490 
ON THE ABORIGINES 
of flour wliicli has a saline taste, and with which they 
season their food. The Caruru indeed has quite the 
smell of salt water, and is excellent eating, both boiled 
as a vegetable, or with oil and vinegar as a salad. 
All the tribes of the Uaupes construct their dwellings 
after one plan, which is peculiar to them. Their houses 
are the abode of numerous families, sometimes of a whole 
tribe. The plan is a parallelogram, with a semicircle at 
one end. The dimensions of one at Jauarite were one 
hundred and fifteen feet in length, by seventy-five broad, 
and about thirty high. This house would hold about a 
dozen families, consisting of near a hundred individuals. 
In times of feasts and dances, three or four hundred are 
accommodated in them. The roof is supported on fine 
cylindrical columns, formed of the tranks of trees, and 
beautifully straight and smooth. In the centre a clear 
opening is left, twenty feet wide, and on the sides are 
little partitions of palm-leaf thatch, dividing off rooms 
for the separate families : here are kept the private 
household utensils, weapons, and ornaments ; while the 
rest of the space contains, on each side, the large ovens 
and gigantic pans for making caxiri, and, in the centre, 
a place for the children to play, and for their dances to 
take place. These houses are built with much labour 
and skill ; the main supporters, beams, rafters, and 
other parts, are straight, well proportioned to the strength 
required, and bound together with split creepers, in a 
manner that a sailor would admire. The thatch is of the 
leaf of some one of the numerous palms so well adapted 
to the purpose, and is laid on with great compactness 
and regularity. The walls, which are very low, are formed 
