238 TlMEHRI. 
intimate, little presents are continually given on both 
sides. Never let them leave without giving them a 
small gift : they even expe6t payment from those who 
want to make them Christians, for their trouble in 
listening.* 
They are very inquisitive ; and when a box is opened 
they want to see every thing in it; otherwise they get 
vexed. I find them ungrateful, because, if you begin to 
be kind to them and stop, they forget the past ; and, if 
you refuse the smallest demand they try to harm you. 
They last better than we do : the old men do not get 
gray, and live longer, t The reason is, I believe, that 
they eat little but often, and have neither anxiety, ambi- 
tion, nor trouble. They take their food Avhen they are 
hungry : even at night they will get up to eat, and only 
think of the present. If you want to get a hammock 
from them cheap, you must buy it early in the morning, 
when they forget that night must come and that then 
they will require it. When making bargains they prefer 
glass and crystal to gold and silver. 
We eat fruits, but the Caribs drink these. J They say 
to drink a melon, figs,|| bananas, plums, pine apples, 
etc., in' fact, they drink more than they eat, even dry 
fruits like the courbaly. They are very uncleanly in 
their habits ; they never eat salt, because they believe 
* An Indian may even now-a-days be induced to undergo baptism for 
a shirt or a drop of rum. 
f This is certainly no longer the case in Guiana. 
J Indians usually boil down or merely pound, all sorts of fruits into 
a pap. 
!| These figs must be fig bananas, a small kind of banana called by 
our Indians kokerites, to distinguish them from the larger kinds which 
are called " bacoobas." 
