CLAY EATEN BY THE OTOMACS. 983 
length the Indians arrived with the vessel, and the 
navigation was continued during part of the night. 
At Carichana the missionary received them with 
kindness. Here the travellers remained some days 
to recruit their exhausted strength, and M. Bonpland 
had the satisfaction of dissecting a manatee. 
From Carichana they went in two days to the 
mission of Uruana, the situation of which is ex- 
tremely picturesque, the village being placed at the 
foot of a lofty granitic mountain, the columnar 
rocks appearing at intervals above the trees. Here 
the river is more than 4263 yards broad, and runs 
in a straight line directly east. The hamlet is in- 
habited by the Otomacs, one of the rudest of the 
American tribes. These Indians swallow quan- 
tities of earth for the purpose of allaying hunger. 
When the waters are low they live on fish and tur- 
tles; but when the rivers swell, and it becomes dif- 
ficult to procure that food, they eat daily a large 
portion of clay. The travellers found in their huts 
heaps of it in the form of balls, piled up in pyramids 
three or four feet high. This substance is fine and 
unctuous, of a yellowish-gray colour, containing 
silica and alumina, with three or four per cent. of 
lime. Being a restless and turbulent people, with 
unbridled passions and excessively given to in- 
toxication, the little village of Uruana is more 
difficult to govern than any of the other missions. 
By inhaling at the nose the powder obtained from 
the pods of the Acacia niopo they throw them- 
selves into a state of intoxication bordering on mad- 
ness, that lasts several days, during which dreadful 
murders are committed. The most vindictive cover 
the nail of the thumb with the curare poison, the 
