186 THE DIRT EATERS. 



Though the travellers could stay only one day at 

 Uruana, this short space of time sufficed to make them 

 acquainted with the preparation of the balls of earth. 

 Humboldt also found some traces of this vitiated appetite 

 among the Guamos ; and between the confluence of the 

 ' Meta and the Apure, where everybody spoke of dirt- 

 eating as of a thing anciently known. 



The inhabitants of Uruana belonged to those nations 

 of the savannahs called wandering Indians, who, more 

 difficult to civilize than the nations of the forest, had a 

 deeided aversion to cultivating the land, and lived almost 

 exclusively by hunting and fishing. They were men of 

 very robust constitution ; but ill-looking, savage, vindic- 

 tive, and passionately fond of fermented liquors. They 

 were omnivorous animals in the highest degree ; and 

 therefore the other Indians, who considered them as 

 barbarians, had a common saying, " nothing is so loath- 

 some but that an Ottomac will eat it." While the waters 

 of the Orinoco and its tributary streams were low, the 

 Ottomacs subsisted on fish and turtles. The former they 

 killed with surprising dexterity, by shooting them with 

 arrows when they appeared at the surface of the water. 

 When the rivers swelled fishing almost entirely ceased. 

 It was then very difficult to procure fish, wdnch often 

 failed the poor missionaries, on fast-days as w T ell as flesh- 

 days, though all the young Indians were under the obli- 

 gation of fishing for the convent. During the period of 

 these inundations, which lasted two or three months, the 

 Ottomacs swallowed a prodigious quantity of earth. The 

 travellers found heaps of earth-balls in their huts, piled 

 up in pyramids three or four feet high. These balls 

 Were five or six inches in diameter. The earth which 



