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for the mind. Our host often engaged us to pay a visit with him to his cow, which he had just purchased;
and on the morrow, at sunrise, he would not dispense with our seeing it killed after the fashion of the
country, that is, by ham-stringing the animal, and then plunging a large knife into the vertebrae of the
neck. This disgusting operation served to show us the great address of the Chayma Indians, eight of
whom, in less than twenty minutes, cut up the animal into small pieces. The price of the cow was only
seven piastres; but this price seemed to be thought very considerable. The same day the missionary had
paid eighteen piastres to a soldier of Cumana, for having succeeded, after many fruitless attempts, in
bleeding him in the foot. This fact, though seemingly very unimportant, is a striking proof how greatly,
in uncultivated countries, the price of things differs from that of labor.
The Mission of San Fernando was founded toward the end of the 17th century, near the junction
of the small rivers of the Manzanares and Lucasperez*. A fire, which consumed the church, and the huts
of the Indians, induced the capuchins to place the village in its present fine situation. The number of
families is increased to one hundred, and the missionary observed
* Caulin, Hist. corogr. de la Nueva Andalusia, p. 309.