A List of the Tribes of the Valley of the Amazons, Including Those on the Banks of the Main Stream and of All the Tributaries

of the Valley of the Amazons. 7Tgoing on for many centuries.Its original cause is buried in mystery, but its effectsare melancholy in the extreme." A whole race of men," says Martius, " is wasting away before the eyes of the world, and no power of philosophy or Christianity can arrest its proudly gloomy progress towards a certain and utter extinction.Theo present and future condition of this race of men is a monstrous and tragical drama, such as no fiction of the poet ever yet presented to our contemplation."There is indeed something awful in these sad reflections.Even within the period of authentic history the Amazonian tribes have made wide strides towards theirdoom.The accounts of 'great villages and populous countries in the valleys of the-Amazonian tributaries, given by George of Spires, Philip von Huten and other searchers after El Dorado cannot have been entirely fictitious.Alas!where are those flourishing communities now ?The evidence of language is in favour of the theory that these tribes, now like the sands on the sea shore for number, originally sprang from two, or at most three, parent stocks.Dialects of the Tliupi language extend from the roots of the Andes to the Atlantic, and southward into Paraguay.Dr. Latham was enabled to group several languages together by similarities in their pronominal prefixes, and it is established that the differences in the roots, between the nuinerous, Amazonian languages, are not so great as was generally supposed.The inquirer into this part of the subject will find a guide to further information in Truibner's Bibliotheca Glottica.Some tribes of the Graln Chacu are included in the list, which more properly belong to the basin of the Rio de la Plata; but these tribes extend their wanderings, more or less, within the area of the Amazonian basin.In using the list of tribes the most essential point to bear in mind is the date when the authority wrote who mentions any particular tribe; for many of the names may since have disappeared, either from their having been changed, or from the tribe having merged into sonme larger parent tribe, or from its having entirely disappeared and become extinct.It is, therefore, important that the following authorities, referred to in the list, and especially the dates when they wrote, should receive attention.The authorities have been arranged alphabetically instead of chronologically, for greater facility of reference

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