To form some conception of the wonderful variety of vegetable life to be seen in the delta, it will suffice to observe that a third of a century ago botanists had counted in the forests of Guiana no fewer than 132 families of plants, 772 genera and 2,450 distinct species. Of the genera more than sixty were indigenous.
Although we saw many things in the delta of the Orinoco that possessed intense interest for us, we saw none of the natives living in houses built on the summits of trees, about which some recent writers, following Raleigh, Humboldt and others, still entertain their readers. To tell the truth, we did not expect to find such dwellings, as it has been demonstrated beyond question that they do not now exist, and probably never did exist in these parts outside of the fertile imaginations of Raleigh and Gumilla. Humboldt never visited the delta, and hence, what he says on the subject in Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions, is based on reports received from others.[21]
Cardinal Bembo, writing in the first half of the sixteenth century, speaks of them, and Benzoni, his contemporary, who spent fifteen years in traveling in the New World, illustrates by an engraving what he has to say about the Indian houses built on the tops of trees.[22]
Scene on the Orinoco. (From Goering.)
Ferdinand Columbus, who, although a mere youth, had accompanied his father on his fourth voyage, writes, that when in the Gulf of Uraba, “We saw people living like birds in the tops of trees, laying sticks across from bough to bough, and building their huts upon them; and though we knew not the reason of the custom, we guessed that it was done for fear of their enemies, or of the griffins that are in this island.”[23]
Peter Martyr, who most likely got his information about these strange dwellings from Ferdinand Columbus, tells us that the trees on which they were built were of “suche heighth, that the strength of no mane’s arme is able to hurle a stone to the houses buylded therein.” He adds, however, that the owners of the houses have “theyr wyne cellers in the grounde and well replenysshed.” And he vouchsafes the reason for not keeping the wine, with “all other necessayre thinges they haue, with theym in the trees. For albeit that the vehemencie of the wynde, is not of poure to caste downe those houses, or to breeke the branches of the trees, yet are they tossed therwith, and swaye sumwhat from syde to syde, by reason therof, the wyne shulde be muche troubeled with moouinge.... When the Kynge or any of the other noblemen, dyne or suppe in these trees, theyr wynes are brought theym from the celleres by theyr seruantes, whyche by meanes of exercise are accustomed with noo lesse celeritie to runne vppe and downe the steares adherete to the tree, then doo owre waytynge boyes vppon the playne grounde, fetche vs what wee caule for from the cobbarde bysyde owr dynynge table.”
As to the size of the trees the same writer avers, “Owr men measuringe manye of these trees, founde them to bee of suche biggnes, that seuen men, ye sumetymes eight, holdinge hande in hande with theyr armes streached furthe, were scarcely able to fathame them aboute.”[24]
Raleigh had evidently read some of these accounts about people living on tree tops, but not satisfied with the Munchausen tales of his predecessors, he proceeds to entertain his readers with stories as marvelous as those of Sindbad the Sailor.
Writing of the Indians of the delta, he says: “In the winter they dwell vpon the trees, where they build very artificiall towns, and villages, ... for between May and September, the riuer Orenoke riseth thirtie foote vpright, and then are those Ilands ouerflowen twentie foote high aboue the leuell of the ground, sauing some few raised grounds in the middle of them.... They neuer eate of anie thing that is set or sowen, and as at home they vse neither planting nor other manurance, so when they com abroad the refuse to feede of ought but of that which nature without labor bringeth foorth.”[25]