306 SOBEH HABITS OF THE INDIANS. 



The Mission near the raudal of Maypures was very con- 

 siderable in the time of the Jesuits, when it reckoned sis 

 hundred inhabitants, among whom were several families 

 of whites. Under the government of the Fathers of the 

 Observance the population was reduced to less than sixty. 

 It must be observed that in this part of South America 

 cultivation has been diminishing for half a century, while 

 beyond the forests, in the provinces near the sea, we find 

 villages that contain from two or three thousand Indians. 

 The inhabitants of Maypures are a mild, temperate people, 

 and distinguished by great cleanliness. The savages of the 

 Orinoco for the most part have not that inordinate fondness 

 for strong liquors which prevails in North America. It is 

 true that the Ottomacs, the Jaruros, the Achaguas, and the 

 Oaribs, are often intoxicated by the immoderate use of chiza 

 and many other fermented liquors, which they know how to 

 prepare with cassava, maize, and the saccharine fruit of the 

 palm-tree; but travellers have as usual generalized what 

 belongs only to the manners of some tribes. We were 

 frequently unable to prevail upon the Gruahibos, or the 

 Maco-Piroas, to taste brandy while they were labouring for 

 us, and seemed exhausted by fatigue. It will require a 

 longer residence of Europeans in these countries to spread 

 there the vices that are already common among the Indians 

 on the coast. In the huts of the natives of Maypures we 

 found an appearance of order and neatness, rarely met with 

 in the houses of the missionaries. 



These natives cultivate plantains and cavassa, but no 

 maize. Cassava, made into thin cakes, is the bread of the 

 country. Like the greater part of the Indians of the Ori- 

 noco, the inhabitants of Maypures have beverages which 

 maybe considered nourishing ; one of these, much celebrated 

 in that country, is furnished by a palm-tree which grows 

 wild in the vicinity of the mission on the banks of the Au- 

 vana. This tree is the seje : I estimated the number of 

 flowers on one cluster at forty-four thousand ; and that of 

 the fruit, of which the greater part fall without ripening, 

 at eight thousand. The fruit is a small fleshy drupe. It is 

 immersed for a few minutes in boiling water, to separate 

 the kernel from the parenchymatous part of the sarcocarp.. 

 which has a sweet taste, and is pounded and bruised in a 



