547 



is much more nutritive, is obtained from the 

 animal kingdom : this is fish flour*. The 

 Indians in all the Upper Oroonoko fry fish, 

 dry them in the sun, and reduce them to pow- 

 der without separating the bones. I have seen 

 masses of fifty or sixty pounds of this flour, 

 which resembles that of cassava. When it is 

 wanted for eating, it is mixed with water, and 

 reduced to a paste. In every climate the abun- 

 dance of fish has led to the invention of the 

 same means of preserving them. Pliny and 

 Diodorus Siculus have described the fish bread 

 of the ichthyophagous nations*^, that dwelt 

 on the Persian gulf, and the shores of the Red 

 Sea. 



At Esmeralda, as every where else through- 

 out the missions, the Indians who will not be 

 baptized, and who are merely aggregated in the 

 community, live in a state of polygamy. The 

 number of wives differs much in different tribes ; 



* Manioc de pcscado. 

 f These nations, in a still ruder state than the natives of 

 the Oroonoko, contented themselves with drying the raw 

 fish in the sun. They made up the fish paste in the form of 

 bricks, and sometimes mixed with it the aromatic seed of 

 paliurus (rhamnus), as in Germany, and some other countries 

 of the north, cummin and fennel seed are mixed with wheat- 

 en bread. Pliny, lib. 7, cap. 3 (vol. i, p. 374. ed. Par., 

 1723). Diod. Sic, p. 154. Arrian, Ind„ p. 566, 



2 n 2 



