ILLUSTRATIONS (31). MATTR1TIA PALM. 135 



travels, in which we meet with the first traces of the etymo- 

 logy of the name of the province of Venezuela (Little Venice) 

 as used for the province of Caracas, speaks only of houses 

 built on a foundation of piles, and makes no mention of habi- 

 tations in trees. 



Sir Walter Raleigh bears a subsequent and incontrovertible 

 evidence to the same fact, for he says expressly in his description 

 of Guiana, that on his second voyage in 1595, when in the mouth 

 of the Orinoco, " he saw the fire of the Tivitites and Qua-raw- 

 etes" (so he calls the Guaranes), " high up in the trees."* There 

 is a drawing of the fire in the Latin edition of this work,f and 

 Raleigh was the first who brought to England the fruit of the 

 Mauritia palm, which he very justly compared, on account of 

 its scales, to fir-cones. Father Jose Gumilla, who twice 

 visited the Guaranes as a missionary, says, indeed, that this 

 tribe have their dwelling in the Palmares (palm groves) of the 

 morasses; but while he speaks more definitely of pendent 

 habitations supported by high pillars, makes no mention of 

 platforms attached to still growing trees. J Hillhouse and 

 Sir Robert Schomburgk are of opinion that Bembo, through 

 the relations of others, and Raleigh, by his own observation, 

 were deceived into this belief in consequence of the high tops 

 of the palm trees being lighted up in such a manner by the 

 fires below them, that those sailing by thought the habitations 

 of the Guaraues were attached to the trees themselves. " We 

 do not deny," says Schomburgk, " that in order to escape the 

 attacks of the mosquitos, the Indian sometimes suspends his 

 hammock from the tops of trees, but on such occasions no 

 fires are made under the hammock. "|| 



According to Martins, the beautiful Palm, Moriche, Mau- 



* Raleigh, Discovery of Guiana, 1596, p. 90. 



f Brevis ct admiranda Descriptio regni Quiance (STorib. 1599), 

 tab. 4. 



% Gumilla, Historia natural, civil y geografica de las Nadones 

 situadas en las riveras del Rio Orinoco, nueva impr., 1791, pp. 143, 

 145, 163. 



See Journal of the Royal Geogr. Society, vol. xii. 1842, p. 175, and 

 Description of the Murichi, or Ita Palm, read in the meeting of the 

 British Association held at Cambridge, June 1845 (published in 

 Simond's Colonial Magazine}. 



|| See also Sir Robert Schomburgk's new edition of Raleigh's Dis- 

 covery of Guiana (1848), p. 50. 



