In the season of inundations these clumps of 

 mauritia, with their leaves in the form of a fan, 

 have the appearance of a forest rising from the 

 bosom of the waters. The navigator, in proceed- 

 ing along the channels of the delta of the Oroo- 

 noko at night, sees with surprise the summit of 

 the palm-trees illumined by large fires. These 

 are the habitations of the Guaraons (Tivit- 

 ivas and Waraweties of Raleigh*), which are 

 suspended from the trunks of trees. These tribes 

 hang up mats in the air, which they fill with 

 earth, and kindle, on a layer of moist clay, the fire 

 necessary for their household wants. They have 

 owed their liberty and their political indepen- 

 dence for ages to the quaking and swampy soil, 

 which they pass over in the time of drought, and 

 on which they alone know how to walk in secu- 

 rity to their solitude in the delta of the Oroono- 

 ko 5 to their abode on the trees, where religious 



group of palmce montance, which rises in the Andes of Gua~ 

 nacas nearly to the limit of perpetual snow, was (I believe) 

 entirely unknown before our travels in America. {Nov. Gen. 

 vol. i, p. 317 ; Semanario de Santa Fe de Bogota, 1819, No. 21, 

 p. 163.) 



* The Indian name of the tribe of TJaraus (Guarau-nos of 

 the Spaniards) may be recognized in the Warawety {Ouarau- 

 ety) of Raleigh, one of the branches of the Tivitivas. See 

 Discovery of Guiana, 1576, p. 90, and the sketch of the 

 habitations of the Guaraons, in Raleghi brevis Descrip. 

 Guiana;, 1594, tab. 4. (Laet. p. 648, 661 j Gilt, vol. i, p. 

 xxxv ; Depons, vol. i, p. 292, 308 ; Lcblond, p. 430, 444.) 



