3d 

 LEAVES FROM A LOG. 



The Islands of the Orinoco- The Guarahoon Indians Their Palm-tree 

 Dwellings San Miguel's Mission The Deserted Village The 

 Llanero His Capture by Indians Their mode of making Poison 

 Incantation Scene. 



WE passed up to where the Orinoco divides itself into numerous 

 branches, forming a hundred mangrove islands, whose shores are ever 

 changing. The rivei*, by bearing down immense masses of earth and 

 vegetable matter, continually adds to their size, and, when swollen by 

 the tropical rains, tears away whole acres of their shores. Some- 

 times, indeed, many of these isles are inundated, and at others an 

 island is literally torn from its base by the tremendous flood its 

 trees, and the earth which bore them, are swept through the Gulph 

 of Paria into the Atlantic. Yet these ever- varying isles support a 

 primitive race of men the Indian tribe called Guarahoons, whose 

 mode of life differs from all other tribes. Their habits are not of the 

 warlike or hunting class ; for the chase even constitutes but a small part 

 of their employ. In the dry season they repair to some of the smaller 

 isles, the dry underwood of which they set on fire. During the con- 

 flagration, the various animals make to the water, to escape to the 

 main land ; here they are intercepted and killed by the Guarahoons. 

 The manner in which they take fowl is curious ; they send a num- 

 ber of calabashes or gourds floating among the immense flocks of 

 fowl that continually swim on the surface of the flood, and when the 

 birds are accustomed to these gourds, the Indians cover their heads 

 each with a calabash, making holes sufficiently large for them to 

 breathe and see through, and then swim among the covey. The 

 birds cannot see the difference between the empty calabash and that 

 which conceals an enemy, who silently and suddenly seizes his prey, 

 drags it under water, and fastens it to a belt round his waist. He 

 does not return until loaded with game. 



But fishing constitutes the chief employ of the Guarahoon. This 

 they practise in various ways ; sometimes, in a canoe by torch-light, 

 they dart a kind of javelin made of hard wood at the finny tribe ; 

 sometimes the bow-and-arrow is used for this purpose and the man- 

 ner of employing the latter weapon is extraordinary. They do not ap- 

 parently aim at an object, but send the dart upwards into the air in 

 such a manner that it describes an extensive arch, and, falling, strikes 

 the object with an unerring aim.* This manner of shooting will ap- 

 pear difficult ; constant habit, however, so perfects them at the prac- 

 tice, that I have seen them shoot at small river-turtle, their canoe at 

 the same time agitated by the surf, and strike it at the back of the 

 neck, the only part vulnerable. The quickness of sight of these chil- 

 dren of nature is astonishing ; they can discern a fish in the water at a 

 great distance, and discharge their spears at it from their canoes with a 



* The Back Indians of Demerara use the arrow in the same way, and with a 

 dexterity that I fear describing, lest I should be thought to romance. 

 M. M. No. 100. . 3 A 



