326 ARRIVAL AT SAN IFERNAJS Lt,. 



by thick forests. "We passed the mouths of the Ucata, the 

 Arapa, and the Caranaveni. About four in the afternoon 

 we landed at the Gonucos de Siquita, the Indian plantations 

 of the mission of San Fernando. The good people wished 

 to detain us among them, but we continued to go up against 

 the current, which ran at the rate of five feet a second, 

 according to a measurement I made by observing the time 

 that a floating body took to go down a given distance. We 

 entered the mouth of the Gruaviare on a dark night, passed 

 the point where the Bio Atabapo joins the Gruaviare, and 

 arrived at the mission after midnight. We were lodged as 

 usual at the Convent, that is, in the house of the missionary, 

 who, though much surprised at our unexpected visit, never- 

 theless received us with the kindest hospitality. 



NOTE. 



IF. in the philosophical study of the structure of languages, the analogy 

 of a few roots acquires value only when they can be geographically con- 

 nected together, neither is the want of resemblance in roots any very 

 strong proof against the common origin of nations. In the different 

 dialects of the Totonac language (that of one of the most ancient tribes of 

 Mexico) the sun and the moon have names which custom has rendered 

 entirely different. This difference is found among the Caribs between the 

 language of men and women ; a phenomenon that probably arises from 

 the circumstance that, among prisoners, men were oftener put to death 

 than women. Females introduced by degrees words of a foreign language 

 into the Caribbee; and, as the girls followed the occupations of the 

 women much more than the boys, a language was formed peculiar to the 

 women. I shall record in this note the names of the sun and moon in a 

 great number of American and Asiatic idioms, again reminding the reader 

 of the uncertainty of all judgments founded merely on the comparison cf 

 solitary words. 



IN THE NEW WORLD. 



