It consists of immense plains, and was so called by the Jesuits; but it is now usual to give the same name to the whole country denominated the Land of the Missions, and extending from the Ucayale to the Portuguese limits, bounded only by the Amazons on the north, and embracing 8000 square leagues. The Jesuit missionaries succeeded in establishing several villages among the numerous nations who inhabit this region, through which flows the Ucayale. Father Girval is the most recent traveller in this great steppe, and the information he has given concerning the country, is not uninteresting. Embarking on the lake of the Great Cocama, at the junction of the Guallaga and Tunguragua, in Maynas, he went to the confluence of the true and false Maranons, near St. Joachin de Omaguas, (a Spanish fort, at the distance of 180 miles from St. Pablo de Omaguas, the most westerly Portuguese settlement.) Having two canoes with 14 Omaguan Indians to row them, he soon passed into the Ucayale, which he ascended with great resolution, frequently meeting with little fleets of canoes, manned by unknown tribes, from whom it required all his address to escape; and after 14 days' rowing, there appeared on the west a chain of mountains, running south-east and north-west. In two days after this, he reached the little settlement of Sariacu, among the Panos, then the habitation of Anna Rosa, an Italian lady, educated at Lima; passing this, he reached the river Manoa, which he ascended, with the view of seeing if a passage could be had to Maynas, but it was found almost impracticable, on account of the thick forests, and the precipices; therefore again descending the Maranon, he arrived at the missions of Maynas, after an absence of four months. In this voyage, Father Girval found that there existed several singular tribes of Indians, of whom the _Conibos_ were nearly as fair as Europeans, but that they were discoloured by the bites of mosquitoes, and by painting their skins. Their customs were much the same as those of the other American Indians, in a state of nature. In the second voyage of Girval, in 1791, he was unaccompanied by any soldier or white person; and again ascending the Ucayale, found the _Casibos_, a fierce tribe on the eastern banks, but the Conibos still appeared to be the principal navigators of this part of the stream, and were the most humane; the sound of their rude flutes indicating peace, and a desire to show hospitality. After passing the Conibos, they met the canoes of the _Panos_, and sixty of these accompanied him to Anna Rosa's village, where he found that she had built a little convent, and that the tribe obeyed her as their chief, with great devotion. In twenty days' navigation from Sariacu, in the latitude of Tarma, he found the _Piros_, whose country produces a species of cinnamon, and in which a settlement has since been made.