S62 STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF THE 



the other, which they call Putapayma, on the main land, over- 

 against which island was a very high mountain called Oecope. 

 We coveted to anchor rather by these islands in the river, than 

 by the main, because of the tortoises* eggs, which our people 

 found on them in great abundance, and also because the 

 ground served better for us to cast our nets for fish, the main 

 banks being for the most part stony and high, and the rocks 

 of a blue metalline colour, like unto the best steel ore, which 

 I assuredly take it to be. Of the same blue stone are also 

 divers great mountains, which border this river in many places. 



** The next morning toward nine of the clock we weighed 

 anchor, and the breeze increasing, we sailed alway west up 

 the river, and after a while opening the land on the right side, 

 the country appeared to be champaign, and the banks shewed 

 very perfect red. And my old pilot, a man of great travel, 

 brother to the cassique Toparimaca, told me, that those were 

 called the plains of the Sayma ; and that the same level 

 reached to Cumana and Carracas, in the West Indies, which 

 are one hundred and twenty leagues to the north, and that 

 there inhabited four principal nations. The first were the 

 Sayma, the next Assawai, the third and greatest the Wikiri, 

 the fourth are called Aroras, and are as black* as negroes, but 



* That there were black nations aboriginally in America, is also affirmed in 

 some Portuguese voyages. 



