Note 8 — Chapter V · EL RIO META
Reading edition
In the preface to his work the author tells us of the difficulties under which he labored in its production. “The banks of the Meta,” he writes, “have been the workshop in which this work has been forged. Here the inconvenience of the house in which I live, the concourse of Indians with their importunate demands, the visits of the heathen Chiricoas, who are the most noisy chatterers conceivable, and various other disturbances, which would require time to recount, have been the retirement which I have enjoyed, and the quiet which has been allowed me for such an undertaking.”8