IN SOUTH AMERICA. 225 



nncouroac fignifies the number three in this tongue : happily for thofe who have tranf- 

 a(5lions with them, their arithmetic goes no farther. However incredible it may 

 appear, this is not the only American nation with whom an equal poverty of numbers 

 is common. The Brazilian tongue, a language fpoken by people lefs favage and 

 uncivilized, is equally barren ; the people who fpeak it, where more than three is to 

 be expreffed, are obliged to ufe the Portuguefe. 



The Yameos are well Ikilled in the art of making long Sarbacanas, the moft com- 

 mon inftrument ufed* by native Americans on their hunting excurfions. Within 

 ihefe they infert fmall arrows, made of wood, and, inftead of being feathered, fur- 

 rounded by a ball of cotton which exa£tly fills the cavity of the tube. By a flrong 

 puff of the breath they dart thefe arrows to the diftance of thirty or forty paces, and 

 fcarcely ever mifs their aim. This fimple inftrument ferves as an admirable fubflitute 

 among all thefe favages for fire-arms. The points of thefe diminutive arrows, as well 

 as thofe they flioot from their bows, are fteeped in a poifon of fuch adivity, that when 

 recent it kills any animal from which the inftrument dipped in it may chance to draw 

 blood. Notwithftanding we had fowling peices, we fcarcely ever, in going down the 

 river, ate of game killed by other means than thefe arrows, the tips of which we 

 often difcovered in eating, between our teeth ; there is no danger from fuch occur- 

 rences, for the venom of this poifon is only mortal when abforbed by the blood, in 

 which cafe it is no lefs fatal to man than to animals. The antidote is fait, but of fafef 

 dependence fugar. In their proper place, I fliall notice the experiments I made to 

 afcertain the truth of this opinion, as well at Cayenne as at Leyden. 



The next day, the 26th, we fell in with, on the fouthern fide of the mouth of the 

 JLTcayale, one of the largeft rivers which fwell the tide of the Maraiion. It is even a moot 

 point which of the two ftiould be efteemed the chief, and which the tributary. At their 

 confluence, the Ucayale is the broadeft of the two, and its fources are more diftant 

 and more copious than thofe of the other ; it receives the waters of many provinces 

 of Peru, and at the fame degree of latitude at which the Maranon is only a torrent, 

 it is enlarged by the tribute of the Apu-rimac, and .already flows a confiderable 

 ftream ; to conclude, the Ucayale, on meeting the Maranon, repulfes its tide ^nd 

 changes its courfe. On the other hand, before its jundure with the Ucayale, the Ma- 

 ranon makes a long circuit and receives the rivers St. Jago, Paftaca, Guallaga, &c. ; 

 moreover, the Maraiion is throughout its courfe of very great depth. Still again the 

 depth of the Ucayale has never yet been fathomed, nor is it known what the number 

 or what the volume of the rivers it receives. I think therefore that the queftion, of 

 which fliould be confidered the main ftream, muft remain undecided till the Ucayale 

 be better known. This it was likely to have been at one period, but the infurredion 

 of the Cunivos and the Piros, who maffacred their miflionary in 1695, by occafioning 

 the abandonment of the eftablifhments effected on its banks, hate placed this event at 

 a diftance. 



Below the Ucayale the breadth of the Maranon is vifibly increafed, as is the num- 

 ber of its iflands. On the 27th in the morning, we reached the miflionary eftablifh- 

 ment of Saint Joachim, compofed of a number of American nations, efpecially of 

 the Omaguas, a people formerly powerful, and which a century before inhabited the 

 iflands andi banks of the Amazons river throughout a fpace of two hundred leagues 

 Y below the Napo. Neverthelefs this people is not efteemed to be originally of this 

 country, and there is much probability that they proceeded to their fettlement on the 

 Maraiion down fome of the rivers which flow into it from the new kingdom of Gre- 



voL. XIV. G G nada, 



