352 



with the aid of the missionaries, a sketch of the native tribes, 

 who now inhabit the forests and savannahs comprehended 

 between those rivers, and between the Caura, the Ventuari, 

 and the Carony, on a surface of more than 19,000 square 

 marine leagues. This geographical distribution is not with- 

 out interest for the history of nations. 1 attempted at first 

 to arrange the names according to the analogy of the lan- 

 guages, and the hypothesis which the missionaries, the sole 

 historians of those countries, have formed on the filiation of 

 the Indian tribes ; but I was compelled to abandon that pro- 

 ject, because more than J would have remained what the 

 classificating botanists call incertce sedis. A traveller cannot 

 offer finished labors ; but what the reader has a right to re- 

 quire of him, is to present candidly such materials as he col- 

 lected on the spot. Those which 1 here mark are disposed 

 alphabetically, a pretty certain means of preserving them 

 from ethnographic hypotheses, and of facilitating researches. 

 Experience having proved to me that nations whose names 

 appear almost identic, are sometimes of different race, I 

 have, notwithstanding the fear of repetition, not joined arbi- 

 trarily the tribes that present those analogies of denomina- 

 tion. Father Caulin did not penetrate beyond the cataracts ; 

 I have, however, made use of his work whenever the con - 

 formity of the orthography of names gave me confidence in 

 the identity of the tribes he mentions, with those contained 

 in my own list. A manuscript catalogue (Catalogo de len- 

 guas y naciones del Pdo Orinoco), kindly communicated to 

 me by father Ramon Bueno, during my stay in the mission 

 of Uruana, I found highly useful. 1 shall also cite in this 

 sketch the pages of the Personal Narrative, which furnish 

 the most ample information on the tribes now believed to be 

 the most numerous, and important. I know that those tribes 

 often take their denomination from words : men, son of such 

 or such a chief (vol. v, p. 182) ; descendant of such or such 

 a courageous animal; there is always, however, in the 



