333 



Among the Caramares also, who call themselves of Carib race, 

 we find some traces of foreign cultivation. ' ' Architect! perer- 

 rantes a littore parumper in frusto candidi marmoris se inci- 

 disse dixerunt. Putant peregrinos ad eas terras venisse 

 quondam qui marmora e montibus aliquando scinderent et 

 putamina ilia in piano reliquerint." In a country almost 

 entirely destitute of historical traditions, we feel an in- 

 terest in a period anterior to the barbarism in which the 

 Europeans found the hot regions of America, on the east of 

 the Andes. These nations of Cauchieto, near Coro or Cu- 

 riana, of Caramairi (near Cathagena), Caribana and Cariari, 

 were rich in gold that came from the inland mountains. 

 A part of this gold was mixed with * of silver. It was the 

 electrum of the ancients, the native auriferous silver, or as 

 the Conquistador es, called it, from a word of the language of 

 Haiti, guanin. (Petr. Mart. Oc, p. 22.) In this passage 

 quanini or rather nini, for qua is a form affixed, is falsely 

 translated by aurichalcum.) Herera, in his Decades, (i. p. 

 79), gives the name of quanines to all sorts of necklaces made 

 of gold of mean alloy. (See the words of the Haitian 

 tongue that have not been collected by Gili, vol. iii. p. 224, 

 in Petr. Mart. p. 59, 01.) In my sketch of the Carib na- 

 tions I have not spoken of this custom attributed to the men, 

 of stretching themselves on a hammock, and undergoing a 

 long fast, after the delivery of their wives. It appears that this 

 strange practice belonged to a small number of Carib tribes, 

 and was more common among the other nations of the 

 Oroonoko and the Amazon. (Garcia, p. 172. Southey, voU i. 

 p. 642). This custom was found heretofore among the 

 Iberians, the Corsicans, and the Tibareni. (Apollon. Rhod. 

 Argonaut., Lib. 2, v. 1009-1014.) In several provinces 

 also of the south of France, husbands faisoient couvade at the 

 birth of a child. The tall stature of the Caribs of the con- 

 tinent sufficiently confirms their northern origin - f the first 

 travellers were struck by the extraordinary height of the na- 



