ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 191 



monks of Guiana on their return from the missions, that 

 there were men on the banks of the Orinoco who ate earth. 

 When, in returning from the Rio Negro, we descended the 

 Orinoco in thirty-six days, we passed the day of the 6th of 

 June, 1^00, in the Mission inhabited by the earth-eating 

 Otomacs. This little village is called La Concepcion de 

 Uruana, and is very picturesquely situated at the foot of 

 a granite rock. I found its geographical position to be 

 7 8' 8" N. lat., and 67 18' W. long, from Greenwich. 

 The earth which the Otomacs eat is a soft unctuous clay ; a 

 true potter's clay, of a yellowish-grey colour due to a little 

 oxide of iron. They seek for it in particular spots on the 

 banks of the Orinoco and the Meta, and select it with care. 

 They distinguish the taste of one kind of earth from that of 

 another, and do not consider all clays as equally agreeable 

 to eat. They knead the earth into balls of about five or 

 six inches diameter, which they burn or roast by a weak fire 

 until the outside assumes a reddish tint. The balls are 

 remoistened when about to be eaten. These Indians are 

 generally wild uncultivated beings, and altogether averse to 

 any kind of tillage. It is a proverb even among the most 

 distant of the nations living on the Orinoco, when speak- 

 ing of anything very unclean, to say that it is " so dirty, 

 that the Otomacs eat it." 



As long as the waters of the Orinoco and the Meta are 

 low these Indians live on fish and river tortoises. They 

 kill the fish with arrows when at the surface of the water, a 

 pursuit in which we have often admired their great dexte- 

 rity. During the periodical swelling of the rivers the taking 



