear To Be Collected; And Many Other
Curious Objects, Which We Proposed To Examine On Our Return From The
Rio Negro.
"You will scarcely believe," said the missionaries, "that
these skeletons, these painted vases, things which we believed were
unknown to the rest of the world, have brought trouble upon me and my
neighbour, the missionary of Carichana.
You have seen the misery in
which I live in the raudales. Though devoured by mosquitos, and often
in want of plantains and cassava, yet I have found envious people even
in this country! A white man, who inhabits the pastures between the
Meta and the Apure, denounced me recently in the Audencia of Caracas,
as concealing a treasure I had discovered, jointly with the missionary
of Carichana, amid the tombs of the Indians. It is asserted that the
Jesuits of Santa Fe de Bogota were apprised beforehand of the
destruction of their company; and that, in order to save the riches
they possessed in money and precious vases, they sent them, either by
the Rio Meta or the Vichada, to the Orinoco, with orders to have them
hidden in the islets amid the raudales. These treasures I am supposed
to have appropriated unknown to my superiors. The Audencia of Caracas
brought a complaint before the governor of Guiana, and we were ordered
to appear in person.
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