306 
SOBER HABITS OF THE INDIANS. 
The Mission, near the raudal of Maypures was very con- 
siderable in the time of the Jesuits, when it reckoned six 
hundred inhabitants, among whom were several families 
of whites. Under the government of the Fathers of the 
Observance the population was reduced to less than sixty. 
It must be observed that in this part of South America 
cultivation has been diminishing for half a century, while 
beyond the forests, in the provinces near the sea, we find 
villages that contain from two or three thousand Indians. 
The inhabitants of Maypures are a mild, temperate people, 
and distinguished by great cleanliness. The savages ot the 
Orinoco for the most part have not that inordinate fondness 
for strong liquors which prevails in North America. It is 
true that the Ottomans, the Jaruros, the Achaguas, and the 
Caribs, are often intoxicated by the immoderate use of chiza 
and many other fermented liquors, which they know how to 
prepare with cassava, maize, and the saccharine iruit of the 
palm-tree ; but travellers have as usual generalized what 
belongs only to the manners of some tribes. We were 
frequently unable to prevail upon the Guahibos, or the 
Maco-Piroas, to taste brandy while they were labouring for 
us, and seemed exhausted by fatigue. It will require a 
longer residence of Europeans in these countries to spread 
there the vices that are already common among the Indians 
on the coast. In the huts of the natives of Maypures we 
found an appearance of order and neatness, rarely met with 
in the houses of the missionaries. 
These natives cultivate plantains and cavassa, but u° 
maize. Cassava, made into thin cakes, is the bread oi the 
country. Like the greater part of the Indians of the Ori' 
noco, the inhabitants of Maypures have beverages which 
may be considered nourishing ; one of these, much celebrated 
in that country, is furnished by a palm-tree which grow- 
wild in the vicinity of the mission on the banks of the An- 
vana. This tree is the seje : I estimated the number ot 
flowers on one cluster at forty-four thousand ; and that ot 
the fruit, of which the greater part fall without ripening’ 
at eight thousand. The fruit is a small fleshy drupe. 1* * 9 
immersed for a few r minutes in boiling water, to separate 
the kernel from the parenchymatous part of the sarcocarpv 
which has a sweet taste, and is pounded and bruised ® 
