Chacobos. As the limits of its northwestern provinces are not well defined nor determined, "the Beni country" is therefore generally understood in the country as embracing the vast unsettled regions of northern as well as northeastern Bolivia, and is so represented in various maps of the country and will be so considered here. The total population of this section, not including the savage Indians, is estimated at more than 22,000 inhabitants, about two-thirds of whom are the descendants of the ancient Indian tribes known as the Mojos, Itonamas, Canichanas, Baures, Mobimas, Cayubabas, etc., and among whom the Jesuits in the last century established a number of missions.
The valleys of the Iruyani, Machupo, and the Madre de Dios, called by the Tacana Indians "Mayutata," or serpent river, and by Quichua tribes the "Amaru-Mayu," are occupied by various savage tribes, among which are the Araonas, Pacaguaras, Toromonas, Cavinas, Chacobos, Sirianos, and Simonianos, supposed to number about 20,000 inhabitants, but as numerous tribes or divisions also live along the shores of the Purus River and others inhabit the more remote regions of this part of Bolivia, their total number is unknown. Some of these tribes, according to Padre Fidel de Codinach, a Spaniard and a distinguished Franciscan friar from La Paz, who lived and traveled much among them, are cannibals and exceedingly immoral.
A translation from the journal of Padre Fidel de Codinach, who, in 1860, starting from the Franciscan Mission of Caviñas on the Madidi River, penetrated northwest as far as the Madre de Dios, a distance of about 150 miles, thus describes the country traversed:
