184 VIEWS OF NATUBE. 



European species, ascends to an elevation .,pf nearly 13,000 

 feet. The Cavia capybara is known in the province of 

 Caracas by the name of Chiguire. This unfortunate animal 

 is pursued in the water by the crocodile, and on land by the 

 tiger or jaguar. It runs so badly that we were ^ften able to 

 catch it with our hands. The extremities are smoked and 

 eaten as hams, but have a most unpleasant taste, owing to the 

 flavour and smell of musk by which they are impregnated ; 

 and on the Orinoco we gladly ate monkey-hams in preference. 

 These beautifully striped animals the Vinerra mapuritoj 

 Viverra zorilla, and Viverra vittata exhale a fetid odour. 



(31.) p. 12 " The Guaranes and the fan-palm Mauritia" 



The small coast tribe of the Guaranes (called in British 

 Guiana, the Warraws, or Guaranos, and by the Caribs 

 U-ara-u) inhabit not only the swampy delta and the river 

 network of the Orinoco (more particularly the banks of the 

 Manamo grande and the Cafio Macareo), but also extend, with 

 very slight differences in their mode of living, along the sea- 

 shore, between the mouths of the Essequibo and the Boca de 

 Navios of the Orinoco.* According to the testimony of Schom- 

 burgk, the admirable observer referred to in the note, there are 

 still about 1700 Warraus or Guaranos living in the vicinity 

 of Cumaca, and along the banks of the Barime river, which 

 empties itself into the gulf of the Boca de Navios. The 

 social habits of the tribes settled in the delta of the Orinoco 

 were known to the great historian Cardinal Bembo, the 

 cotemporary of Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, 

 and Alonzo de Hojeda. He saysf quibusdam in locis propter 

 paludes incoloe domus in arboribus cedificant. It is hardly 

 probable that instead of the Guaranos at the mouth of the 

 Orinoco, Bembo should here allude to the natives of the 

 country near the mouth of the gulf of Maracaibo, where 

 Alonzo de Hojeda, in August, 1499, (when accompanied by 

 Vespucci and Juan de la Cosa) found a population having 

 their dwellings fondata sopra I'acqua come Venezia ("built 

 like Venice on^the water ").J Vespucci, in the account of his 



* Compare my Relation historique, t. i. p. 492, t. ii. pp. 653, 703, 

 6ith Richard Schomburgk, Reisen in Britisch Guiana, th. i. 1847, a, 

 2, 120, 173, 194. 

 + Historic Venetce, 1551, p. 88. 

 J See text of Riccardi in my Examen cril. t. ir. p. 496. 



