421 



west are almost deserted. 4 The natives subsist 

 during* a part of the year on those large ants, of 

 which I have spoken above. These insects are 

 as much esteemed here, as the spiders of , the 

 tribe of epeirae in the southern hemisphere, where 

 the savages of New Holland deem them delici- 

 ous. We found at Mandavaca the' good old mis- 

 sionary 3 who had already spent " twenty years 

 of moschettoes in the bosques del Cassiquiare," 

 and whose legs were so spotted by the stings of 

 insects, that the whiteness of the skin could 

 scarcely be perceived. He talked to us of his 

 solitude, and of the sad necessity, which often 

 compelled him to leave the most atrocious 

 crimes unpunished in the two missions of Man- 

 davaca and Vasiva. In the latter place, an In- 

 dian alcayde had a few years before eaten one 

 of his wives, after having taken her to his co- 

 nnco *, and fattened her by good feeding. The 

 cannibalism of the nations of Guyana is never 

 caused by the want of subsistence, or by the 

 superstitions of their religion, as in the islands 

 of the South Sea ; but is generally the effect of 

 the vengeance of a conqueror, and (as the mis- 

 sionaries say,) " of a vitiated appetite." Victory 

 over a hostile horde is celebrated by a repast, in 



* A hut surrounded with cultivated ground, a sort of 

 country-house, which the natives prefer to residing in the 

 missions. 



