210 
ANALOGY OF LANGUAGES. 
space of thirty-two months only one marriage had been 
entered in the registers of the parish church. Two others 
had been contracted by uncatechised natives, and celebrated 
before the Indian Goberuador. At the first foundation of 
the Mission, the Atures, Mavpures, Meyep tires, Abanis, and 
Quirupas, had been assembled together. Instead of these 
tribes we found only G uahibos, and a few families of the 
nation of Macos. The Atures have almost entirely disap- 
peared ; they are no longer known, except by the tombs m 
the cavern of Ataruipe, which recall to mind the sepulchres 
of the G launches at Tenerifle. We learned on the spot, that 
the Atures, as well as the Quaquas, and the Macos or 
Piaroas, belong to the great stock of the Salive nations i 
while the Mavpures, the Abanis, the Parenis, and the Guay- 
pufiaves, are of the same race as the Cabrcs or Caverey 
celebrated for their long wars with the Caribs. In tin® 
labyrinth of petty nations, divided from one another as tb<-‘ 
nations of Latium, Asia Minor, and Sogdiana, formerly were, 
we can trace no general relations but by following tin’ 
analogy of tongues. Tbese are the only monuments tlu' 1 
have reached us from the early ages of tlie world; the oul' 
monuments, which, not being fixed to the soil, are at on°° 
moveable and lasting, and have as it were traversed tin' 1 ' 
and space. They owe their duration, and the extent the.' 
occupy, much less to conquering and polished nations, tlu 1J | 
to those wandering and half-savage tribes, who, fleein?- 
before a powerful enemy, carried along with them in the* 1 ^ 
extreme wretchedness only their wives, their children, ^ 
the languages of their fathers. . r 
Between the latitudes of 4° and S°, the Orinoco not onT 
separates the great forest of the Parime from the hai 
savannahs of the Apure, Meta, and G uaviare, hut also forii' 3 
the boiuidary between tribes of very different manner»- 
To the westward, over treeless plains, wander the Gual iib ()S ’ 
the Chiricoas, and the Guarnos; nations, proud of the* 
savage independence, whom it is difficult to fix to the sol ’ 
or habituate to regular labour. The Spanish missionin' 10 ’ 
characterise them "well by the name of Indios andanb* 
(errant or vagabond Indians), because they are perpetual 1 , 
moving from place to place, lo the east of the Grin 00 ’ 
between the neighbouring sources of the Caura. Catauiap 0 ' 
