PRIMITIVE MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. 
449 
the dancers themselves are the musicians. Feeble sounds, 
drawn from a series of reeds of different lengths, form a 
slow and plaintive accompaniment. The Trst dancer, to 
mark the time, bends both knees in a kind of cadence. 
Sometimes they all make a pause in their places, and 
execute little oscillatory movements, bending the body from 
one side to the other. The reeds ranged in a line, and 
fastened together, resemble the Pan’s pipes, as we find them 
represented in the bacchanalian processions on Grecian 
vases. To unite reeds of different lengths, and make them 
sound in succession by passing them before the lips, is a 
simple idea, and has naturally presented itself to every 
nation. We were surprised to see with what promptitude 
the young Indians constructed and tuned these pipes, when 
they found reeds on the bank of the river. Uncivilized 
men, in every zone, make great use of these gramina with 
high stalks. The Greeks, with truth, said that reeds had 
contributed to subjugate nations by furnishing arrows, to 
soften men’s manners by the charm of music, and to unfold 
their understanding by affording the first instruments for 
tracing letters. These different uses of reeds mark in some 
sort three different periods in the life of nations. We must 
admit that the tribes of the Orinoco are in the first stage 
of dawning civilization. The reed serves them only as an 
instrument of war and of hunting ; and the Pan’s pipes, of 
which we have spoken, have not yet, on those distant shores, 
yielded sounds capable of awakening mild and humane 
feelings. 
We found in the hut allotted for the festival, several 
vegetable productions which the Indians had brought from 
the mountains of Guanaya, and which engaged our atten- 
tion. I shall only here mention the fruit of the juvia, 
reeds of a prodigious length, and shirts made of the bark 
of marima. The ahnendron, or jwvia, one of the most 
majestic trees of the forests of the New World, was almost 
unknown before our visit to the Eio Negro. It begins 
to be found after a journey of four days east of Esmeralda, 
between the Padamo and Ocamo, at the foot of the Cerro 
Mapaya, on the right bank of the Orinoco. It is still more 
abundant on the left bank, at the Cerro Guanaja, between 
the Eio Amaguaca and the Gebotte. The inhabitants of 
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