THE CARIBS. 131 



cold and silent gravity, the respect with which he was 

 treated by his attendants, everything denoted him to be 

 a person of importance. He was equipped, however, in 

 the same manner as his Indians. They were all equally 

 naked, armed with bows and arrows, and painted with 

 onoto. The chief, the domestics, the furniture, the boat, 

 and the sail were all painted red. These Caribs were 

 men of an almost athletic stature ; they appeared to the 

 travellers much taller than any Indians they had hitherto 

 seen. Their smooth and thick hair, cut short on the 

 forehead like that of choristers, their eyebrows painted 

 black, their look at once gloomy and animated, gave a 

 singular expression to their countenances. The women, 

 who were very tall, and disgusting from their want of 

 cleanliness, carried their infants on their backs. The 

 thighs and legs of the infants were bound at certain dis- 

 tances by broad strips of cotton cloth, and the flesh, 

 strongly compressed beneath the ligatures, was swelled 

 in the interstices. 



Near Encaramada a very long island divided the river 

 into two branches. They passed the night in a rocky 

 creek, opposite the mouth of the Rio Cabullare, which 

 was formed by the Payara and the Atamaica. The 

 evening was beautiful. The moon illumined the tops 

 of the granite rocks. The heat was so uniformly distri- 

 buted, that, notwithstanding the humidity of the air, no 

 twinkling of the stars was observable, even at four or 

 five degrees above the horizon. Towards midnight, the 

 north-east wind became extremely violent. It brought 

 no clouds, but the vault of the sky was covered more and 

 more with vapours. Strong gusts were felt, and made 

 them fear for the safety of their canoe. During this 



