Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 5, 2025
Father Gili relates that, at the time of the expedition to the boundaries, agriculture began to make some progress on the banks of the Orinoco; and that cattle, especially goats, had multiplied considerably at Maypures. We found no goats, either in the mission or in any other village of the Orinoco; they had all been devoured by the tigers.
Father Gili has described these commotions at the Mission of Encaramada, a country entirely granitic, where they were accompanied by loud explosions. Great fallings-in of the earth took place in the mountain Paurari, and near the rock Aravacoto a small island disappeared in the Orinoco. The undulatory motion continued during a whole hour.
A tradition circulates among the Guahibos, that the warlike Atures, pursued by the Caribs, escaped to the rocks that rise in the middle of the Great Cataracts; and there that nation, heretofore so numerous, became gradually extinct, as well as its language. The last families of the Atures still existed in 1767, in the time of the missionary Gili.
It must also be observed, although we may be struck with the singularity of several fair tribes being found at one point to the east of Esmeralda, it is no less certain, that tribes have been found in other parts of America, distinguished from the neighbouring tribes by the less tawny colour of their skin. Gili volume 2 page 34. Vater, Amerikan. Sprachen page 81.
The missionaries Gumilla and Gili had not been able to penetrate into the country where the curare is manufactured. An Indian wounds himself slightly; and a dart dipped in the liquid curare is held near the wound. If it make the blood return to the vessels without having been brought into contact with them, the poison is judged to be sufficiently concentrated.
Whilst deprecating his "impudence" in writing a Romany gili and telling, as a pupil might a master, of his interest in and his association with the gypsies, he continues: "My dear Mr Borrow, for all this you are entirely responsible. More than twenty years ago your books had an incredible influence on me, and now you see the results."
Word Of The Day
Others Looking