18 
PURUMAMA. 
Rapids and cataracts opposed numerous difficulties to our progress the next morning, which we safely surmounted, and arrived at 
one o’clock at a Zapara settlement, where we found the people located in a very wild spot, almost inaccessible from the falls und rapids 
by which it is encircled. The men and women of this tribe were so hideously ugly that we called them the Ugly Faces. They seemed 
to suffer, most of them, from inflammation in the eyes ; many squinted horribly, and others were evidently dropsical. Their voices were 
squeaking and very disagreeable : the chief was, however, a good looking personage, and one young girl formed a striking contrast, 
she being the prettiest Indian I had as yet seen. Altogether there might be about forty of them crowded into three huts ; these were built 
in a round form, neatly thatched with palm leaves, not pointed at the top as the Macusi houses are, though with an opening for 
smoke. The interior was clean, the only thing commendable among them. 
The Zaparas, it appears, have arisen from the intermarriage of Macusis and Arecunas. They principally inhabit the mountains 
Tupae-eng and Waikamang, though there are likewise a few of their settlements along the banks of the Parima, of which this was one. 
Their whole number probably amounts to not more than three hundred. They differ little in ap^jearance from the Macusis ; if any thing, 
they are more slender, and not so robust in figure. I had no opportunity of collecting any of their words, but their language is merely a 
the variety of that of the parent tribes, the Arecuna and Macusi. 
