ans care but little for bruises.

The Guaranis, to which the tribe who attacked us belonged, are the most
widely scattered of any of the Indian nations in South America. They
are to be found, Uncle Paul told me, as far south as the Rio de la
Plata, and on the banks of most of the rivers between it and the
Orinoco, where the white man is not yet settled. They exist, however,
in greater numbers on the swampy country bordering the banks of the
latter river. Their lands being completely inundated by the overflowing
of the rivers for some months in each year, they construct their
dwellings above the water, among the mauritia palms, whose crowns of
fanlike leaves wave above their heads, and shield them from the rays of
the burning sun. Not only does this palm afford them shelter, and
material for constructing their habitations, but it gives them an
abundance of food for the support of life. To the upright trunks of the
trees, which they use as posts, they fix horizontally a number of palms,
several feet above the highest level of the water. On this framework
they lay the split trunks of several smaller palms for flooring. Above
it a roof is formed, thatched with the leaves of the same tree. From
the upper beams the hammocks are suspended; while, on the flooring, a
hearth of clay is formed, on which fires are lighted for cooking their
food. They are celebrated for their canoes, which enable them to
procure food from the water, and give them the means of moving from
place to place. The tribe with which we had fallen in had, however,
left their canoes in some other stream, or we could not possibly have
escaped them. They were also, it was evident, of a more warlike and
quarrelsome disposition than most of their people, who are noted for
their peaceable behaviour. They are, however, in other respects utterly
savage in their habits and customs. So little do they care for
clothing, that even the females wear only a small piece of the bark of a
tree, or the net-like covering of the young leaf of the cocoanut or
cabbage palm; while their appearance is squalid in the extreme.
However, they cultivate cassava and other vegetables on the drier lands
bordering the river. From cassava they make an intoxicating liquor, the
cause of many savage murders among them. They depend greatly on the
pith of the mauritia, as it serves them for bread. No tree, indeed, is
more useful to them. Before unfolding its leaves, its blossoms con