215 



secular arm continually tends to withdraw the 

 reduced Indian from the monastic hierarchy, 

 and the missionaries gradually give way to 

 vicars. The whites, and the casts of mixed 

 blood, favoured by the corregidors, establish 

 themselves among the Indians. The Missions 

 become Spanish villages, and the natives lose 

 even the remembrance of their natural idiom. 

 Such is the progress of civilization from the 

 coasts toward the interior ; a slow progress, 

 shackled by the passions of man, but sure, and 

 uniform. 



The provinces of New A ndalusia and Barce- 

 lona, comprehended under the name of Govierno 

 de Cumana, contain, in their present popula- 

 tion, more than fourteen tribes. Those in New 

 Andalusia are the Chaymas, Guayquerias, Pa- 

 riagotoes, Quaquas, Aruacas, Caribbees, and Gua- 

 raounoes ; in the province of Barcelona, Cu- 

 managotoes, Palenkas, Caribbees, Piritoos, To- 

 rn ooz as, Topocuares, Chacopatas, and Guari- 

 vas. Nine or ten of these fourteen tribes con- 

 sider themselves as of a race entirely different. 

 The exact number of the Guaraounoes, who 

 make their huts on the trees at the mouth of 

 the Oroonoko, is unknown ; that of the Guay- 

 querias, in the suburbs of Cumana and in the 

 peninsula of Araya, amounts to two thousand. 

 Among the other Indian tribes, the Chaymas of 

 the mountains of Caripe, the Caribs of the south- 



