trees, where they build very
artificial towns and villages, as it is written in the Spanish story of
the West Indies that those people do in the low lands near the gulf of
Uraba. For between May and September the river of Orenoque riseth thirty
foot upright, and then are those islands overflown twenty foot high
above the level of the ground, saving some few raised grounds in the
middle of them; and for this cause they are enforced to live in this
manner. They never eat of anything that is set or sown; and as at home
they use neither planting nor other manurance, so when they come abroad
they refuse to feed of aught but of that which nature without labour
bringeth forth. They use the tops of palmitos for bread, and kill deer,
fish, and porks for the rest of their sustenance. They have also many
sorts of fruits that grow in the woods, and great variety of birds and
fowls; and if to speak of them were not tedious and vulgar, surely we
saw in those passages of very rare colours and forms not elsewhere to be
found, for as much as I have either seen or read.

Of these people those that dwell upon the branches of Orenoque, called
Capuri, and Macureo, are for the most part carpenters of canoas; for
they make the most and fairest canoas; and sell them into Guiana for
gold and into Trinidad for tabacco, in the excessive taking whereof
they exceed all nations. And notwithstanding the moistness of the air in
which they live, the hardness of their diet, and the great labours they
suffer to hunt, fish, and fowl for their living, in all my life,
either in the Indies or in Europe, did I never behold a more goodly or
better-favoured people or a more manly. They were wont to make war upon
all nations, and especially on the Cannibals, so as none durst without a
good strength trade by those rivers; but of late they are at peace with
their neighbours, all holding the Spaniards for a common enemy. When
their commanders die they use great lamentation; and when they think
the flesh of their bodies is putrified and fallen from their bones, then
they take up the carcase again and hang it in the cacique's house that
died, and deck his skull with feathers of all colours, and hang all
his gold plates about the bones of this arms, thighs, and legs. Those
nations which are called Arwacas, which dwell on the south of Orenoque,
of which place and nation our Indian pilot was, are dispersed in many
other places, and do use to beat the bones of their lords