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drical. These carices come from the foot of the 

 mountains of Yumariquin and Guanaja. They 

 are much sought after, even beyond the Oroo- 

 noko, by the name of the reeds of Esmeralda. 

 A hunter preserves the same sarbacan during 

 his whole life, and boasts of the lightness and 

 precision of his sarbacan, as we boast of the 

 same qualities in our fire arms. What is the 

 monocotyledonous plant*, that furnishes these 

 admirable reeds ? Did we see in fact the inter- 

 nodes (parts between the knots) of a gramen of 

 the tribe of nastoides ? or may this car ex be 

 perhaps a cyperaceous plant jf destitute of 

 knots ? I cannot solve this question, or determine 

 to what genus another plant belongs, which 

 furnishes the shirts of marima. We saw on the 

 slope of the Cerra Duida shirt trees fifty feet 

 high;};. The Indians cut off cylindrical pieces 

 two feet in diameter, from which they peel the 

 red and fibrous bark, without making any longi- 

 tudinal incision. This bark affords them a sort of 

 garment, which resembles sacks of a very coarse 



* The smooth surface of the sarbacans sufficiently proves, 

 that they are not furnished by a plant of the family of urcibel- 

 liferce. 



t The caricillo del manati, which grows abundantly on the 

 banks of the Oroonoko, attains from eight to ten feet in 

 height. 



X Arbor ramosissima, foliis oblongis acutis, integerrimis, 

 longe petiolatis, petiolis fuscis. 

 VOL. V. 2 N 



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