I was two leagues away from the place I just left when four canoes or almadías with a lot of people inside came from land towards me; I dropped the canvas of the brigantine to wait for them: they were rowing so fast that it seemed as if they were flying … their canoes were 10–12 fathoms long and half a fathom wide, made of very-well-worked cedar wood. They were rowing with very long rows which had at their end tufts and tassels made from feathers; in each of the canoes there were 40 people standing up and rowing (…) (Laguarda Trías 1957:126)
According to Schmidl (1938:57), the canoes of the Timbues were 30 feet long (8.40 m) and carried 10 men, while those of these Uruguayan Indians were, according to the Diario de Navegación de Pero Lopes de Souza, 10–12 fathoms long (18-20 m), consequently they could carry 40 rowers, which correspond with the ones from the Timbues and coincide with the observations made by Pero Lopes. The cedar wood from which they were made, according to Laguarda Trías, would belong to the tree known as red cedar (Cedra fissiles or brasiliensis), which in Guarani was called igaibo igarib or ‘canoe tree’.
esto lo otro y lo de mas alla
