192 



EGG-HARVEST. 



pears so much the more recent the more unculti- 

 vated the nations are, and the shorter the period 

 since they have begun to acquire a knowledge of 

 themselves. When we attentively examine the 

 Mexican monuments anterior to the discovery of 

 America, — penetrate into the forests of the Orinoco, 

 and become aware of the smallness of the Euro- 

 pean establishments, their solitude, and the state of 

 the tribes which retain their independence, — we can- 

 not allow ourselves to attribute the agreement of 

 these accounts to the influence of missionaries and 

 to that of Christianity upon national traditions. Nor 

 is it more probable that the sight of marine bodies 

 found on the summits of mountains presented to the 

 tribes of the Orinoco the idea of those great inun- 

 dations which for some time extinguished the germs 

 of organic life upon the globe. — The country which 

 extends from the right bank of the Orinoco to the 

 Casiquiare and the Rio Negro consists of primitive 

 rocks. I saw there a small deposite of sandstone 

 or conglomerate, but no secondary limestone, and 

 no trace of petrifactions." 



At eleven in the morning the travellers landed on 

 an island celebrated for the turtle fishery, or the 

 "harvest of eggs," which takes place annually. 

 Here they found encamped more than 300 Indians 

 of different races, each tribe, distinguished by its 

 peculiar mode of painting, keeping separate from the 

 rest, together with a few r white men who had come 

 to purchase egg-oil from them. The missionary of 

 Uruana, whose presence was necessary to procure 

 a supply for the lamp of the church and keep the 

 natives in order, received the strangers with kind- 

 ness, and made the tour of the island with them ; 

 showing them, by means of a pole which he thrust 

 into the sand, the extent of the stratum of eggs, that 

 had been deposited wherever there were no emi- 

 nences. The Indians asserted, that in coming up the 

 Orinoco, from its mouth to the junction of the Apure, 



