PRIM IT! TE MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. 449 



tbe dancers themselves are the musicians. Feeble sounds, 

 drawn from a series of reeds of different lengths, form & 

 slow and plaintive accompaniment. The *irst dancer, to 

 mark the time, bends both knees in a kind of cadence. 

 Sometimes they all make a pause in their places, and 

 rxri-uu' little oscillatory movements, bending the body from 

 one side to the other. The reeds ranged in a line, and 

 fastened together, resemble the Pan's pipes, as we find them 

 represented in the bacchanalian processions on Grecian 

 vases. To unite reeds of different lengths, and make them 

 sound in succession by passing them before the lips, is a 

 simple idea, and has naturally presented itself to every 

 nation. We were surprised to see with what promptitude 

 the young Indians constructed and tuned these pipes, when 

 they found reeds on the bank of the river. Uncivih'zed 

 men, in every zone, make great use of these gramina with 

 high stalks. The Greeks, with truth, said that reeds had 

 contributed to subjugate nations by furnishing arrows, to 

 soften men's manners by the charm of music, and to unfold 

 their understanding by affording the first instruments for 

 tracing letters. These different uses of reeds mark in some 

 sort three different periods in the life of nations. We must 

 admit that the tribes of the Orinoco are in the first stage 

 of dawning civilization. The reed serves them only as an 

 instrument of war and of hunting ; and the Pan's pipes, of 

 which we have spoken, have not yet, on those distant shores, 

 yielded sounds capable of awakening mild and humane 

 "feelings. 



We found in the hut allotted for the festival, several 

 vegetable productions which the Indians had brought from 

 the mountains of Guanaya, and which engaged our atten- 

 tion. I shall only here mention the fruit of the juvia, 

 reeds of a prodigious length, and shirts made of the bark 

 of marima. The almendron, or juvia, one of the most 

 majestic trees of the forests of the New World, was almost 

 unknown before our visit to the Eio Negro. It begins 

 to be found after a journey of four days east of Esmeralda, 

 between the Padamo and Ocamo, at the foot of the Cerro 

 Mapaya, on the right bank of the Orinoco. It is still more 

 abundant on the left bank, at the Cerro Guanaja, between 

 the Rio Amaguaca and the Gebjtte. The inhabitants of 



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