354 
CANNIBAL TRIBES. 
influence over the neighbouring nations. As he attended 
us in all our herborizations, we obtained from his own 
mouth information so much the more useful, as the mis- 
sio .aries have great confidence in his veracity. He assured 
us, that in his youth he had seen almost all the Indian 
tribes, that inhabit the vast regions between the Upper 
Orinoco, the Bio Negro, the Inirida, and the Jupura, eat 
human flesh. The Darieavanas, the Puchirinavis, and the 
Manitivitanos, appeared to him to be the greatest cannibals 
among them. He believes that this abominable practice is 
with them the effect of a system of vengeance; they eat 
only enemies who are made prisoners in battle. The 
instances where, by a refinement of cruelty, the Indian eats 
his nearest relations, his wife, or an unfaithful mistress, are 
extremely rare. The strange custom of the Scythians and 
Massagetes, the Capanaguas of the Bio Ucayale, and the 
ancient inhabitants of the West Indian Islands, of honour- 
ing the dead by eating a part of their remains, is unknown 
on the banks of the Orinoco. In both continents this trait 
of manners belongs only to nations that hold in horror the 
flesh of a prisoner. The Indian of Hayti (Saint Domingo) 
would think himself wanting in regard' to the memory of a 
relation, if he did not throw into his drink a small portion of 
the body of the deceased, after having dried it like one of 
the mummies of the Guanches, and reduced it to powder. 
This gives us just occasion to repeat with an eastern poet, 
“of all animals man is the most fantastic in his manners, 
and the most disorderly in his propensities.” 
The climate of the mission of San Antonio de J avita is 
extremely rainy. When you have passed the latitude of 
three degrees north, and approach the equator, you have 
seldom an opportunity of observing the sun or the stars. 
It rains almost, the whole year, and the sky is constantly 
cloudy. As the breeze is not felt in these immense forests 
of Guiana, and the refluent polar currents do not penetrate 
them, the column of air which reposes on this wooded zone 
is not renewed by dryer strata. It is saturated with vapours 
which are condensed into equatorial rains. The missionary 
assured us that it often rains here four or five months 
without cessation. 
The temperature of Jauta is cooler than that of Maypures, 
