16 STEPPES AND DESERTS. 



tree are widely celebrated ; it alone, from the mouth of the 

 Orinoco to north of the Sierra de Imataca, feeds the un- 

 subdued nation of the Guaranis. ( 31 ) "When this people 

 were more numerous and lived in closer contiguity, not only 

 did they support their huts on the cut trunks of palm trees 

 as pillars on which rested a scaffolding forming the floor, 

 but they also, it is said, twined from the leaf-stalks of the 

 Mauritia cords and mats, which, skilfully interwoven and 

 suspended from stem to stem, enabled them in the rainy 

 season, when the Delta is overflowed, to live in the trees 

 like the apes. The floor of these raised cottages is partly 

 covered with a coating of damp clay, on which the women 

 make fires for household purposes, the flames appearing at 

 night from the river to be suspended high in air. The 

 Guaranis still owe the preservation of their physical, and 

 perhaps also their moral, independence, to the half-submerged, 

 marshy soil over which they move with a light and rapid 

 step, and to their elevated dwellings in the trees, a habita- 

 tion never likely to be chosen from motives of religious 

 enthusiasm by an American Stylites. ( 32 ) But the Mauritia 

 affords to the Xruaranis not merely a secure dwelling-place, 

 but also various kinds of food. Before the flower of the 

 male palm tree breaks through its tender sheath, and only 

 at that period of vegetable metamorphosis, the pith of the 

 stem of the tree contains a meal resembling sago, which, 

 like the farina of the jatropha root, is dried in thin bread- 

 like slices. The fermented juice of the tree forms the sweet 

 intoxicating palm wine of the Guaranis. The scaly fruits, 

 which resemble in their appearance reddish fir cones, afford, 



