118 



STAY AT VILLA DE ST. SALVADOR, 



east coast. None of the tribes which I visited on this coast poison 

 their arrows ; for the ingenuity of these people, who are in the lowest 

 stage of civilisation, has happily not attained this art ; still less do 

 we find among them any traces of the poisoned thumb-nails of the 

 Ottomacks on the Oronoco, or of the tube which the Indians there 

 make of large stems of grass, or of the esgravatanas of the tribes on 

 the river of Amazons. 



When our first curiosity was satisfied, M^e requested the savages to 

 conduct us to their huts. The whole troop preceded, and we followed 

 on horseback. The way led into a valley which crossed the sugar- 

 plantations ; it then decreased to a narrow path, till at length, in the 

 thickest of the forest, we came to some huts, called cuari in the 

 language of the Puris. They are certainly some of the most simple 

 in the world. The sleeping-net, which is made of emhira (bass from 

 a kind of cecropia), is suspended between two trunks of trees, to 

 which, higher up, a pole is fastened transversely by means of a rope of 

 bind-weed ( cipo ), against which large palm-leaves are laid obliquely 

 on the windward side, and these are lined below with heliconia or pat- 

 tioba leaves, and when near the plantations with those of the banana. 

 Near a small fire on the ground lie some vessels of the fruit of the 

 ci^escentia cujete, or a few gourd-shells, a little wax, various trifles 

 of dress or ornament, reeds for arrows and arrow-heads, some fea- 

 thers and provisions, such as bananas and other fruit. The bows 

 and arrows stand against a tree, and lean dogs rush loudly barking 

 upon the stranger who approaches this solitude. The huts are small 

 and so exposed on every side, that when the weather is unfavourable 

 the brown inmates are seen seeking protection against it by crowding 

 close round the fire, and cowering in the ashes : at other times the 

 man lies stretched at his ease in his hammock, while the woman at- 

 tends the fire, and broils meat, which is stuck on a pointed stick. 



Fire, which the Puris call pote, is a prime necessary of life with 



