expresses himself in his Oceaniques. He had 

 been told by a nephew of Amerigo Vespucci, 

 that thence as far as the snowy mountains 

 of Saint Martha all the natives were " e genere 

 Caribium, vel Canibalium." I do not deny, that 

 real Caribbees may have had a settlement near 

 the gulf of Darien, and that they may have 

 been driven thither by the easterly currents : 

 but it may also have happened, that the Spanish 

 navigators, little attentive to languages, called 

 every people of a tall stature and ferocious cha- 

 racter Caribbee and Cannibal. Still it is by no 

 means probable, that the Caribbees of the is- 

 lands and of Parima imposed on themselves the 

 name of the region, which they had originally 

 inhabited. On the east of the Andes, and wher- 

 ever civilization has not yet penetrated, it is the 

 people who give the name to the places where 

 they have settled *. We have already had oc- 

 casion several times to observe, that the words 

 Caribbees and Cannibals appear significant ; that 

 they are epithets, which allude to valour, 



* These names of places can be perpetuated only where 

 the nations succeed immediately to each other, and where the 

 tradition is uninterrupted. Thus, in the province of Quito, 

 many of the summits of the Andes bear names, which be- 

 long neither to the Quichua (the language of the Inca) nor 

 to the ancient language of the Paruays, governed by the con- 

 rhocando of Lican. 



