OHIQIN OF OAITNIBAL." 213 



buted in three small villages, Suraba, Toanequi, and Jaraguift. 

 This population was computed, at the period when 1 tra- 

 velled there, to be 3000. The natives, comprehended in the 

 general name of Caymans, live at peace with the inhabitants 

 of San Bernardo del Viento (pueblo de Espanales), situated 

 on the western bank of the Eio Sinu, lower than San Nicolas 

 de Zispata, and near the mouth of the river. These people 

 have not the ferocity of the Darien and Cunas Indians, on 

 the left bank of the Atrato ; who often attack the boats 

 trading with the town of Quidbo in the Choco ; they also 

 make incursions on the territory of Uraba, in the months of 

 June and November, to collect the fruit of the cacao-trees. 

 The cacao of Uraba is of excellent quality ; and the Darien 

 Indians sometimes come to sell it, with other productions, 

 to the inhabitants of Kio Sinu, entering the valley of that 

 river by one of its tributary streams, the Jaraguai. 



It cannot be doubted that the G-ulf of Darien was consi- 

 dered, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, as a nook 

 in the country of the Caribs. The word Caribana is still 

 preserved in the name of the eastern cape of that gulf "We 

 know nothing of the languages of the Darien, Cunas, and 

 Cayman Indians : and we know not whether Carib or Arowak 

 words are found in their idioms ; but it is certain, notwith- 

 standing the testimony of Anghiera on the identity of the 

 race of the Caribs of the Lesser Antilles and the Indians of 

 Uraba, that Pedro de Ciecja, who lived so long among the 

 latter, never calls them Caribs nor cannibals. He describes 

 the race of that tribe as being naked with long hair, and 

 going to the neighbouring countries to trade ; and says the 

 women are cleanly, well dressed, and extremely engaging 

 (amorosas y galanas). "I have not seen," adds the Con- 

 quistador, " any women more beautiful* in all the Indian 



* Cronica del Peru, pp. 21, 22. The Indians of Darien, Uraba, Zen 

 (Sinu), Tatabe, the valleys of None and of Guaea, the mountains of Abibe 

 and Anticxjuia, aTe accused, by the same author, of the most ferocious 

 cannibalism ; and perhaps that circumstance alone gives rise to the idea 

 that they were of the same race as the Caribs of the West Indies. In the 

 celebrated Provision Real of the 30th of October, 1503, by which the 

 Spaniards are permitted to make slaves of the anthropophagi^ Indians 

 of th archipelago of San Bernardo, opposite the mouth of the Rio Sina, 

 the Lda Fuerte, Isla Uura (Baru), and Cartbagena, there u more at 



