AXIMALS OF THE OEIXOCO. 143 



a very long lierborization, and tlie painting was not half 

 finished. 



The Indians were not always satisfied with one coloar 

 ■uniformly spread ; they sometimes imitated in the most 

 whimsical manner, in painting their skin, the form of 

 European garments. The travellers saw some at Para- 

 ruma, who were painted with blue jackets and black 

 buttons. The missionaries related to them that the 

 Guaynaves of the Eio Caura were accustomed to stain 

 themselves red with anato, and to make broad transverse 

 stripes on the body, on which they stuck spangles of 

 silvery mica. Seen at a distance, these naked men ap- 

 peared to be dressed in laced clothes. 



The travellers had an excellent opportunity while on 

 the Orinoco of examining several animals in their natural 

 state, which, till then, they had seen only in the collec- 

 tions of Europe. These little animals formed a branch 

 of commerce for the missionaries. They exchanged to- 

 bacco, resin, the pigment of chica, rock-manakins, orange 

 monkeys, capuchin monkeys, and other species of mon- 

 keys in great request on the coast, for cloth, nails, hatch- 

 ets, fish-hooks, and pins. The productions of the Ori- 

 noco were bought at a low price from the Indians, who 

 lived in dependence on the monks ; and these same Indi- 

 ans purchased fishing and gardening implements from 

 the monks at a very high price, with the money they 

 gained at the egg-harvest. Humboldt and Bonpland 

 bought several animals, which they kept throughout the 

 rest of their passage on the river, and studied their man- 

 ners. Among these was a little monkey called the titi. 



ISTo other monkey has so much the physiognomy of a 

 child ns the titi; there is the same expression of inno- 



