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we had carefully enveloped the canastos in mats 

 recently woven. Unfortunately for us, the pe- 

 netration of the Indians, and the extreme quick- 

 ness of their senses, rendered all our precautions 

 useless. Wherever we stopped, in the missions 

 of the Caribbees, amid the Llanos, between An- 

 gostura and Nueva Barcelona, the natives 

 assembled round our mules to admire the mon- 

 keys which we had purchased at the Oroonoko. 

 These good people had scarcely touched our 

 baggage, when they announced the approaching 

 death of the beast of burden, " that carried the 

 dead." In vain we told them, that they were 

 deceived in their conjectures ; and that the 

 baskets contained the bones of crocodiles and 

 manatees : they persisted in repeating, that they 

 smelt the resin, that surrounded the skeletons, 

 and " that they were their old relations." We 

 were obliged to make the monks interpose their 

 authority, in order to conquer the aversion of 

 the natives, and procure for us a change of 

 mules. 



One of the skulls, which we took from the 

 cavern of Ataruipe, has appeared in the fine 

 work published by my old master, Blumenbaeh, 

 on the varieties of the human species. The 

 skeletons of the Indians were lost on the coast 

 of Africa, together with a considerable part of 

 our collections, in a shipwreck, in which perished 

 our friend and fellow-traveller, Fray Juan Gon- 



