456 EASTERN COURSE OF THE ORINOCO. 



a term which truly expresses their position. The whole 

 weight of labour being supported by these unhappy women, 

 we must not be surprised if, in some nations, their number 

 is extremely small. Where this happens, a kind of poly 

 andry is formed, w r hich we find more fully displayed in 

 Thibet, and on the lofty mountains at the extremity of the 

 Indian peninsula. Among the Avanos and Maypures, 

 brothers have often but one wife. When an Indian, who 

 lives in polygamy, becomes a Christian, he is compelled by 

 the missionaries, to choose among his wives her whom he 

 prefers, and to reject the others. At the moment of separa- 

 tion the new convert sometimes discovers the most valuable 

 qualities in the wives he is obliged to abandon. One under- 

 stands gardening perfectly ; another knows how to prepare 

 chiza, an intoxicating beverage extracted from the root of cas- 

 sava ; all appear to him alike clever and useful. Sometimes 

 the desire of preserving his wives overcomes in the Indian 

 his inclination to Christianity ; but most frequently, in his 

 perplexity, the husband prefers submitting to the choice of 

 the missionary, as to a blind fatality. 



The Indians, who from May to August take journeys to 

 the east of Esmeralda, to gather the vegetable productions 

 of the mountains of Yumariquin, gave us precise notions of 

 the course of the Orinoco to the east of the mission. This 

 part of my itinerary may differ entirely from the maps that 

 preceded it. I shall begin the description of this country 

 with the granitic group of Duida, at the foot of which we 

 sojourned. This group is bounded on the west by the Bio 

 Tamatama, and on the east by the Eio Guapo. Between 

 these two tributary streams of the Orinoco, amid the 

 morichales, or clumps of mauritia palm-trees, which sur- 

 round Esmeralda, the Eio Sodomoni flows, celebrated for 

 the excellence of the pine-apples that grow upon its banks. 

 I measured, on the 22nd of May, in the savannah at the 

 foot of Duida, a base of four hundred and seventy-five 

 metres in length; the angle, under which the summit of 

 the mountain appeared at the distance of thirteen thousand 

 three hundred and twenty-seven metres, was still nine 

 degrees. A trigonometric measurement, made with great 

 care, gave me for Duida (that is, for the most elevated peak, 

 which is south-west of the Cerro Maraguaea) two thousand 





