DIYEBSITY OF DIALECTS. 223 



simplified, and repeated to several individuals under dif- 

 ferent forms. The variety of idioms spoken on the banks of 

 the Meta, the Orinoco, the Cassiquiare, and the Rio Negro, 

 is so prodigious, that a traveller, however great may be his 

 talent for languages, can never hope to learn enough to 

 make himself understood along the navigable rivers, from 

 Angostura to the small fort of San Carlos del Rio Negro. 

 In Peru and Quito it is sufficient to know the Quichua, or 

 the Inca language ; in Chile, the Araucan; and in Paraguay, 

 the Guarany; in order to be understood by most of the 

 population. But it is different in the Missions of Spanish 

 Guiana, where nations of various races are mingled in the 

 same village. It is not even sufficient to have learned the 

 Caribee or Carina, the Guamo, the Guahive, the Jaruro, 

 the Ottomac, the Maypure, the Salive, the Marivitan, the 

 Maquiritare, and the Guaica, ten dialects, of which there 

 exist only imperfect grammars, and which have less affinity 

 with each, other than the Greek, German, and Persian 

 languages. 



The environs of the Mission of Carichana appeared to us 

 to be delightful. The little village is situated in one of 

 those plains covered with grass that separate all the links 

 of the granitic mountains, from Encaramada to beyond 

 the Cataracts of Maypures. The line of the forests is seen 

 only in the distance. The horizon is everywhere bounded 

 by mountains, partly wooded and of a dark tint, partly bare, 

 with rocky summits gilded by the beams of the setting sun. 

 What gives a peculiar character to the scenery of this coun- 

 try are banks of rock (laxas) nearly destitute of vege- 

 tation, and often more than eight hundred feet in circum- 

 ference, yet scarcely rising a few inches above the suroundiug 

 savannahs. They now make a part of the plain. We ask 

 ourselves with surprise, whether some extraordinary revolu- 

 tions may have carried away the earth and plants ; or whether 

 the granite nucleus of our planet shows itself bare, because 

 the germs of life are not yet developed on all its points. 

 The same phenomenon seems to be found also in the desert 

 of Shamo, which separates Mongolia from China. Those 

 banks of solitary rock in the desert are called tsy. I think 

 they would be real table-lands, if the surrounding plains 

 were stripped of the sand and mould that cover them, and 

 which the waters have accumulated in the lowest places. 



