TllK LLANOS AT THE END OF THE RAINS 21 



rainy season, before the sun has absorbed the moisture of the 

 soil. Then every plant is robed "vyith the freshest green ; an 

 agreeable breeze, cooled by the evaporating waters, undulates 

 over the sea of grasses, and at night a host of stars shines 

 mildly upon the fragrant savannah, or the silvery moonbeam 

 trembles on its surface. Where on the margin of the primitive 

 forest, girt with colossal cactuses and agaves, groups of the 

 mauritia rise majestically over the plain, the stateliest park 

 ever planted by man must yield in beauty to the charming 

 picture of these natural gardens, bordered here by impenetrable 

 thickets, and there by the blue mountain-chain, behind which 

 the fancy paints scenes of still more enchanting loveliness. 



The mauritia, the chief ornament of the park-like savannah, 

 and no less useful than the date-tree of the African oasis, pro- 

 vides the Indian with almost every necessary, and fully deserves 

 the name of " tree of life" — arhol de la vida — bestowed upon 

 it by the poetical fancy of the Jesuit Gumilla. Rising to the 

 height of a hundred feet, its slender trunk is surmounted by a 

 magnificent tuft of large, fan-shaped fronds, of a brilliant green, 

 under whose canopy the scaly fruits, resembling pine-cones, 

 hang in large clusters. Like the banana, they afford a food 

 differing in taste according to the stages of ripeness in which 

 they are plucked ; and before the blossoms of the male palm 

 have expanded, its trunk contains a nutritious pith like sago, 

 which, dried in thin slices, forms one of the chief articles of the 

 Indian's bill of fare. Like his brethren of the Eastern world, 

 he also knows how to prepare an intoxicating " toddy " from 

 the juice of the flower-spathes ; the leaves serve to cover his hut ; 

 out of the fibres of their petioles he manufactures twine and 

 cordage ; and the sheaths at their base afford him material for 

 his sandals. 



At the mouth of the Orinoco the very existence of the yet 

 unsubdued Gruaranas depends on the mauritia, which gives 

 them both food and liberty. Formerly, when this tribe was 

 more numerous than at the present day, they raised their huts 

 on floorings stretching from trunk to trunk, and formed of the 

 leaf-stalks of their tutelary palm. Thus, like the monkeys and 

 parrots of their native wilds, they lived in the trees during the 

 inundations of the Delta in the rainy season. These platforms 

 were partly covered with moist clay, on which fire was made 



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