Earth-eating Indians.

--It was a very prevalent report on the coast of Cumana, New Barcelona, and Carracas, visited by the Franciscan monks of Guiana, on their return from the missions, that there were men on the banks of the Orinoco who ate earth.-- When, in returning from the Rio Negro, we descended the Orinoco in 36 days, we passed the day of the 16th June, 1800, in the Mission inhabited by the eartheating Otomacs.

This little village is called La Concepcion de Uruana, and is very picturesquely situated at the foot of a granite rock.

I found its geographical position to be 7 degs. 8 mins.

3 secs. N. lat., 67 degs.

18 mins. W. long. from Greenwich.

The earth which the Ottomacs eat is a soft unctuous clay; a true potter's clay, of a yellowish grey colour, due to a little oxide of iron.

They seek for it in particular spots on the banks of the Orinoco and the Meta, and select it with care.

They distinguish the taste of one kind of earth from that of another, and do not consider all clays as equally agreeable to eat.

They knead the earth into balls of about five or six inches diameter, which they burn or roast by a weak fire until the outside assumes a reddish tint.

The balls are remoistened when about to be eaten.

These Indians are generally wild, uncultivated beings, altogether averse to any kind of tillage.

It is a proverb even among the most distant of the nations living on the Orinoco, when speaking of anything very unclean to say, that it is "so dirty that the Otomacs would eat it."

As long as the waters of the Orinoco and Meta are low, these Indians live on fish and river tortoises.

They kill the fish with arrows when at the surface of the water, a pursuit in which we have often admired their great dexterity.

During the periodical swelling of the rivers the taking of fish ceases, for it is as difficult to fish in deep river water as it is in the sea.

It is in this interval, which is of two or three months' duration, that the Ottomacs swallow great quantities of earth.

We have found considerable stores of it in their huts, the clay balls being piled together in pyramidal heaps.

The very intelligent monk, Fray Ramon Bueno, a native of Madrid (who lived twelve years among those Indians), assured us that one of them would eat from three-quarters of a pound to a pound and a quarter in a day.

According to the accounts which the Otomacs themselves give, this earth forms their principal subsistence during the rainy season, though they eat at the same time occasionally, when they can obtain it, a lizard, a small fish, or a fern root.

They have such a predilection for the clay that even in the dry season, when they can obtain plenty of fish, they eat a little earth after their meals every day as a kind of dainty.

These men have a dark copperbrown complexion, and unpleasing Tartar features.

They are fat, but not large bellied.

The Franciscan monk, who lived among them as a missionary, assured us that he could perceive no alteration in their health during the eartheating season.-- Humboldt's Aspects of Nature.