These Removals Of Bones, Heretofore More Common Among The Savages Of North America, Are Not Practised Among The Tribes Of Guiana; But These Are Not Nomad, Like Nations Who Live Exclusively By Hunting.

We stayed at the mission of Atures only during the time necessary for passing the canoe through the Great Cataract.

The bottom of our frail bark had become so thin that it required great care to prevent it from splitting. We took leave of the missionary, Bernardo Zea, who remained at Atures, after having accompanied us during two months, and shared all our sufferings. This poor monk still continued to have fits of tertian ague; they had become to him an habitual evil, to which he paid little attention. Other fevers of a more fatal kind prevailed at Atures on our second visit. The greater part of the Indians could not leave their hammocks, and we were obliged to send in search of cassava-bread, the most indispensable food of the country, to the independent but neighbouring tribe of the Piraoas. We had hitherto escaped these malignant fevers, which I believe to be always contagious.

We ventured to pass in our canoe through the latter half of the Raudal of Atures. We landed here and there, to climb upon the rocks, which like narrow dikes joined the islands to one another. Sometimes the waters force their way over the dikes, sometimes they fall within them with a hollow noise. A considerable portion of the Orinoco was dry, because the river had found an issue by subterraneous caverns.

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