13 



end of her fingers ; while an Indian of the Carib- 

 bee race is far from considering herself as 

 naked, when she wears a guajuco two inches 

 broad. Even this band is regarded as a less 

 essential part of dress than the pigment, which 

 covers the skin. To go out of the hut without 

 being painted with arnotta, is to transgress all 

 the rules of Caribbean decency. 



The Indians of the missions of Piritoo at- 

 tracted still more our attention on account of 

 their belonging to a nation, which by it's daring- 

 ness, it's warlike enterprises, and it's mercantile 

 spirit, has exerted a great influence on the vast 

 country, that extends from the equator toward 

 the northern coasts. We found traces every 

 where on the Oroonoko of the hostile incursions 

 of the Caribbees, which they pushed heretofore 

 from the sources of the Carony and the Erevato 

 as far as the banks of the Ventuari, the Atacavi, 

 and the Rio Negro*. The Caribbean language 

 is consequently the most general in this part 

 of the world ; it has even passed (like the lan- 

 guage of the Lenni-Lenapes, or Algonkins, and 

 the Natchez or Muskoghees, on the west of the 

 Alleghany mountains) to tribes which have not 

 the same origin. 



When we cast a look on that swarm of 

 nations spread over both Americas to the east 



* Vol. v, p. 204, 209, 360. 



