ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 181 



being lit up at night by the flames of fires beneath, so 

 that those who sailed by thought the habitations themselves 

 were attached to the trees. "We do not deny that m 

 order to escape the attacks of the musquitos, the Indian 

 sometimes suspends his hammock from the tops of trees ; 

 on such occasions, however, no fires are made under the 

 hammock." (Compare also Sir Eobert Schomburgk's New 

 Edition of Raleigh's Discovery of Guiana, 1848, p. 50.) 



According to Martius, the fine Palm Moriche, Mauritia 

 flexuosa, Quiteve, or Ita palm, (Bernau, Missionary Labours 

 in British Guiana, 1847, p. 34 and 44), belongs, as well 

 as Calamus, to the group of Lepidocaryeae or Coryphinese. 

 Linnaeus has described it very imperfectly, as he erroneously 

 considers it to be leafless. The trunk grows as high as 

 26 feet, but it probably requires from 120 to 150 years 

 to reach this height. The Mauritia extends high up on 

 the declivity of the Duida, north of the Esmeralda mission, 

 where I have found it in great beauty. Ii forms in moist 

 places fine groups of a fresh shining verdure, which reminds 

 us of that of our Alder groves. The trees preserve the 

 moisture of the ground by their shade, and hence the 

 Indians say that the Mauritia draws the water round its 

 roots by a mysterious attraction. By a somewhat similar 

 theory they advise that serpents should not be killed ; because 

 the destruction of the serpents and the drying up of the 

 pools or lagunas accompany each other : thus the untutored 

 child of nature confounds cause and effect. Gumilla terms 

 the Mauritia flexuosa of the Guaranis the tree of life, 

 arbol de la vida. It grows in the mountains of Eonaima, 



