356 EXPLANATORY INDEX. 



of a forest rising from the bosom of the waters. The navi- 

 gator in proceeding along the channels of the delta of the 

 Orinoco at night, sees with surprise the summit of the palm- 

 trees illumined by large fires. These are the habitations of 

 the Guaraons (Tivitivas and Waraweties of Raleigh), which 

 are suspended from the trunks of the trees. These tribes hang 

 up mats in the air, which they fill with earth, and kindle 

 on a layer of moist clay the fire necessary for their household 

 wants. They have owed their liberty and their political in- 

 dependence for ages to the quaking and swampy soil, which 

 they pass over in the time of drought, and on which they 

 alone know how to walk in security to their solitude in the 

 delta of the Orinoco, to their abode on the trees, where 

 religious enthusiasm will probably never lead any American 

 Stylites. 



" The Mauri tia palm-tree, the tree of life of the missionaries, 

 not only affords the Guaraons a safe dwelling during the 

 risings of the Orinoco, but its shelly fruit, its farinaceous 

 pith, its juice, abounding in saccharine matter, and the fibres 

 of its petioles, furnish them with food, wine, and thread 

 proper for making cords and weaving hammocks. These 

 customs of the Indians of the delta of the Orinoco were found 

 formerly in the Gulf of Darien (XJraba), and in the greater 

 part of the inundated lands between the Guerapiche and the 

 mouths of the A.mazon. It is curious to observe in the lowest 

 degree of human civilization the existence of a whole tribe 

 depending on one single species of palm tree, similar to those 

 insects which feed on one and the same flower, or on one and 

 the same part of a plant." 



The word Guaraon, here used by Humboldt, is another 

 rendering of the word Warow, one of the native tribes, a 

 branch of which chooses this curious life. 



Travellers in the country where the Moriche grows, are in 

 the habit of using sandals made of the basal part of the leaf- 

 stalk. They do not last long, and have to be renewed every 

 third day. But, as the Moriche is always plentiful, and any 



