SETTLEMENTS ON THE DEMERARY, &C. 357 



islands and drowned lands are generally called Tivitivas ; there 

 are of them two sorts, the one called Ciawani, and the other 

 Waraweete. 



** These Tivitivas are a very goodly people, and very va- 

 liant, and have the most manly speech and most deliberate 

 that ever I heard of what nation soever. In the summer they 

 have houses on the ground as in other places. In the winter 

 they dwell upon the trees, where they build very artificial 

 towns and villages. For between May and September the 

 river of Orinoko riseth thirty feet upright, and then are those 

 islands overflown twenty feet high above the level of the 

 ground, saving some few raised grounds in the middle of them ; 

 and for this cause they are enforced to live in this manner. 

 They never eat of any thing that is set or sown, and as at 

 home they use neither planting nor other manurance, so when 

 they come abroad they refuse to feed of aught, but of that 

 which nature without labor bringeth forth. They use the 

 tops of palmitos for bread, and kill deer, fish, and porks, for 

 the rest of their sustenance. They have also many sorts of 

 fruits that grow in the woods, and great variety of birds and 

 fowl. 



** And if to speak of them were not tedious and vulgar, 

 surely we saw in those passages of very rare colors and forms, 

 not elsewhere to be found, for as much as I have either seen 



