210 ANALOGY OF LANGUAGES. 



space of thirty-two months only one marriage had been 

 entered in the registers of the parish church. Two others 

 had been contracted by uncatechised natives, and celebrated 

 before the Indian Gobernador. At the first foundation of 

 the Mission, the Atures, Maypures, Meyepures, Abanis, and 

 Quirupas, had been assembled together. Instead of these 

 tribes we found only Guahibos, and a few families of the 

 nation of Macos. The Atures have almost entirely disap- 

 peared ; they are no longer known, except by the tombs in 

 the cavern of Ataruipe, which recall to mind the sepulchres 

 of the Gruanches at Teneriffe. We learned on the spot, that 

 the Atures, as well as the Quaquas, and the Macos or 

 Piaroas, belong to the great stock of the Salive nations ; 

 while the Maypures, the Abanis, the Parenis, and the Guay- 

 punaves, are of the same race as the Cabres or Caveres, 

 celebrated for their long wars with the Caribs. In this 

 labyrinth of petty nations, divided from one another as the 

 nations of Latium, Asia Minor, and Sogdiana, formerly were, 

 we can trace no general relations but by following the 

 analogy of tongues. These are the only monuments that 

 have reached us from the early ages of the world ; the only 

 monuments, which, not being fixed to the soil, are at once 

 moveable and lasting, and have as it were traversed time 

 and space. They owe their duration, and the extent they 

 occupy, much less to conquering and polished nations, than 

 to those wandering and half-savage tribes, who, fleeing 

 before a powerful enemy, carried along with them in their 

 extreme wretchedness only their wives, their children, and 

 the languages of their fathers. 



Between the latitudes of 4 and 8, the Orinoco not only 

 separates the great forest of the Parime from the bare 

 savannahs of the Apure, Meta, and G-uaviare, but also forms 

 the boundary between tribes of very different manners. 

 To the westward, over treeless plains, wander the Gruahibos, 

 the Chiricoas, and the Gruamos; nations, proud of their 

 savage independence, whom it is difficult to fix to the soil, 

 or habituate to regular labour. The Spanish missionaries 

 characterise them well by the name of Indios andantes 

 (errant or vagabond Indians), because they are perpetually 

 moving from place to place. To the east of the Orinoco, 

 between the neighbouring sources of the Caura, Cataniapo, 



