Note B — Sacred Philosophy.
Reading edition
“The Guaraons, a free and independent people, dispersed in the Delta of the Oronooko, owe their independence to the nature of their country; for it is well known that, in order to raise their abodes above the surface of the waters, at the period of the great inundations, they support them on the cut trunks of the mangrove tree, and of the Mauritia flexuosa.”—Humboldt, Personal Narrative, vol. iii. p. 277. The same people make bread of the medullary flour of this palm, which it yields in great abundance, if cut down just before going to flower.—Ibid., vol. iii. p. 278. To these circumstances Thomson alludes:—
“Wide o’er his isles the branching Oronooque Rolls a brown deluge, and the native driven To dwell aloft on life-sufficing trees, At once his home, his robe, his food, his arms.”