INHABITANTS OF VENEZUELA. 107 



They are generally well made, but of short stature, stout, thickset, and health}»-, 

 despite the stagnant waters of their environment. The face is broader than long, 

 but the nose is not flat like that of the negro, and their language differs funda- 

 mentally from those of the neighbouring peoples. During the floods the Guar- 

 aunos formerly lived in pile dwellings, or ia structures raised on clumps of palms, 

 making a platform by interlacing the branches 15 or 16 feet above high-water 

 mark. These habitations were shared by a breed of dogs which resembled the 

 European collie, and which helped in capturing the fish. Although called in 

 question by Level de Godas, tliese statements, made by Raleigh, Humboldt, 

 and others, seem probable enough, and are confirmed in their main features by 

 Plassard and Crevaux, who have visited the Guaraunos since the time of Level de 

 Godas. The race appears to be dying out, being at present reduced to some 

 10,000 or 12,000 according to Plassard's estimate. 



Since the time of Humboldt frequent mention is also made of the Otomacos, 

 who dwelt between the Meta and Arauca affluents of the Orinoco. They were 

 numerous, especially about the Barraguan reefs, where they pointed to some large 

 boulders as the ancestors of their race. All the dead had to bo buried in some 

 rocky recess of this Orinoco gorge. The Otomacos were even more skilful ball- 

 players than the Basques ; the game was played, not with the hand, but with the 

 right shoulder, which was used as a bat to receive and return the rubber ball, and 

 at times the players grew so excited that they tore each other with their teeth, 

 fighting literally " tooth and nail." 



During the two or three months of the floods, when the supply of fish failed, 

 the Otomacos fed on earth, taking regularly every day about a pound or so of 

 a slightly-baked very fine clay, which was supposed to contain a multitude of 

 animalcules. When analysed, however, by Vauquelin, it was found quite free of 

 organisms; yet it did not cause the fatal maladies produced by a morbid taste for 

 earth in other Indian and negro peoples. 



After the close of the colonial administration most of the old *' missions " were 

 abandoned, and the settlements fell into ruins. Travellers in the middle Orinoco 

 region no longer speak of the Oaberres and other tribes mentioned by Gumilla in 

 the first half of the eighteenth century. All these converted and semi-civilised 

 natives have been greatly reduced m numbers since their release from priestly con- 

 trol and their return to the savage state, whereas the half-breeds have multiplied 

 threefold. 



But, despite wars, the oppression of the dominant classes, epidemics, and 

 hardships of all sorts, the wild tribes, who are not reckoned as gentes de razoii 

 ("reasonable beings"), are still more numerous in the forests and savannas. 

 But, as a rule, those groups alone are mentioned whose territory lies along 

 the beaten track of travellers. Such are the fierce Guaicas and the neigh- 

 bouring Guaharibos, who give their name to one of the headwaters of the 

 Orinoco ; the Maquiritares, also on the upper Orinoco and in the Yentuari valley ; 

 the Banivas, who collect rubber in the forests of the Atabapo and lower Guaviare ; 

 the dreaded Guahibos of the Eio Vichada ; the Yaruros and Guamos, who have 



