The Arawak stock of languages is the most widely disseminated of any in South America. It begins at the south with the Guanas, on the head-waters of the river Paraguay, and with the Baures and Moxos on the highlands of southern Bolivia, and thence extends almost in continuity to the Goajiros peninsula, the most northern land of the continent. Nor did it cease there. All the Antilles, both Greater and Less, were originally occupied by its members, and so were the Bahama Islands,[356] thus extending its dialects to within a short distance of the mainland of the northern continent, and over forty-five degrees of latitude. Its tribes probably at one time occupied the most of the lowlands of Venezuela, whence they were driven not long before the discovery by the Caribs, as they also were from many of the southern islands of the West Indian archipelago. The latter event was then of such recent occurrence that the women of the Island Caribs, most of whom had been captured from the Arawaks, still spoke that tongue. They were thus the first of the natives of the New World to receive the visitors from European climes, and the words picked up by Columbus and his successors on the Bahamas, Cuba and Hayti, are readily explained by the modern dialects of this stock. No other nation was found on any part of the archipelago except the two I have mentioned. The whole of the coast between the mouths of the Orinoco and Amazon appears to have been in their possession at or a short time before the epoch of the discovery. The Antis or Campas, who perhaps occupy the original home of the stock, own as the centre of their domain the table-land known as El Gran Pajonal, or the Great Grass Field, bounded by the rivers Ucayali, Pachitea and Perene. Their hue is a bistre and their habits wild; some slight tillage is carried on, and the women spin and weave the wild cotton into coarse garments. The taming of animals is one of their arts, and around their huts are seen monkeys, parrots, peccaries and tapirs.[357] It is noteworthy that some of them are skilful blacksmiths, smelting the metal from the native ores, and working it into axes, knives, spear points, etc., of excellent quality.[358] The names Campas and Antis were used as generic terms, the latter applied to the tribes on the slopes of the Cordilleras and the former to those on the plains. A large number of sub-tribes are named by the older writers, the principal of which were the Choseosos, Machigangas, Pilcosumis and Sepaunabos. The Machigangas lived on the Pilcopata and Vilcanota, and their language has been erroneously stated by Von Tschudi to be an independent stock.[359] The Chunchas and Cholones are by some classed with the Campas, and they are said to have been the possessors of the famous Cerro de Sal, or Salt Mountain, to which the neighboring tribes repaired in great numbers to obtain supplies of this useful article.