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Show A NOTATIONS A 'D ADDITIONS. 1-!9 the Guaranis as a mis ionary, says, indeed, that this people had their habitation in the palmares (palm groves) of the morasses; but he only mentions dwellings raised upon high pillars, and not scaffoldings attached to trees still in a growing state (Gumilla, Historia natural, civil, y geografica de las Naciones situadas en las riveras del Rio Orinoco, nueva imp. 1791, pp. 143, 145, and 163). Hillhouse and Sir Robert Schomburgk (Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, vol. xii. 1842, p. 175; and description of the Murichi or Ita Palm, read at the Meeting of the British Association held at Cambridge, June 1 45; printed in Simond's Colonial Magazine), are of opinion that both Bembo and Raleigh (the former speaking from the reports of others, the latter as an eye-witness), were deceived by the high tops of the palm trees being lit up at night by the flames of fires beneath, so that those who sailed by thought the habitations themselves were attached to the trees. "We do not deny that in order to escape the attacks of the musquitos, the Indian sometimes uspends his hammock from the tops of trees ; on such occasions, however, no fires are made under the hammock." (Compare also Sir Robert Schomburgk's New Edition of Raleigh's Discovery of Guiana, 1848, p. 50.) According to l\Iartius, the fine Palm Moriche, Mauritia flexuosa., Quiteve, or Ita palm (Bernau, Missionary Labors in British Guiana, 1847, pp. 34 and 44), belongs, as well as Calamus, to the group of Lepidocaryere, or Coryphinere. Linnreus has described it very imperfectly, as he erroneously considers it to be leafless. The trunk grows as high as 26 feet, but it probaoly requires from 120 to 150 years to reach this height. The l\Iauritia extends high up on the declivity of the Duida, north of the Esmeralda mission, where I have found it in great beauty. It forms in moist places fiue groups of a fresh shining verdure, which reminds us of that of our Alder groves. The trees preserve the moisture of the ground by their shade, and hence the Indians &ay that tile l\Iauritia draws the water round its roots by a mysterious attraction. By a some-what similar theory they advise that serpents should not be killed; because the destruction of the serpents and the drying up of the pools or lagunas accompany each other; thus the untutored child of nature confounds cause and effect. Gumill:t terms the l\1a.uritia flexuosa of the 13* |