ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 149 



the Guaranis as a missionary, says, indeed, that this people had 

 their habitation in the palmares (palm groves) of the morasses; but 

 he only mentions dwellings raised upon high pillars, and not scaffold- 

 ings attached to trees still in a growing state (Gumilla, Historia 

 natural, civil, y geografica de las Naciones situadas en las riveras del 

 Rio Orinoco, nueva imp. 1791, pp. 143, 145, and 163). Hillhouse 

 and Sir Robert Schomburgk (Journal of the Royal Geographical 

 Society, vol. xii. 1842, p. 175 ; and Description of the Murichi or 

 Ita Palm, read at the Meeting of the British Association held at 

 Cambridge, June 1845 ; printed in Simond's Colonial Magazine), 

 are of opinion that both Bembo and Raleigh (the former speaking 

 from the reports of others, the latter as an eye-witness), were deceived 

 by the high tops of the palm-trees being lit up at night by the flames 

 of fires beneath, so that those who sailed by thought the habitations 

 themselves were attached to the trees. " We do not deny that in 

 order to escape the attacks of the musquitos, the Indian sometimes 

 suspends his hammock from the tops of trees; on such occasions, 

 however, no fires are made under the hammock." (Compare also 

 Sir Robert Schomburgk's New Edition of Raleigh's Discovery of 

 Guiana, 1848, p. 50.). 



According to Martins, the fine" Palm Moriche, Mauritia flexuosa, 

 Quiteve, or Ita palm (Bernau, Missionary Labors in British Guiana, 

 1847, pp. 34 and 44), belongs, as well as Calamus, to the group of 

 Lepidocaryeae, or Coryphinese. Linnaeus has described it very im- 

 perfectly, as he erroneously considers it to be leafless. The trunk 

 grows as high as 26 feet, but it probably requires from 120 to 150 

 years to reach this height. The Mauritia extends high up on the 

 declivity of the Duida, north of the Esmeralda mission, where I 

 have found it in great beauty. It forms in moist places fine groups 

 of a fresh, shining verdure, which reminds us of that of our Alder 

 groves. The trees preserve the moisture of the ground by their / 

 shade, and hence the Indians say that the Mauritia draws the water 

 round its roots by a mysterious attraction. By a somewhat similar - 

 theory they advise that serpents should not be killed ; because the 

 destruction of the serpents and the drying up of the pools or lagu- 

 nas accompany each other : thus the untutored child of nature con- 

 founds cause and effect. Gumilla terms the Mauritia flexuosaof the 



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