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The Tartars employ murowa; the Mexicans, the agave; the people at Guarapo, an intoxicating product taken from sugarcane; while a great multitude, that no man can number, are the votaries of alcohol. To it they bow. Under it they are trampled. In its trenches they fall. On its ghastly holocaust they burn.

I heard it called Guainia at Javita, Maroa, and San Carlos. Southey, in his history of Brazil, says expressly that the Rio Negro, in the lower part of its course, is called Guiani, or Curana, by the natives; in the upper part, Ueneya. It is the word Gueneya, instead of Guainia; for the Indians of those countries say indifferently Guaranacua or Ouaranacua, Guarapo or Uarapo.

The Tartars employ murowa; the Mexicans the agave; the people of Guarapo an intoxicating quality taken from sugar-cane; while a great multitude, that no man can number, are the disciples of alcohol. To it they bow. In its trenches they fall. In its awful prison they are incarcerated. On its ghastly holocaust they burn.

These vats, made from one log of wood, are employed to keep the guarapo, or juice of the sugar-cane, and the molasses. These local circumstances induce me to think that the mountainous savannahs of the Cocollar and Turimiquiri owe their existence only to the destructive custom practised by the natives of setting fire to the woods when they want to convert the soil into pasturage.

At least she would have a cup of guarapo, the hospitable cook begged; and he hastened to bring her a cup of polished cocoanut shell, filled with the favourite drink, which was simply hot water with sugar dissolved in it.

These are solitary houses, which serve as inns, and where the mule-drivers obtain their favourite beverage, the guarapo, or fermented juice of the sugar-cane: intoxication is very common among the Indians who frequent this road. Near Garavatos there is a mica-slate rock of singular form; it is a ridge, or steep wall, crowned by a tower.

The founder, who had not hesitated to establish for his own profit a pulperia, in other words, to sell bananas and guarapo in the church itself, had shown himself to be not very nice in the choice of the new colonists. Many marauders of the Llanos had settled at Guayaval, because the inhabitants of a Mission are exempt from the authority of secular law.

We had Indian corn bread, and cakes made of the juice of the sugar-cane, called chancacas; potatoes, bananas, oranges, and pine-apples, and several varieties of dried meat; with a liquor also made from the sugar-cane, called guarapo: indeed we had no cause to complain of any want of provisions.

Content with the wild excitement of his daily round of duty and recreation, with his meal of dried beef and cassava-cake, washed down, it is likely, with a gourdful of guarapo, a species of rum, in comparison with which the New England beverage is innocent and weak, and with the occasional recurrence of some such turbulent festival as that of the branding, he cares nothing for the future, and bestows no thought upon the past.

The poorest man eats papelon, as in Europe he eats cheese. It is believed to have nutritive qualities. Fermented with water it yields the guarapo, the favourite beverage of the people. In the province of Caracas subcarbonate of potash is used, instead of lime, to purify the juice of the sugar-cane. The ashes of the bucare, which is the Erythrina corallodendrum, are preferred.