3 GO 
DISTRIBUTION” OF NATIVE HORDES 
of plants in the equinoctial regions that are capable of 
iurmshmg caoutchouc, it is to be regretted that this sub- 
stance, so eminently useful, is not found among us at a 
lower price. Without cultivating trees with a milky sap, 
a sumcient quantity of caoutchouc might be collected in 
tne missions of the Orinoco alone for the consumption of 
civilized Europe.* In the kingdom of New Grenada some 
successful attempts have been made to make boots and 
shoes _ ol this substance without a seam. Among the 
American nations, the Omaguas of the Amazon best under- 
stand how to manufacture caoutchouc. 
Pour days bad passed, and our canoe had not yet arrived 
at the landing-place of the itio Pimichin. “ You want for 
nothing m my mission,” said Father Cereso; “you have 
plantains and fish; at night you are not stung by mos- 
quitos; and the longer you stay, the better chance you 
will have of seeing the stars of my country. If your boat 
be destroyed in the portage, we will giro you another; 
and I shall have had the satisfaction of passing some weeks 
con genie llanca y de razon.'’ * Notwithstanding our im- 
patience, we listened with interest to the information given 
us by the worthy missionary. It confirmed all we had 
already heard of the moral state of the natives of those 
countries. They live, distributed in hordes of forty or 
fifty, under a family government; and they recognise a 
common cluef (apoto, sibierene) only at times when they 
make war against their neighbours. The mistrust of these 
hordes towards one another is increased by the circum- 
stance that those who live in the nearest neighbourhood 
speak languages altogether different. In the open plains, 
in the countries with savannahs, the tribes are fond of 
choosing their habitations from an affinity of origin and 
a resemblance of manners and idioms. On the table-land 
of Tartary, as in North America, great families of nations 
have been seen, formed into sevoral columns, extending their 
migrations across countries thinly-wooded, and easily tra- 
* We saw in Guiana, besides the jacio and the cnrvana, two othei trees 
that yield caoutchouc in abundance ; on the banks of the Atabapo, tko 
guamaqui with jatropha leaves, and at Maypures the time. 
“ With white and rational people.”’ European self-love usually 
opposes the genie de razon to the genie parda, or coloured people. 
