FAUNA— INHABITANTS OF VENEZUELA. 105 



soon kill the other fishes. After devouring everything they often remain for 



months together without any food. The electric apparatus, which is extremely 



complex, occupies nearly the whole body, the several functional organs being all 



grouped in the anterior part of the animal. Humboldt's sensational account of 



their capture by means of horses driven into the water and exposed to their attacks 



until the batteries are exhausted, must have reference to some quite exceptional 



incident. Even when horses were counted by the million on the llanos, they were 



too valuable to be thus sacrificed when a simple fishing-line or a net sufficed to 



take the eels. 



Certain streams in the Apure basin are carefully avoided by bathers, less 



through fear of the crocodiles than of these and other electric animals, such as the 



parayas {serra salmo) and the " caribs." Some of the creeks are said to contain 



" more caribs than water." These ferocious fishes, which can cut through large 



hooks with a snap of the teeth, attack their prey and devour it with incredible fury ; 



at sight of the blood caused by the prick of a spur, they rush at the wound, and 



quickly disappear in the very bowels of the horse — hence their local name, mon- 



dongucros, or tripe-eaters. The term, " car ib," has reference to the terror inspired 



by them, as once by the Carib Indians, " the cannibals," that infested the Orinoco 



plains. 



Inhabitants of Venezuela. 



The reports of the Conquistadores, of the early travellers and missionaries record 

 the names of hundreds of tribal groups, not all, however, greatly differing from 

 each other. Such names often indicate little more than diiierences of locality, so 

 that kindred tribes of like speech, traditions and usages might still be known by 

 many names. The word, coto, terminating several tribal designations, had reference 

 to their respective districts, as in Cumanacoto, Pariacoto, Chagaracoto, Arimacoto, 

 " People of Cumana," Paria, &c. 



It would no longer be possible to classify all the peoples mentioned in the 

 history of Venezuela, for most of them have disappeared, or rather have become 

 absorbed by miscegenation in the common Venezuelan nationality. Their names 

 survive in the local nomenclature, but they can themselves be no longer recognised 

 in the present populations. Many have also been exterminated, amongst others 

 the dwarfish Ayamanes met by Fredemann in the mountains south of Barquisi- 

 meto. Although well proportioned, these pigmies were no more than " five 

 empans" (about three feet three or four inches) high ; but no recent traveller has 

 come upon their traces. 



Most ethnologists affiliate to the Caribs the tribes of the Orinoco, some of 

 whom still survive. Formerly these Caribs were supposed to have come from 

 North America by the chain of the Antilles. But the philological studies of 

 Lucien Adam, and the explorations especially of Von den Steinen and Ehrenreich 

 in the valley of the Xingu, a southern affluent of the Amazons, have placed beyond 

 doubt the Brazilian origin of this race. The Carib language and traditions are 

 best preserved by the kindred tribes of central Brazil, from which region the 

 Caribs migrated northwards. 



