362 



LEAVES FROM A LOG. 



certainty of success. They possess a race of dogs, esteemed, among 

 other qualities, most valuable for the chase. Guarahoon dogs are, in 

 Trinidad, sometimes sold as high as fifty dollars each. The Indians 

 principally employ them catching fish in the shallow lakes in their 

 islands those animals being half amphibious. 



The mode in which the Guarahoons construct their dwellings is 

 not the least remarkable of their customs. They fix their residences 

 on the largest of those islets, where a quantity of palms grow so closely 

 together that their tough leaves intermingle : these they plait firmly 

 together, and make what is called an qjupa ; that is, a light shed, 

 formed entirely from growing palm-leaves : yet, light as these vege- 

 tating houses are, they are perfectly proof against the effects of the 

 weather no rain can penetrate them, and the whalebone-like pliancy 

 of the palm is such, that seldom, in the severest storms known in 

 those parts, is one of those dwellings destroyed. The rivers may 

 overspread their islands, yet they remain quite secure in their nest- 

 like habitations, with their floating canoes moored beneath them. 

 These people are harmless and passionless ; their wants are few, and 

 nature is bountiful to them ; but, like all people in a savage state, 

 they are only roused to exertion by necessity. When they have ob- 

 tained their provisions, the overgorged serpent is not more torpid 

 than the Guarahoon Indian. He will sit down for days crouched in 

 his lair: call him, he answers not: ascend his leafy habitation, he is 

 as motionless as a statue: crouch beside him, he scarcely appears to 

 see you. No one would have the inhumanity to strike him ; but it 

 would take a hard blow to make him alter his position, or move a 

 single muscle. 



We passed the highest of the islets lying in the mouth of the Ori- 

 noco, called the Island of Yaya. or Apostadero, on account of a post 

 being established there for collecting the dues on goods conveyed up 

 the river. The Columbians have so much of the old Spaniard in 

 them, that they injure their states' revenue by excessive duties. 

 From what I could see and hear, more is paid at this island in the 

 form of bribes to the officers of the customs than ever goes into the 

 states' treasury. W T hen we passed the islands, the river opened upon 

 us in its full magnificence Its banks are flanked with trees of the 

 most gigantic size, closely crowded together their trunks partly 

 hidden by underwood while from their branches are suspended im- 

 mense clusters of various kinds of parasitical tendrils, so luxuriant as 

 to obscure the foliage of the trees that support them forming 

 what appears to the eye a huge verdant wall. Imagine a glorious 

 river a mile in width both banks seemingly a hundred feet in 

 height, perpendicular, and of a dark green hue and a faint concep- 

 tion may be formed of the scene. Amid this savage mass of vegeta- 

 tion, here and there might be seen groves of various kinds of palms, 

 whose beauty contrasted well with the chaos of forest by which they 

 were partly surrounded ; and wherever those natural palmy orchards 

 appeared, there might be seen the leafy dwelling of the Guarahoon 

 Indian. This singular race appear as attached to the palm species, 

 as certain insects are to particular vegetables justifying the obser- 

 vation, that in these regions " man is essentially a palmivorous ani- 



