192 



throwing a pole tied to a cord, and terminated 

 by an extremely sharp point. They asked them 

 in the Hayti language their name ; and the In- 

 dians, thinking that the question of the stran- 

 gers related to their harpoons, formed of the 

 hard and heavy wood of the macana palm 

 tree, answered guaike, guaike, which signifies 

 pointed pole. A striking difference at present 

 exists between the Guayquerias, a civilized tribe 

 of skilful fishermen, and those savage Guara- 

 ounoes of the Oroonoko, who suspend their ha- 

 bitations on the trunks of the mauritia palm tree, 

 moriche. 



The population of Cumana has been singu- 

 larly exaggerated in latter times. In 1800, 

 several colonists, little versed in questions of 

 political economy, carried this population to 

 twenty thousand souls ; while the king's officers 

 employed in the government of the country 

 thought, that the city with it's suburbs did not 



coloured races. They are distinguished from the Guayque- 

 rias of the continent by their manner of pronouncing the 

 Spanish, which they speak almost without separating their 

 teeth. They show with pride to Europeans the point of the 

 Galera, so called on account of the vessel of Columbus, 

 which anchored there, and the port of Manzanillo, where 

 they first swore to the Whites, in 1493, that friendship, 

 which they have never betrayed, and which has given them, 

 in the Court style, the title oi'Jieles, loyal. (See above, 

 p. 44.) 



