STEPPES AND DESERTS. 13 



of the Sierra cle Imataca. When they increased in numbers 

 and became over-crowded, it is said that, besides the huts 

 which they built on horizontal platforms supported by the 

 stumps of felled palm-trees, they also ingeniously suspended 

 from stem to stem spreading mats or hammocks woven of the 

 leaf-stalk of the Mauritia, which enabled them, during the rainy 

 season, when the Delta was overflowed, to live in trees in the 

 manner of apes. These pendent huts were partly covered 

 with clay. The women kindled the fire necessary for their 

 culinary occupations on the humid flooring. As the traveller 

 passed by night along the river, his attention was attracted by 

 a long line of flame suspended high in the air, and appa- 

 rently unconnected with the earth. The Guaranes owe the 

 preservation of their physical, and perhaps even of their moral 

 independence, to the loose marshy soil, over which they move 

 with fleet and buoyant foot, and to their lofty sylvan domi- 

 ciles ; a sanctuary whither religious enthusiasm would hardly 

 lead an American Stylite (32). 



The Mauritia not only affords a secure habitation, but 

 likewise yields numerous articles of food. Before the tender 

 spathe unfolds its blossoms on the male palm, and only at 

 that peculiar period of vegetable metamorphosis, the medul- 

 lary portion of the trunk is found to contain a sago-like meal, 

 which like that of the Jatropha root, is dried in thin bread- 

 like slices. The sap of the tree when fermented constitutes 

 the sweet inebriating palm- wine of the Guaranes. The nar- 

 row-scaled fruit, which resembles reddish pine-cones, yields, 

 like the banana and almost all tropical fruits, different articles 

 of food, according to the periods at which it is gathered, 

 whether its saccharine properties are fully matured, or whe- 

 ther it is still in a farinaceous condition. Thus in the lowest 

 grades of man's development, we find the existence of an 

 entire race dependent upon almost a single tree ; like certain 

 insects which are confined to particular portions of a flower. 



Since the discovery of the new continent, its plains (Llanos) 



