278 



They owe their independence to the nature of 

 their country ; for the missionaries, in spite of 

 their zeal, have not been tempted to follow 

 them on the tops of the trees. It is well known, 

 that the Guaraons, in order to raise their 

 abodes above the surface of the waters at the 

 period of the great inundations, support them 

 on the cut trunks of the mangrove-tree and of 

 the mauritia palm-tree % They make bread of 

 the medullary flour of this palm-tree, which is 

 the true sago of America. The flour bears the 

 name of yuruma : I have eaten of it at the town 

 of St. Thomas in Guiana, and it seemed very 

 agreeable to the taste, resembling rather the 

 cassava bread than the sago-f~ of India. The 

 Indians assured me, that the trunks of the 

 mauritia, the tree of life so much vaunted by 

 father Gumilla, do not yield meal in any abun- 

 dance, except the palm-tree is cut down just 



* Their manners have always been the same. Cardinal 

 Bembo described them at the beginning of the 16th century, 

 " quibusdam in locis propter paludes incolae domus in arbor- 

 ibus aedificant." (Hist. Venet., 1551 , p. 88.) Sir Walter Re- 

 leigh, in 1595, speaks of the Guaraons under the names of 

 Araottes, Trivitivas, and Warawites. These were perhaps 

 the names of some tribes, that divided the great Guaraonese 

 nation. (Barrere, Essai sur l'Hist. NatureJIe de la France 

 equin., p. 150.) 



t Mr. Kunth has united together three genera of the 

 palms, calamus, sagus, and mauritia, in a new section, the 

 calameae. 



