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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Equinoctial Regions of America V2
+by Alexander von Humboldt
+#2 in our series by Alexander von Humboldt
+
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+Title: Equinoctial Regions of America V2
+
+Author: Alexander von Humboldt
+
+Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7014]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on February 23, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EQUINOCTIAL REGIONS OF AMERICA V2 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sue Asscher asschers@bigpond.com
+
+
+
+
+BOHN'S SCIENTIFIC LIBRARY.
+
+
+HUMBOLDT'S PERSONAL NARRATIVE
+
+VOLUME 2.
+
+PERSONAL NARRATIVE OF TRAVELS TO THE EQUINOCTIAL REGIONS OF AMERICA
+DURING THE YEARS 1799-1804
+
+BY
+
+ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT AND AIME BONPLAND.
+
+TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF
+
+ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT
+
+AND EDITED BY
+
+THOMASINA ROSS.
+
+IN THREE VOLUMES
+
+VOLUME 2.
+
+
+LONDON.
+
+GEORGE BELL & SONS.
+1907.
+LONDON: PORTUGAL ST., LINCOLN'S INN.
+CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON, BELL AND CO.
+NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.
+BOMBAY: A.H. WHEELER AND CO.
+
+
+***
+
+A tablon, equal to 1849 square toises, contains nearly an acre and
+one-fifth: a legal acre has 1344 square toises, and 1.95 legal acre is
+equal to one hectare.
+
+A torta weighs three quarters of a pound, and three tortas cost
+generally in the province of Caracas one silver rial, or one-eighth of
+a piastre.
+
+It is sufficient to mention, that the cubic foot contains 2,985,984
+cubic lines.
+
+Foot (old measure of France) about five feet three inches English
+measure.
+
+
+
+VOLUME 2.
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER 2.16.
+
+LAKE OF TACARIGUA.--HOT SPRINGS OF MARIARA.--TOWN OF NUEVA VALENCIA
+DEL REY.--DESCENT TOWARDS THE COASTS OF PORTO CABELLO.
+
+
+CHAPTER 2.17.
+
+MOUNTAINS WHICH SEPARATE THE VALLEYS OF ARAGUA FROM THE LLANOS OF
+CARACAS.--VILLA DE CURA.--PARAPARA.--LLANOS OR STEPPES.--CALABOZO.
+
+
+CHAPTER 2.18.
+
+SAN FERNANDO DE APURE.--INTERTWININGS AND BIFURCATIONS OF THE RIVERS
+APURE AND ARAUCA.--NAVIGATION ON THE RIO APURE.
+
+
+CHAPTER 2.19.
+
+JUNCTION OF THE APURE AND THE ORINOCO.--MOUNTAINS OF
+ENCARAMADA.--URUANA.--BARAGUAN.--CARICHANA.--MOUTH OF THE
+META.--ISLAND OF PANUMANA.
+
+
+CHAPTER 2.20.
+
+THE MOUTH OF THE RIO ANAVENI.--PEAK OF UNIANA.--MISSION OF
+ATURES.--CATARACT, OR RAUDAL OF MAPARA.--ISLETS OF SURUPAMANA AND
+UIRAPURI.
+
+
+CHAPTER 2.21.
+
+RAUDAL OF GARCITA.--MAYPURES.--CATARACTS OF QUITUNA.--MOUTH OF THE
+VICHADA AND THE ZAMA.--ROCK OF ARICAGUA.--SIQUITA.
+
+
+CHAPTER 2.22.
+
+SAN FERNANDO DE ATABAPO.--SAN BALTHASAR.--THE RIVERS TEMI AND
+TUAMINI.--JAVITA.--PORTAGE FROM THE TUAMINI TO THE RIO NEGRO.
+
+
+CHAPTER 2.23.
+
+THE RIO NEGRO.--BOUNDARIES OF BRAZIL.--THE CASSIQUIARE.--BIFURCATION
+OF THE ORINOCO.
+
+
+CHAPTER 2.24.
+
+THE UPPER ORINOCO, FROM THE ESMERALDA TO THE CONFLUENCE OF THE
+GUAVIARE.--SECOND PASSAGE ACROSS THE CATARACTS OF ATURES AND
+MAYPURES.--THE LOWER ORINOCO, BETWEEN THE MOUTH OF THE RIO APURE, AND
+ANGOSTURA THE CAPITAL OF SPANISH GUIANA.
+
+
+***
+
+PERSONAL NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY TO THE EQUINOCTIAL REGIONS OF THE NEW
+CONTINENT.
+
+VOLUME 2.
+
+
+CHAPTER 2.16.
+
+LAKE OF TACARIGUA.
+HOT SPRINGS OF MARIARA.
+TOWN OF NUEVA VALENCIA DEL REY.
+DESCENT TOWARDS THE COASTS OF PORTO CABELLO.
+
+The valleys of Aragua form a narrow basin between granitic and
+calcareous mountains of unequal height. On the north, they are
+separated by the Sierra Mariara from the sea-coast; and towards the
+south, the chain of Guacimo and Yusma serves them as a rampart against
+the heated air of the steppes. Groups of hills, high enough to
+determine the course of the waters, close this basin on the east and
+west like transverse dykes. We find these hills between the Tuy and La
+Victoria, as well as on the road from Valencia to Nirgua, and at the
+mountains of Torito.* (* The lofty mountains of Los Teques, where the
+Tuy takes its source, may be looked upon as the eastern boundary of
+the valleys of Aragua. The level of the ground continues, in fact, to
+rise from La Victoria to the Hacienda de Tuy; but the river Tuy,
+turning southward in the direction of the sierras of Guairaima and
+Tiara has found an issue on the east; and it is more natural to
+consider as the limits of the basin of Aragua a line drawn through the
+sources of the streams flowing into the lake of Valencia. The charts
+and sections I have traced of the road from Caracas to Nueva Valencia,
+and from Porto Cabello to Villa de Cura, exhibit the whole of these
+geological relations.) From this extraordinary configuration of the
+land, the little rivers of the valleys of Aragua form a peculiar
+system, and direct their course towards a basin closed on all sides.
+These rivers do not bear their waters to the ocean; they are collected
+in a lake; and subject to the peculiar influence of evaporation, they
+lose themselves, if we may use the expression, in the atmosphere. On
+the existence of rivers and lakes, the fertility of the soil and the
+produce of cultivation in these valleys depend. The aspect of the
+spot, and the experience of half a century, have proved that the level
+of the waters is not invariable; the waste by evaporation, and the
+increase from the waters running into the lake, do not uninterruptedly
+balance each other. The lake being elevated one thousand feet above
+the neighbouring steppes of Calabozo, and one thousand three hundred
+and thirty-two feet above the level of the ocean, it has been
+suspected that there are subterranean communications and filtrations.
+The appearance of new islands, and the gradual retreat of the waters,
+have led to the belief that the lake may perhaps, in time, become
+entirely dry. An assemblage of physical circumstances so remarkable
+was well fitted to fix my attention on those valleys where the wild
+beauty of nature is embellished by agricultural industry, and the arts
+of rising civilization.
+
+The lake of Valencia, called Tacarigua by the Indians, exceeds in
+magnitude the lake of Neufchatel in Switzerland; but its general form
+has more resemblance to the lake of Geneva, which is nearly at the
+same height above the level of the sea. As the slope of the ground in
+the valleys of Aragua tends towards the south and the west, that part
+of the basin still covered with water is the nearest to the southern
+chain of the mountains of Guigue, of Yusma, and of Guacimo, which
+stretch towards the high savannahs of Ocumare. The opposite banks of
+the lake of Valencia display a singular contrast; those on the south
+are desert, and almost uninhabited, and a screen of high mountains
+gives them a gloomy and monotonous aspect. The northern shore on the
+contrary, is cheerful, pastoral, and decked with the rich cultivation
+of the sugar-cane, coffee-tree, and cotton. Paths bordered with
+cestrums, azedaracs, and other shrubs always in flower, cross the
+plain, and join the scattered farms. Every house is surrounded by
+clumps of trees. The ceiba with its large yellow flowers* (* Carnes
+tollendas, Bombax hibiscifolius.) gives a peculiar character to the
+landscape, mingling its branches with those of the purple erythrina.
+This mixture of vivid vegetable colours contrasts finely with the
+uniform tint of an unclouded sky. In the season of drought, where the
+burning soil is covered with an undulating vapour, artificial
+irrigations preserve verdure and promote fertility. Here and there the
+granite rock pierces through the cultivated ground. Enormous stony
+masses rise abruptly in the midst of the valley. Bare and forked, they
+nourish a few succulent plants, which prepare mould for future ages.
+Often on the summit of these lonely hills may be seen a fig-tree or a
+clusia with fleshy leaves, which has fixed its roots in the rock, and
+towers over the landscape. With their dead and withered branches,
+these trees look like signals erected on a steep cliff. The form of
+these mounts unfolds the secret of their ancient origin; for when the
+whole of this valley was filled with water, and the waves beat at the
+foot of the peaks of Mariara (the Devil's Nook* (* El Rincon del
+Diablo.)) and the chain of the coast, these rocky hills were shoals or
+islets.
+
+These features of a rich landscape, these contrasts between the two
+banks of the lake of Valencia, often reminded me of the Pays de Vaud,
+where the soil, everywhere cultivated, and everywhere fertile, offers
+the husbandman, the shepherd, and the vine-dresser, the secure fruit
+of their labours, while, on the opposite side, Chablais presents only
+a mountainous and half-desert country. In these distant climes
+surrounded by exotic productions, I loved to recall to mind the
+enchanting descriptions with which the aspect of the Leman lake and
+the rocks of La Meillerie inspired a great writer. Now, while in the
+centre of civilized Europe, I endeavour in my turn to paint the scenes
+of the New World, I do not imagine I present the reader with clearer
+images, or more precise ideas, by comparing our landscapes with those
+of the equinoctial regions. It cannot be too often repeated that
+nature, in every zone, whether wild or cultivated, smiling or
+majestic, has an individual character. The impressions which she
+excites are infinitely varied, like the emotions produced by works of
+genius, according to the age in which they were conceived, and the
+diversity of language from which they in part derive their charm. We
+must limit our comparisons merely to dimensions and external form. We
+may institute a parallel between the colossal summit of Mont Blanc and
+the Himalaya Mountains; the cascades of the Pyrenees and those of the
+Cordilleras: but these comparisons, useful with respect to science,
+fail to convey an idea of the characteristics of nature in the
+temperate and torrid zones. On the banks of a lake, in a vast forest,
+at the foot of summits covered with eternal snow, it is not the mere
+magnitude of the objects which excites our admiration. That which
+speaks to the soul, which causes such profound and varied emotions,
+escapes our measurements as it does the forms of language. Those who
+feel powerfully the charms of nature cannot venture on comparing one
+with another, scenes totally different in character.
+
+But it is not alone the picturesque beauties of the lake of Valencia
+that have given celebrity to its banks. This basin presents several
+other phenomena, and suggests questions, the solution of which is
+interesting alike to physical science and to the well-being of the
+inhabitants. What are the causes of the diminution of the waters of
+the lake? Is this diminution more rapid now than in former ages? Can
+we presume that an equilibrium between the waters flowing in and the
+waters lost will be shortly re-established, or may we apprehend that
+the lake will entirely disappear?
+
+According to astronomical observations made at La Victoria, Hacienda
+de Cura, Nueva Valencia, and Guigue, the length of the lake in its
+present state from Cagua to Guayos, is ten leagues, or twenty-eight
+thousand eight hundred toises. Its breadth is very unequal. If we
+judge from the latitudes of the mouth of the Rio Cura and the village
+of Guigue, it nowhere surpasses 2.3 leagues, or six thousand five
+hundred toises; most commonly it is but four or five miles. The
+dimensions, as deduced from my observations are much less than those
+hitherto adopted by the natives. It might be thought that, to form a
+precise idea of the progressive diminution of the waters, it would be
+sufficient to compare the present dimensions of the lake with those
+attributed to it by ancient chroniclers; by Oviedo for instance, in
+his History of the Province of Venezuela, published about the year
+1723. This writer in his emphatic style, assigns to "this inland sea,
+this monstruoso cuerpo de la laguna de Valencia"* (* "Enormous body of
+the lake of Valencia."), fourteen leagues in length and six in
+breadth. He affirms that at a small distance from the shore the lead
+finds no bottom; and that large floating islands cover the surface of
+the waters, which are constantly agitated by the winds. No importance
+can be attached to estimates which, without being founded on any
+measurement, are expressed in leagues (leguas) reckoned in the
+colonies at three thousand, five thousand, and six thousand six
+hundred and fifty varas.* (* Seamen being the first, and for a long
+time the only, persons who introduced into the Spanish colonies any
+precise ideas on the astronomical position and distances of places,
+the legua nautica of 6650 varas, or of 2854 toises (20 in a degree),
+was originally used in Mexico and throughout South America; but this
+legua nautica has been gradually reduced to one-half or one-third, on
+account of the slowness of travelling across steep mountains, or dry
+and burning plains. The common people measure only time directly; and
+then, by arbitrary hypotheses, infer from the time the space of ground
+travelled over. In the course of my geographical researches, I have
+had frequent opportunities of examining the real value of these
+leagues, by comparing the itinerary distances between points lying
+under the same meridian with the difference of latitudes.) Oviedo, who
+must so often have passed over the valleys of Aragua, asserts that the
+town of Nueva Valencia del Rey was built in 1555, at the distance of
+half a league from the lake; and that the proportion between the
+length of the lake and its breadth, is as seven to three. At present,
+the town of Valencia is separated from the lake by level ground of
+more than two thousand seven hundred toises (which Oviedo would no
+doubt have estimated as a space of a league and a half); and the
+length of the basin of the lake is to its breadth as 10 to 2.3, or as
+7 to 1.6. The appearance of the soil between Valencia and Guigue, the
+little hills rising abruptly in the plain east of the Cano de Cambury,
+some of which (el Islote and la Isla de la Negra or Caratapona) have
+even preserved the name of islands, sufficiently prove that the waters
+have retired considerably since the time of Oviedo. With respect to
+the change in the general form of the lake, it appears to me
+improbable that in the seventeenth century its breadth was nearly the
+half of its length. The situation of the granite mountains of Mariara
+and of Guigue, the slope of the ground which rises more rapidly
+towards the north and south than towards the east and west, are alike
+repugnant to this supposition.
+
+In treating the long-discussed question of the diminution of the
+waters, I conceive we must distinguish between the different periods
+at which the sinking of their level has taken place. Wherever we
+examine the valleys of rivers, or the basins of lakes, we see the
+ancient shore at great distances. No doubt seems now to be
+entertained, that our rivers and lakes have undergone immense
+diminutions; but many geological facts remind us also, that these
+great changes in the distribution of the waters have preceded all
+historical times; and that for many thousand years most lakes have
+attained a permanent equilibrium between the produce of the water
+flowing in, and that of evaporation and filtration. Whenever we find
+this equilibrium broken, it will be well rather to examine whether the
+rupture be not owing to causes merely local, and of very recent date,
+than to admit an uninterrupted diminution of the water. This reasoning
+is conformable to the more circumspect method of modern science. At a
+time when the physical history of the world, traced by the genius of
+some eloquent writers, borrowed all its charms from the fictions of
+imagination, the phenomenon of which we are treating would have been
+adduced as a new proof of the contrast these writers sought to
+establish between the two continents. To demonstrate that America rose
+later than Asia and Europe from the bosom of the waters, the lake of
+Tacarigua would have been described as one of those interior basins
+which have not yet become dry by the effects of slow and gradual
+evaporation. I have no doubt that, in very remote times, the whole
+valley, from the foot of the mountains of Cocuyza to those of Torito
+and Nirgua, and from La Sierra de Mariara to the chain of Guigue, of
+Guacimo, and La Palma, was filled with water. Everywhere the form of
+the promontories, and their steep declivities, seem to indicate the
+shore of an alpine lake, similar to those of Styria and Tyrol. The
+same little helicites, the same valvatae, which now live in the lake
+of Valencia, are found in layers of three or four feet thick as far
+inland as Turmero and La Concesion near La Victoria. These facts
+undoubtedly prove a retreat of the waters; but nothing indicates that
+this retreat has continued from a very remote period to our days. The
+valleys of Aragua are among the portions of Venezuela most anciently
+peopled; and yet there is no mention in Oviedo, or any other old
+chronicler, of a sensible diminution of the lake. Must we suppose,
+that this phenomenon escaped their observation, at a time when the
+Indians far exceeded the white population, and when the banks of the
+lake were less inhabited? Within half a century, and particularly
+within these thirty years, the natural desiccation of this great basin
+has excited general attention. We find vast tracts of land which were
+formerly inundated, now dry, and already cultivated with plantains,
+sugar-canes, or cotton. Wherever a hut is erected on the bank of the
+lake, we see the shore receding from year to year. We discover
+islands, which, in consequence of the retreat of the waters, are just
+beginning to be joined to the continent, as for instance the rocky
+island of Culebra, in the direction of Guigue; other islands already
+form promontories, as the Morro, between Guigue and Nueva Valencia,
+and La Cabrera, south-east of Mariara; others again are now rising in
+the islands themselves like scattered hills. Among these last, so
+easily recognised at a distance, some are only a quarter of a mile,
+others a league from the present shore. I may cite as the most
+remarkable three granite islands, thirty or forty toises high, on the
+road from the Hacienda de Cura to Aguas Calientes; and at the western
+extremity of the lake, the Serrito de Don Pedro, Islote, and
+Caratapona. On visiting two islands entirely surrounded by water, we
+found in the midst of brushwood, on small flats (four, six, and even
+eight toises height above the surface of the lake,) fine sand mixed
+with helicites, anciently deposited by the waters. (Isla de Cura and
+Cabo Blanco. The promontory of Cabrera has been connected with the
+shore ever since the year 1750 or 1760 by a little valley, which bears
+the name of Portachuelo.) In each of these islands may be perceived
+the most certain traces of the gradual sinking of the waters. But
+still farther (and this accident is regarded by the inhabitants as a
+marvellous phenomenon) in 1796 three new islands appeared to the east
+of the island Caiguira, in the same direction as the islands Burro,
+Otama, and Zorro. These new islands, called by the people Los nuevos
+Penones, or Los Aparecidos,* (* Los Nuevos Penones, the New Rocks. Los
+Aparecidos, the Unexpectedly-appeared.) form a kind of banks with
+surfaces quite flat. They rose, in 1800, more than a foot above the
+mean level of the water.
+
+It has already been observed that the lake of Valencia, like the lakes
+of the valley of Mexico, forms the centre of a little system of
+rivers, none of which have any communication with the ocean. These
+rivers, most of which deserve only the name of torrents, or brooks,*
+are twelve or fourteen in number. (* The following are their names:
+Rios de Aragua, Turmero, Maracay, Tapatapa, Agnes Calientes, Mariara,
+Cura, Guacara, Guataparo, Valencia, Cano Grande de Cambury, etc.) The
+inhabitants, little acquainted with the effects of evaporation, have
+long imagined that the lake has a subterranean outlet, by which a
+quantity of water runs out equal to that which flows in by the rivers.
+Some suppose that this outlet communicates with grottos, supposed to
+be at great depth; others believe that the water flows through an
+oblique channel into the basin of the ocean. These bold hypotheses on
+the communication between two neighbouring basins have presented
+themselves in every zone to the imagination of the ignorant, as well
+as to that of the learned; for the latter, without confessing it,
+sometimes repeat popular opinions in scientific language. We hear of
+subterranean gulfs and outlets in the New World, as on the shores of
+the Caspian sea, though the lake of Tacarigua is two hundred and
+twenty-two toises higher, and the Caspian sea fifty-four toises lower,
+than the sea; and though it is well known, that fluids find the same
+level, when they communicate by a lateral channel.
+
+The changes which the destruction of forests, the clearing of plains,
+and the cultivation of indigo, have produced within half a century in
+the quantity of water flowing in on the one hand, and on the other the
+evaporation of the soil, and the dryness of the atmosphere, present
+causes sufficiently powerful to explain the progressive diminution of
+the lake of Valencia. I cannot concur in the opinion of M. Depons*
+(who visited these countries since I was there) "that to set the mind
+at rest, and for the honour of science," a subterranean issue must be
+admitted. (* In his Voyage a la Terre Ferme M. Depons says, "The small
+extent of the surface of the lake renders impossible the supposition
+that evaporation alone, however considerable within the tropics, could
+remove as much water as the rivers furnish." In the sequel, the author
+himself seems to abandon what he terms "this occult case, the
+hypothesis of an aperture.") By felling the trees which cover the tops
+and the sides of mountains, men in every climate prepare at once two
+calamities for future generations; want of fuel and scarcity of water.
+Trees, by the nature of their perspiration, and the radiation from
+their leaves in a sky without clouds, surround themselves with an
+atmosphere constantly cold and misty. They affect the copiousness of
+springs, not, as was long believed, by a peculiar attraction for the
+vapours diffused through the air, but because, by sheltering the soil
+from the direct action of the sun, they diminish the evaporation of
+water produced by rain. When forests are destroyed, as they are
+everywhere in America by the European planters, with imprudent
+precipitancy, the springs are entirely dried up, or become less
+abundant. The beds of the rivers, remaining dry during a part of the
+year, are converted into torrents whenever great rains fall on the
+heights. As the sward and moss disappear with the brushwood from the
+sides of the mountains, the waters falling in rain are no longer
+impeded in their course; and instead of slowly augmenting the level of
+the rivers by progressive filtrations, they furrow, during heavy
+showers, the sides of the hills, bearing down the loosened soil, and
+forming sudden and destructive inundations. Hence it results, that the
+clearing of forests, the want of permanent springs, and the existence
+of torrents, are three phenomena closely connected together. Countries
+situated in opposite hemispheres, as, for example, Lombardy bordered
+by the Alps, and Lower Peru inclosed between the Pacific and the
+Cordillera of the Andes, afford striking proofs of the justness of
+this assertion.
+
+Till the middle of the last century, the mountains round the valleys
+of Aragua were covered with forests. Great trees of the families of
+mimosa, ceiba, and the fig-tree, shaded and spread coolness along the
+banks of the lake. The plain, then thinly inhabited, was filled with
+brushwood, interspersed with trunks of scattered trees and parasite
+plants, enveloped with a thick sward, less capable of emitting radiant
+caloric than the soil that is cultivated and consequently not
+sheltered from the rays of the sun. With the destruction of the trees,
+and the increase of the cultivation of sugar, indigo, and cotton, the
+springs, and all the natural supplies of the lake of Valencia, have
+diminished from year to year. It is difficult to form a just idea of
+the enormous quantity of evaporation which takes place under the
+torrid zone, in a valley surrounded with steep declivities, where a
+regular breeze and descending currents of air are felt towards
+evening, and the bottom of which is flat, and looks as if levelled by
+the waters. It has been remarked, that the heat which prevails
+throughout the year at Cura, Guacara, Nueva Valencia, and on the
+borders of the lake, is the same as that felt at midsummer in Naples
+and Sicily. The mean annual temperature of the valleys of Aragua is
+nearly 25.5 degrees; my hygrometrical observations of the month of
+February, taking the mean of day and night, gave 71.4 degrees of the
+hair hygrometer. As the words great drought and great humidity have no
+determinate signification, and air that would be called very dry in
+the lower regions of the tropics would be regarded as humid in Europe,
+we can judge of these relations between climates only by comparing
+spots situated in the same zone. Now at Cumana, where it sometimes
+does not rain during a whole year, and where I had the means of
+collecting a great number of hygrometric observations made at
+different hours of the day and night, the mean humidity of the air is
+86 degrees; corresponding to the mean temperature of 27.7 degrees.
+Taking into account the influence of the rainy months, that is to say,
+estimating the difference observed in other parts of South America
+between the mean humidity of the dry months and that of the whole
+year; an annual mean humidity is obtained, for the valleys of Aragua,
+at farthest of 74 degrees, the temperature being 25.5 degrees. In this
+air, so hot, and at the same time so little humid, the quantity of
+water evaporated is enormous. The theory of Dalton estimates, under
+the conditions just stated, for the thickness of the sheet of water
+evaporated in an hour's time, 0.36 mill., or 3.8 lines in twenty-four
+hours. Assuming for the temperate zone, for instance at Paris, the
+mean temperature to be 10.6 degrees, and the mean humidity 82 degrees,
+we find, according to the same formulae, 0.10 mill., an hour, and 1
+line for twenty-four hours. If we prefer substituting for the
+uncertainty of these theoretical deductions the direct results of
+observation, we may recollect that in Paris, and at Montmorency, the
+mean annual evaporation was found by Sedileau and Cotte, to be from 32
+in. 1 line to 38 in. 4 lines. Two able engineers in the south of
+France, Messrs. Clausade and Pin, found, that in subtracting the
+effects of filtrations, the waters of the canal of Languedoc, and the
+basin of Saint Ferreol lose every year from 0.758 met. to 0.812 met.,
+or from 336 to 360 lines. M. de Prony found nearly similar results in
+the Pontine marshes. The whole of these experiments, made in the
+latitudes of 41 and 49 degrees, and at 10.5 and 16 degrees of mean
+temperature, indicate a mean evaporation of one line, or one and
+three-tenths a day. In the torrid zone, in the West India Islands for
+instance, the effect of evaporation is three times as much, according
+to Le Gaux, and double according to Cassan. At Cumana, in a place
+where the atmosphere is far more loaded with humidity than in the
+valley of Aragua, I have often seen evaporate during twelve hours, in
+the sun, 8.8 mill., in the shade 3.4 mill.; and I believe, that the
+annual produce of evaporation in the rivers near Cumana is not less
+than one hundred and thirty inches. Experiments of this kind are
+extremely delicate, but what I have stated will suffice to demonstrate
+how great must be the quantity of vapour that rises from the lake of
+Valencia, and from the surrounding country, the waters of which flow
+into the lake. I shall have occasion elsewhere to resume this subject;
+for, in a work which displays the great laws of nature in different
+zones, we must endeavour to solve the problem of the mean tension of
+the vapours contained in the atmosphere in different latitudes, and at
+different heights above the surface of the ocean.
+
+A great number of local circumstances cause the produce of evaporation
+to vary; it changes in proportion as more or less shade covers the
+basin of the waters, with their state of motion or repose, with their
+depth, and the nature and colour of their bottom; but in general
+evaporation depends only on three circumstances, the temperature, the
+tension of the vapours contained in the atmosphere, and the resistance
+which the air, more or less dense, more or less agitated, opposes to
+the diffusion of vapour. The quantity of water that evaporates in a
+given spot, everything else being equal, is proportionate to the
+difference between the quantity of vapour which the ambient air can
+contain when saturated, and the quantity which it actually contains.
+Hence it follows that the evaporation is not so great in the torrid
+zone as might be expected from the enormous augmentation of
+temperature; because, in those ardent climates, the air is habitually
+very humid.
+
+Since the increase of agricultural industry in the valleys of Aragua,
+the little rivers which run into the lake of Valencia can no longer be
+regarded as positive supplies during the six months succeeding
+December. They remain dried up in the lower part of their course,
+because the planters of indigo, coffee, and sugar-canes, have made
+frequent drainings (azequias), in order to water the ground by
+trenches. We may observe also, that a pretty considerable river, the
+Rio Pao, which rises at the entrance of the Llanos, at the foot of the
+range of hills called La Galera, heretofore mingled its waters with
+those of the lake, by uniting with the Cano de Cambury, on the road
+from the town of Nueva Valencia to Guigue. The course of this river
+was from south to north. At the end of the seventeenth century, the
+proprietor of a neighbouring plantation dug at the back of the hill a
+new bed for the Rio Pao. He turned the river; and, after having
+employed part of the water for the irrigation of his fields, he caused
+the rest to flow at a venture southward, following the declivity of
+the Llanos. In this new southern direction the Rio Pao, mingled with
+three other rivers, the Tinaco, the Guanarito, and the Chilua, falls
+into the Portuguesa, which is a branch of the Apure. It is a
+remarkable phenomenon, that by a particular position of the ground,
+and the lowering of the ridge of division to south-west, the Rio Pao
+separates itself from the little system of interior rivers to which it
+originally belonged, and for a century past has communicated, through
+the channel of the Apure and the Orinoco, with the ocean. What has
+been here effected on a small scale by the hand of man, nature often
+performs, either by progressively elevating the level of the soil, or
+by those falls of the ground occasioned by violent earthquakes. It is
+probable, that in the lapse of ages, several rivers of Soudan, and of
+New Holland, which are now lost in the sands, or in inland basins,
+will open for themselves a course to the shores of the ocean. We
+cannot at least doubt, that in both continents there are systems of
+interior rivers, which may be considered as not entirely developed;
+and which communicate with each other, either in the time of great
+risings, or by permanent bifurcations.
+
+The Rio Pao has scooped itself out a bed so deep and broad, that in
+the season of rains, when the Cano Grande de Cambury inundates all the
+land to the north-west of Guigue, the waters of this Cano, and those
+of the lake of Valencia, flow back into the Rio Pao itself; so that
+this river, instead of adding water to the lake, tends rather to carry
+it away. We see something similar in North America, where geographers
+have represented on their maps an imaginary chain of mountains,
+between the great lakes of Canada and the country of the Miamis. At
+the time of floods, the waters flowing into the lakes communicate with
+those which run into the Mississippi; and it is practicable to proceed
+by boats from the sources of the river St. Mary to the Wabash, as well
+as from the Chicago to the Illinois. These analogous facts appear to
+me well worthy of the attention of hydrographers.
+
+The land that surrounds the lake of Valencia being entirely flat and
+even, a diminution of a few inches in the level of the water exposes
+to view a vast extent of ground covered with fertile mud and organic
+remains.* (* This I observed daily in the Lake of Mexico.) In
+proportion as the lake retires, cultivation advances towards the new
+shore. These natural desiccations, so important to agriculture, have
+been considerable during the last ten years, in which America has
+suffered from great droughts. Instead of marking the sinuosities of
+the present banks of the lake, I have advised the rich landholders in
+these countries to fix columns of granite in the basin itself, in
+order to observe from year to year the mean height of the waters. The
+Marquis del Toro has undertaken to put this design into execution,
+employing the fine granite of the Sierra de Mariara, and establishing
+limnometers, on a bottom of gneiss rock, so common in the lake of
+Valencia.
+
+It is impossible to anticipate the limits, more or less narrow, to
+which this basin of water will one day be confined, when an
+equilibrium between the streams flowing in and the produce of
+evaporation and filtration, shall be completely established. The idea
+very generally spread, that the lake will soon entirely disappear,
+seems to me chimerical. If in consequence of great earthquakes, or
+other causes equally mysterious, ten very humid years should succeed
+to long droughts; if the mountains should again become clothed with
+forests, and great trees overshadow the shore and the plains of
+Aragua, we should more probably see the volume of the waters augment,
+and menace that beautiful cultivation which now trenches on the basin
+of the lake.
+
+While some of the cultivators of the valleys of Aragua fear the total
+disappearance of the lake, and others its return to the banks it has
+deserted, we hear the question gravely discussed at Caracas, whether
+it would not be advisable, in order to give greater extent to
+agriculture, to conduct the waters of the lake into the Llanos, by
+digging a canal towards the Rio Pao. The possibility* of this
+enterprise cannot be denied, particularly by having recourse to
+tunnels, or subterranean canals. (The dividing ridge, namely, that
+which divides the waters between the valleys of Aragua and the Llanos,
+lowers so much towards the west of Guigue, as we have already
+observed, that there are ravines which conduct the waters of the Cano
+de Cambury, the Rio Valencia, and the Guataparo, in the time of
+floods, to the Rio Pao; but it would be easier to open a navigable
+canal from the lake of Valencia to the Orinoco, by the Pao, the
+Portuguesa, and the Apure, than to dig a draining canal level with the
+bottom of the lake. This bottom, according to the sounding, and my
+barometric measurements, is 40 toises less than 222, or 182 above the
+surface of the ocean. On the road from Guigue to the Llanos, by the
+table-land of La Villa de Cura, I found, to the south of the dividing
+ridge, and on its southern declivity, no point of level corresponding
+to the 182 toises, except near San Juan. The absolute height of this
+village is 194 toises. But, I repeat that, farther towards the west,
+in the country between the Cano de Cambury and the sources of the Rio
+Pao, which I was not able to visit, the point of level of the bottom
+of the lake is much further north.) The progressive retreat of the
+waters has given birth to the beautiful and luxuriant plains of
+Maracay, Cura, Mocundo, Guigue, and Santa Cruz del Escoval, planted
+with tobacco, sugar-canes, coffee, indigo, and cacao; but how can it
+be doubted for a moment that the lake alone spreads fertility over
+this country? If deprived of the enormous mass of vapour which the
+surface of the waters sends forth daily into the atmosphere, the
+valleys of Aragua would become as dry and barren as the surrounding
+mountains.
+
+The mean depth of the lake is from twelve to fifteen fathoms; the
+deepest parts are not, as is generally admitted, eighty, but
+thirty-five or forty deep. Such is the result of soundings made with
+the greatest care by Don Antonio Manzano. When we reflect on the vast
+depths of all the lakes of Switzerland, which, notwithstanding their
+position in high valleys, almost reach the level of the Mediterranean,
+it appears surprising that greater cavities are not found at the
+bottom of the lake of Valencia, which is also an Alpine lake. The
+deepest places are between the rocky island of Burro and the point of
+Cana Fistula, and opposite the high mountains of Mariara. But in
+general the southern part of the lake is deeper than the northern: nor
+must we forget that, if all the shores be now low, the southern part
+of the basin is the nearest to a chain of mountains with abrupt
+declivities; and we know that even the sea is generally deepest where
+the coast is elevated, rocky, or perpendicular.
+
+The temperature of the lake at the surface during my abode in the
+valleys of Aragua, in the month of February, was constantly from 23 to
+23.7 degrees, consequently a little below the mean temperature of the
+air. This may be from the effect of evaporation, which carries off
+caloric from the air and the water; or because a great mass of water
+does not follow with an equal rapidity the changes in the temperature
+of the atmosphere, and the lake receives streams which rise from
+several cold springs in the neighbouring mountains. I have to regret
+that, notwithstanding its small depth, I could not determine the
+temperature of the water at thirty or forty fathoms. I was not
+provided with the thermometrical sounding apparatus which I had used
+in the Alpine lakes of Salzburg, and in the Caribbean Sea. The
+experiments of Saussure prove that, on both sides of the Alps, the
+lakes which are from one hundred and ninety to two hundred and
+seventy-four toises of absolute elevation* (* This is the difference
+between the absolute elevations of the lakes of Geneva and Thun.)
+have, in the middle of winter, at nine hundred, at six hundred, and
+sometimes even at one hundred and fifty feet of depth, a uniform
+temperature from 4.3 to 6 degrees: but these experiments have not yet
+been repeated in lakes situated under the torrid zone. The strata of
+cold water in Switzerland are of an enormous thickness. They have been
+found so near the surface in the lakes of Geneva and Bienne, that the
+decrement of heat in the water was one centesimal degree for ten or
+fifteen feet; that is to say, eight times more rapid than in the
+ocean, and forty-eight times more rapid than in the atmosphere. In the
+temperate zone, where the heat of the atmosphere sinks to the freezing
+point, and far lower, the bottom of a lake, even were it not
+surrounded by glaciers and mountains covered with eternal snow, must
+contain particles of water which, having during winter acquired at the
+surface the maximum of their density, between 3.4 and 4.4 degrees,
+have consequently fallen to the greatest depth. Other particles, the
+temperature of which is +0.5 degrees, far from placing themselves
+below the stratum at 4 degrees, can only find their hydrostatic
+equilibrium above that stratum. They will descend lower only when
+their temperature is augmented 3 or 4 degrees by the contact of strata
+less cold. If water in cooling continued to condense uniformly to the
+freezing point, there would be found, in very deep lakes and basins
+having no communication with each other (whatever the latitude of the
+place), a stratum of water, the temperature of which would be nearly
+equal to the maximum of refrigeration above the freezing point, which
+the lower regions of the ambient atmosphere annually attain. Hence it
+is probable, that, in the plains of the torrid zone, or in the valleys
+but little elevated, the mean heat of which is from 25.5 to 27
+degrees, the temperature of the bottom of the lakes can never be below
+21 or 22 degrees. If in the same zone the ocean contain at depths of
+seven or eight hundred fathoms, water the temperature of which is at 7
+degrees, that is to say, twelve or thirteen degrees colder than the
+maximum of the heat* of the equinoctial atmosphere over the sea, I
+think it must be considered as a direct proof of a submarine current,
+carrying the waters of the pole towards the equator. (* It is almost
+superfluous to observe that I am considering here only that part of
+the atmosphere lying on the ocean between 10 degrees north and 10
+degrees south latitude. Towards the northern limits of the torrid
+zone, in latitude 23 degrees, whither the north winds bring with an
+extreme rapidity the cold air of Canada, the thermometer falls at sea
+as low as 16 degrees, and even lower.) We will not here solve the
+delicate problem, as to the manner in which, within the tropics and in
+the temperate zone, (for example, in the Caribbean Sea and in the
+lakes of Switzerland,) these inferior strata of water, cooled to 4 or
+7 degrees, act upon the temperature of the stony strata of the globe
+which they cover; and how these same strata, the primitive temperature
+of which is, within the tropics, 27 degrees, and at the lake of Geneva
+10 degrees, react upon the half-frozen waters at the bottom of the
+lakes, and of the equinoctial ocean. These questions are of the
+highest importance, both with regard to the economy of animals that
+live habitually at the bottom of fresh and salt waters, and to the
+theory of the distribution of heat in lands surrounded by vast and
+deep seas.
+
+The lake of Valencia is full of islands, which embellish the scenery
+by the picturesque form of their rocks, and the beauty of the
+vegetation with which they are covered: an advantage which this
+tropical lake possesses over those of the Alps. The islands are
+fifteen in number, distributed in three groups;* without reckoning
+Morro and Cabrera, which are already joined to the shore. (* The
+position of these islands is as follows: northward, near the shore,
+the Isla de Cura; on the south-east, Burro, Horno, Otama, Sorro,
+Caiguira, Nuevos Penones, or the Aparecidos; on the north-west, Cabo
+Blanco, or Isla de Aves, and Chamberg; on the south-west, Brucha and
+Culebra. In the centre of the lake rise, like shoals or small detached
+rocks, Vagre, Fraile, Penasco, and Pan de Azucar.) They are partly
+cultivated, and extremely fertile on account of the vapours that rise
+from the lake. Burro, the largest of these islands, is two miles in
+length, and is inhabited by some families of mestizos, who rear goats.
+These simple people seldom visit the shore of Mocundo. To them the
+lake appears of immense extent; they have plantains, cassava, milk,
+and a little fish. A hut constructed of reeds; hammocks woven from the
+cotton which the neighbouring fields produce; a large stone on which
+the fire is made; the ligneous fruit of the tutuma (the calabash) in
+which they draw water, constitute their domestic establishment. An old
+mestizo who offered us some goat's milk had a beautiful daughter. We
+learned from our guide, that solitude had rendered him as mistrustful
+as he might perhaps have been made by the society of men. The day
+before our arrival, some hunters had visited the island. They were
+overtaken by the shades of night; and preferred sleeping in the open
+air to returning to Mocundo. This news spread alarm throughout the
+island. The father obliged the young girl to climb up a very lofty
+zamang or acacia, which grew in the plain at some distance from the
+hut, while he stretched himself at the foot of the tree, and did not
+permit his daughter to descend till the hunters had departed.
+
+The lake is in general well stocked with fish; though it furnishes
+only three kinds, the flesh of which is soft and insipid, the guavina,
+the vagre, and the sardina. The two last descend into the lake with
+the streams that flow into it. The guavina, of which I made a drawing
+on the spot, is 20 inches long and 3.5 broad. It is perhaps a new
+species of the genus erythrina of Gronovius. It has large silvery
+scales edged with green. This fish is extremely voracious, and
+destroys other kinds. The fishermen assured us that a small crocodile,
+the bava,* which often approached us when we were bathing, contributes
+also to the destruction of the fish. (* The bava, or bavilla, is very
+common at Bordones, near Cumana. See volume 1. The name of bava,
+baveuse, has misled M. Depons; he takes this reptile for a fish of our
+seas, the Blennius pholis. Voyage a la Terre Ferme. The Blennius
+pholis, smooth blenny, is called by the French baveuse (slaverer), in
+Spanish, baba.) We never could succeed in procuring this reptile so as
+to examine it closely: it generally attains only three or four feet in
+length. It is said to be very harmless; its habits however, as well as
+its form, much resemble those of the alligator (Crocodilus acutus). It
+swims in such a manner as to show only the point of its snout, and the
+extremity of its tail; and places itself at mid-day on the bare beach.
+It is certainly neither a monitor (the real monitors living only in
+the old continent,) nor the sauvegarde of Seba (Lacerta teguixin,)
+which dives and does not swim. It is somewhat remarkable that the lake
+of Valencia, and the whole system of small rivers flowing into it,
+have no large alligators, though this dangerous animal abounds a few
+leagues off in the streams which flow either into the Apure or the
+Orinoco, or immediately into the Caribbean Sea between Porto Cabello
+and La Guayra.
+
+In the islands that rise like bastions in the midst of the waters, and
+wherever the rocky bottom of the lake is visible, I recognised a
+uniform direction in the strata of gneiss. This direction is nearly
+that of the chains of mountains on the north and south of the lake. In
+the hills of Cabo Blanco there are found among the gneiss, angular
+masses of opaque quartz, slightly translucid on the edges, and varying
+from grey to deep black. This quartz passes sometimes into hornstein,
+and sometimes into kieselschiefer (schistose jasper). I do not think
+it constitutes a vein. The waters of the lake* decompose the gneiss by
+erosion in a very extraordinary manner. (* The water of the lake is
+not salt, as is asserted at Caracas. It may be drunk without being
+filtered. On evaporation it leaves a very small residuum of carbonate
+of lime, and perhaps a little nitrate of potash. It is surprising that
+an inland lake should not be richer in alkaline and earthy salts,
+acquired from the neighbouring soils. I have found parts of it porous,
+almost cellular, and split in the form of cauliflowers, fixed on
+gneiss perfectly compact. Perhaps the action ceases with the movement
+of the waves, and the alternate contact of air and water.
+
+The island of Chamberg is remarkable for its height. It is a rock of
+gneiss, with two summits in the form of a saddle, and raised two
+hundred feet above the surface of the water. The slope of this rock is
+barren, and affords only nourishment for a few plants of clusia with
+large white flowers. But the view of the lake and of the richly
+cultivated neighbouring valleys is beautiful, and their aspect is
+wonderful after sunset, when thousands of aquatic birds, herons,
+flamingoes, and wild ducks cross the lake to roost in the islands, and
+the broad zone of mountains which surrounds the horizon is covered
+with fire. The inhabitants, as we have already mentioned, burn the
+meadows in order to produce fresher and finer grass. Gramineous plants
+abound, especially at the summit of the chain; and those vast
+conflagrations extend sometimes the length of a thousand toises, and
+appear like streams of lava overflowing the ridge of the mountains.
+When reposing on the banks of the lake to enjoy the soft freshness of
+the air in one of those beautiful evenings peculiar to the tropics, it
+is delightful to contemplate in the waves as they beat the shore, the
+reflection of the red fires that illumine the horizon.
+
+Among the plants which grow on the rocky islands of the lake of
+Valencia, many have been believed to be peculiar to those spots,
+because till now they have not been discovered elsewhere. Such are the
+papaw-trees of the lake; and the tomato* of the island of Cura. (* The
+tomatoes are cultivated, as well as the papaw-tree of the lake, in the
+Botanical Garden of Berlin, to which I had sent some seeds.) The
+latter differs from our Solanum lycopersicum; the fruit is round and
+small, but has a fine flavour; it is now cultivated at La Victoria, at
+Nueva Valencia, and everywhere in the valleys of Aragua. The
+papaw-tree of the lake (papaya de la laguna) abounds also in the
+island of Cura and at Cabo Blanco; its trunk shoots higher than that
+of the common papaw (Carica papaya), but its fruit is only half as
+large, perfectly spherical, without projecting ribs, and four or five
+inches in diameter. When cut open it is found quite filled with seeds,
+and without those hollow places which occur constantly in the common
+papaw. The taste of this fruit, of which I have often eaten, is
+extremely sweet.* (* The people of the country attribute to it an
+astringent quality, and call it tapaculo.) I know not whether it be a
+variety of the Carica microcarpa, described by Jacquin.
+
+The environs of the lake are insalubrious only in times of great
+drought, when the waters in their retreat leave a muddy sediment
+exposed to the rays of the sun. The banks, shaded by tufts of
+Coccoloba barbadensis, and decorated with fine liliaceous plants,* (*
+Pancratium undulatum, Amaryllis nervosa.) remind us, by the appearance
+of the aquatic vegetation, of the marshy shores of our lakes in
+Europe. We find there, pondweed (potamogeton), chara, and cats'-tail
+three feet high, which it is difficult not to confound with the Typha
+angustifolia of our marshes. It is only after a careful examination,
+that we recognise each of these plants for distinct species,* (*
+Potamogeton tenuifolium, Chara compressa, Typha tenuifolia.) peculiar
+to the new continent. How many plants of the straits of Magellan, of
+Chile, and the Cordilleras of Quito have formerly been confounded with
+the productions of the northern temperate zone, owing to their analogy
+in form and appearance.
+
+The inhabitants of the valleys of Aragua often inquire why the
+southern shore of the lake, particularly the south-west part towards
+los Aguacotis, is generally more shaded, and exhibits fresher verdure
+than the northern side. We saw, in the month of February, many trees
+stripped of their foliage, near the Hacienda de Cura, at Mocundo, and
+at Guacara; while to the south-east of Valencia everything presaged
+the approach of the rains. I believe that in the early part of the
+year, when the sun has southern declination, the hills around
+Valencia, Guacara, and Cura are scorched by the heat of the solar
+rays, while the southern shore receives, along with the breeze when it
+enters the valley by the Abra de Porto Cabello, an atmosphere which
+has crossed the lake, and is loaded with aqueous vapour. On this
+southern shore, near Guaruto, are situated the finest plantations of
+tobacco in the whole province.
+
+Among the rivers flowing into the lake of Valencia some owe their
+origin to thermal springs, and deserve particular attention. These
+springs gush out at three points of the granitic Cordillera of the
+coast; near Onoto, between Turmero and Maracay; near Mariara,
+north-east of the Hacienda de Cura; and near Las Trincheras, on the
+road from Nueva Valencia to Porto Cabello. I could examine with care
+only the physical and geological relations of the thermal waters of
+Mariara and Las Trincheras. In going up the small river Cura towards
+its source, the mountains of Mariara are seen advancing into the plain
+in the form of a vast amphitheatre, composed of perpendicular rocks,
+crowned by peaks with rugged summits. The central point of the
+amphitheatre bears the strange name of the Devil's Nook (Rincon del
+Diablo). The range stretching to the east is called El Chaparro; that
+to the west, Las Viruelas. These ruin-like rocks command the plain;
+they are composed of a coarse-grained granite, nearly porphyritic, the
+yellowish white feldspar crystals of which are more than an inch and a
+half long. Mica is rare in them, and is of a fine silvery lustre.
+Nothing can be more picturesque and solemn than the aspect of this
+group of mountains, half covered with vegetation. The Peak of
+Calavera, which unites the Rincon del Diablo to the Chaparro, is
+visible from afar. In it the granite is separated by perpendicular
+fissures into prismatic masses. It would seem as if the primitive rock
+were crowned with columns of basalt. In the rainy season, a
+considerable sheet of water rushes down like a cascade from these
+cliffs. The mountains connected on the east with the Rincon del
+Diablo, are much less lofty, and contain, like the promontory of La
+Cabrera, and the little detached hills in the plain, gneiss and
+mica-slate, including garnets.
+
+In these lower mountains, two or three miles north-east of Mariara, we
+find the ravine of hot waters called Quebrada de Aguas Calientes. This
+ravine, running north-west 75 degrees, contains several small basins.
+Of these the two uppermost, which have no communication with each
+other, are only eight inches in diameter; the three lower, from two to
+three feet. Their depth varies from three to fifteen inches. The
+temperature of these different funnels (pozos) is from 56 to 59
+degrees; and what is remarkable, the lower funnels are hotter than the
+upper, though the difference of the level is only seven or eight
+inches. The hot waters, collected together, form a little rivulet,
+called the Rio de Aguas Calientes, which, thirty feet lower, has a
+temperature of only 48 degrees. In seasons of great drought, the time
+at which we visited the ravine, the whole body of the thermal waters
+forms a section of only twenty-six square inches. This is considerably
+augmented in the rainy season; the rivulet is then transformed into a
+torrent, and its heat diminishes for it appears that the hot springs
+themselves are subject only to imperceptible variations. All these
+springs are slightly impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen gas. The
+fetid smell, peculiar to this gas, can be perceived only by
+approaching very near the springs. In one of these wells only, the
+temperature of which is 56.2 degrees, bubbles of air are evolved at
+nearly regular intervals of two or three minutes. I observed that
+these bubbles constantly rose from the same points, which are four in
+number; and that it was not possible to change the places from which
+the gas is emitted, by stirring the bottom of the basin with a stick.
+These places correspond no doubt to holes or fissures on the gneiss;
+and indeed when the bubbles rise from one of the apertures, the
+emission of gas follows instantly from the other three. I could not
+succeed in inflaming the small quantities of gas that rise above the
+thermal waters, or those I collected in a glass phial held over the
+springs, an operation that excited in me a nausea, caused less by the
+smell of the gas, than by the excessive heat prevailing in this
+ravine. Is this sulphuretted hydrogen mixed with a great proportion of
+carbonic acid or atmospheric air? I am doubtful of the first of these
+mixtures, though so common in thermal waters; for example at Aix la
+Chapelle, Enghien, and Bareges. The gas collected in the tube of
+Fontana's eudiometer had been shaken for a long time with water. The
+small basins are covered with a light film of sulphur, deposited by
+the sulphuretted hydrogen in its slow combustion in contact with the
+atmospheric oxygen. A few plants near the springs were encrusted with
+sulphur. This deposit is scarcely visible when the water of Mariara is
+suffered to cool in an open vessel; no doubt because the quantity of
+disengaged gas is very small, and is not renewed. The water, when
+cold, gives no precipitate with a solution of nitrate of copper; it is
+destitute of flavour, and very drinkable. If it contain any saline
+substances, for example, the sulphates of soda or magnesia, their
+quantities must be very insignificant. Being almost destitute of
+chemical tests,* (* A small case, containing acetate of lead, nitrate
+of silver, alcohol, prussiate of potash, etc., had been left by
+mistake at Cumana. I evaporated some of the water of Mariara, and it
+yielded only a very small residuum, which, digested with nitric acid,
+appeared to contain only a little silica and extractive vegetable
+matter.) we contented ourselves with filling at the spring two
+bottles, which were sent, along with the nourishing milk of the tree
+called palo de vaca, to MM. Fourcroy and Vauquelin, by the way of
+Porto Cabello and the Havannah. This purity in hot waters issuing
+immediately from granite mountains is in Europe, as well as in the New
+Continent, a most curious phenomenon.* (* Warm springs equally pure
+are found issuing from the granites of Portugal, and those of Cantal.
+In Italy, the Pisciarelli of the lake Agnano have a temperature equal
+to 93 degrees. Are these pure waters produced by condensed vapours?)
+How can we explain the origin of the sulphuretted hydrogen? It cannot
+proceed from the decomposition of sulphurets of iron, or pyritic
+strata. Is it owing to sulphurets of calcium, of magnesium, or other
+earthy metalloids, contained in the interior of our planet, under its
+rocky and oxidated crust?
+
+In the ravine of the hot waters of Mariara, amidst little funnels, the
+temperature of which rises from 56 to 59 degrees, two species of
+aquatic plants vegetate; the one is membranaceous, and contains
+bubbles of air; the other has parallel fibres. The first much
+resembles the Ulva labyrinthiformis of Vandelli, which the thermal
+waters of Europe furnish. At the island of Amsterdam, tufts of
+lycopodium and marchantia have been seen in places where the heat of
+the soil was far greater: such is the effect of an habitual stimulus
+on the organs of plants. The waters of Mariara contain no aquatic
+insects. Frogs are found in them, which, being probably chased by
+serpents, have leaped into the funnels, and there perished.
+
+South of the ravine, in the plain extending towards the shore of the
+lake, another sulphureous spring gushes out, less hot and less
+impregnated with gas. The crevice whence this water issues is six
+toises higher than the funnel just described. The thermometer did not
+rise in the crevice above 42 degrees. The water is collected in a
+basin surrounded by large trees; it is nearly circular, from fifteen
+to eighteen feet diameter, and three feet deep. The slaves throw
+themselves into this bath at the end of the day, when covered with
+dust, after having worked in the neighbouring fields of indigo and
+sugar-cane. Though the water of this bath (bano) is habitually from 12
+to 14 degrees hotter than the air, the negroes call it refreshing;
+because in the torrid zone this term is used for whatever restores
+strength, calms the irritation of the nerves, or causes a feeling of
+comfort. We ourselves experienced the salutary effects of the bath.
+Having slung our hammocks on the trees round the basin, we passed a
+whole day in this charming spot, which abounds in plants. We found
+near the bano of Mariara the volador, or gyrocarpus. The winged fruits
+of this large tree turn like a fly-wheel, when they fall from the
+stalk. On shaking the branches of the volador, we saw the air filled
+with its fruits, the simultaneous fall of which presents the most
+singular spectacle. The two membranaceous and striated wings are
+turned so as to meet the air, in falling, at an angle of 45 degrees.
+Fortunately the fruits we gathered were at their maturity. We sent
+some to Europe, and they have germinated in the gardens of Berlin,
+Paris, and Malmaison. The numerous plants of the volador, now seen in
+hot-houses, owe their origin to the only tree of the kind found near
+Mariara. The geographical distribution of the different species of
+gyrocarpus, which Mr. Brown considers as one of the laurineae, is very
+singular. Jacquin saw one species near Carthagena in America.* (* The
+Gyrocarpus Jacquini of Gartner, or Gyrocarpus americanus of
+Willdenouw.) This is the same which we met with again in Mexico, near
+Zumpango, on the road from Acapulco to the capital.* (* The natives of
+Mexico called it quitlacoctli. I saw some of its young leaves with
+three and five lobes; the full-grown leaves are in the form of a
+heart, and always with three lobes. We never met with the volador in
+flower.) Another species, which grows on the mountains of Coromandel,*
+(* This is the Gyrocarpus asiaticus of Willdenouw.) has been described
+by Roxburgh; the third and fourth* grow in the southern hemisphere, on
+the coasts of Australia. (* Gyrocarpus sphenopterus, and G. rugosus.)
+
+After getting out of the bath, while, half-wrapped in a sheet, we were
+drying ourselves in the sun, according to the custom of the country, a
+little man of the mulatto race approached us. After bowing gravely, he
+made us a long speech on the virtues of the waters of Mariara,
+adverting to the numbers of invalids by whom they have been visited
+for some years past, and to the favourable situation of the springs,
+between the two towns Valencia and Caracas. He showed us his house, a
+little hut covered with palm-leaves, situated in an enclosure at a
+small distance, on the bank of a rivulet, communicating with the bath.
+He assured us that we should there find all the conveniences of life;
+nails to suspend our hammocks, ox-leather to stretch over benches made
+of reeds, earthern vases always filled with cool water, and what,
+after the bath, would be most salutary of all, those great lizards
+(iguanas), the flesh of which is known to be a refreshing aliment. We
+judged from his harangue, that this good man took us for invalids, who
+had come to stay near the spring. His counsels and offers of
+hospitality were not altogether disinterested. He styled himself the
+inspector of the waters, and the pulpero* (* Proprietor of a pulperia,
+or little shop where refreshments are sold.) of the place. Accordingly
+all his obliging attentions to us ceased as soon as he heard that we
+had come merely to satisfy our curiosity; or as they express it in the
+Spanish colonies, those lands of idleness, para ver, no mas, to see,
+and nothing more. The waters of Mariara are used with success in
+rheumatic swellings, and affections of the skin. As the waters are but
+very feebly impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen, it is necessary to
+bathe at the spot where the springs issue. Farther on, these same
+waters are employed for the irrigation of fields of indigo. A wealthy
+landed proprietor of Mariara, Don Domingo Tovar, had formed the
+project of erecting a bathing-house, and an establishment which would
+furnish visitors with better resources than lizard's flesh for food,
+and leather stretched on a bench for their repose.
+
+On the 21st of February, in the evening, we set out from the beautiful
+Hacienda de Cura for Guacara and Nueva Valencia. We preferred
+travelling by night, on account of the excessive heat of the day. We
+passed by the hamlet of Punta Zamuro, at the foot of the high
+mountains of Las Viruelas. The road is bordered with large
+zamang-trees, or mimosas, the trunks of which rise to sixty feet high.
+Their branches, nearly horizontal, meet at more than one hundred and
+fifty feet distance. I have nowhere seen a vault of verdure more
+beautiful and luxuriant. The night was gloomy: the Rincon del Diablo
+with its denticulated rocks appeared from time to time at a distance,
+illumined by the burning of the savannahs, or wrapped in ruddy smoke.
+At the spot where the bushes were thickest, our horses were frightened
+by the yell of an animal that seemed to follow us closely. It was a
+large jaguar, which had roamed for three years among these mountains.
+He had constantly escaped the pursuits of the boldest hunters, and had
+carried off horses and mules from the midst of enclosures; but, having
+no want of food, had not yet attacked men. The negro who conducted us
+uttered wild cries, expecting by these means to frighten the tiger;
+but his efforts were ineffectual. The jaguar, like the wolf of Europe,
+follows travellers even when he will not attack them; the wolf in the
+open fields and in unsheltered places, the jaguar skirting the road
+and appearing only at intervals between the bushes.
+
+We passed the day on the 23rd in the house of the Marquis de Toro, at
+the village of Guacara, a very considerable Indian community. An
+avenue of carolineas leads from Guacara to Mocundo. It was the first
+time I had seen in the open air this majestic plant, which forms one
+of the principal ornaments of the extensive conservatories of
+Schonbrunn.* (* Every tree of the Carolinea princeps at Schonbrunn has
+sprung from seeds collected from one single tree of enormous size,
+near Chacao, east of Caracas.) Mocundo is a rich plantation of
+sugar-canes, belonging to the family of Toro. We there find, what is
+so rare in that country, a garden, artificial clumps of trees, and on
+the border of the water, upon a rock of gneiss, a pavilion with a
+mirador, or belvidere. The view is delightful over the western part of
+the lake, the surrounding mountains, and a forest of palm-trees that
+separates Guacara from the city of Nueva Valencia. The fields of
+sugar-cane, from the soft verdure of the young reeds, resemble a vast
+meadow. Everything denotes abundance; but it is at the price of the
+liberty of the cultivators. At Mocundo, with two hundred and thirty
+negroes, seventy-seven tablones, or cane-fields, are cultivated, each
+of which, ten thousand varas square,* (* A tablon, equal to 1849
+square toises, contains nearly an acre and one-fifth: a legal acre has
+1344 square toises, and 1.95 legal acre is equal to one hectare.)
+yields a net profit of two hundred or two hundred and forty piastres
+a-year. The creole cane and the cane of Otaheite* are planted in the
+month of April, the first at four, the second at five feet distance.
+(* In the island of Palma, where in the latitude of 29 degrees the
+sugar-cane is said to be cultivated as high as 140 toises above the
+level of the Atlantic, the Otaheite cane requires more heat than the
+Creole cane.) The cane ripens in fourteen months. It flowers in the
+month of October, if the plant be sufficiently vigorous; but the top
+is cut off before the panicle unfolds. In all the monocotyledonous
+plants (for example, the maguey cultivated at Mexico for extracting
+pulque, the wine-yielding palm-tree, and the sugar-cane), the
+flowering alters the quality of the juices. The preparation of sugar,
+the boiling, and the claying, are very imperfect in Terra Firma,
+because it is made only for home consumption; and for wholesale,
+papelon is preferred to sugar, either refined or raw. This papelon is
+an impure sugar, in the form of little loaves, of a yellow-brown
+colour. It contains a mixture of molasses and mucilaginous matter. The
+poorest man eats papelon, as in Europe he eats cheese. It is believed
+to have nutritive qualities. Fermented with water it yields the
+guarapo, the favourite beverage of the people. In the province of
+Caracas subcarbonate of potash is used, instead of lime, to purify the
+juice of the sugar-cane. The ashes of the bucare, which is the
+Erythrina corallodendrum, are preferred.
+
+The sugar-cane was introduced very late, probably towards the end of
+the sixteenth century, from the West India Islands, into the valleys
+of Aragua. It was known in India, in China, and in all the islands of
+the Pacific, from the most remote antiquity; and it was planted at
+Khorassan, in Persia, as early as the fifth century of our era, in
+order to obtain from it solid sugar.* (* The Indian name for the
+sugar-cane is sharkara. Thence the word sugar.) The Arabs carried this
+reed, so useful to the inhabitants of hot and temperate countries, to
+the shores of the Mediterranean. In 1306, its cultivation was yet
+unknown in Sicily; but was already common in the island of Cyprus, at
+Rhodes, and in the Morea. A hundred years after it enriched Calabria,
+Sicily, and the coasts of Spain. From Sicily the Infante Don Henry
+transported the cane to Madeira: from Madeira it passed to the Canary
+Islands, where it was entirely unknown; for the ferulae of Juba, quae
+expressae liquorem fundunt potui ucundum, are euphorbias (the Tabayba
+dulce), and not, as has been recently asserted,* sugar-canes. (* On
+the origin of cane-sugar, in the Journal de Pharmacie 1816 page 387.
+The Tabayba dulce is, according to Von Buch, the Euphorbia
+balsamifera, the juice of which is neither corrosive nor bitter like
+that of the cardon, or Euphorbia canariensis.) Twelve
+sugar-manufactories (ingenios de azucar) were soon established in the
+island of Great Canary, in that of Palma, and between Adexe, Icod, and
+Guarachico, in the island of Teneriffe. Negroes were employed in this
+cultivation, and their descendants still inhabit the grottos of
+Tiraxana, in the Great Canary. Since the sugar-cane has been
+transplanted to the West Indies, and the New World has given maize to
+the Canaries, the cultivation of the latter has taken the place of the
+cane at Teneriffe and the Great Canary. The cane is now found only in
+the island of Palma, near Argual and Tazacorte,* where it yields
+scarcely one thousand quintals of sugar a year. (* "Notice sur la
+Culture du Sucre dans les Isles Canariennes" by Leopold von Buch.) The
+sugar-cane of the Canaries, which Aiguilon transported to St. Domingo,
+was there cultivated extensively as early as 1513, or during the six
+or seven following years, under the auspices of the monks of St.
+Jerome. Negroes were employed in this cultivation from its
+commencement; and in 1519 representations were made to government, as
+in our own time, that the West India Islands would be ruined and made
+desert, if slaves were not conveyed thither annually from the coast of
+Guinea.
+
+For some years past the culture and preparation of sugar has been much
+improved in Terra Firma; and, as the process of refining is prohibited
+by the laws at Jamaica, they reckon on the fraudulent exportation of
+refined sugar to the English colonies. But the consumption of the
+provinces of Venezuela, in papelon, and in raw sugar employed in
+making chocolate and sweetmeats (dulces) is so enormous, that the
+exportation has been hitherto entirely null. The finest plantations of
+sugar are in the valleys of Aragua and of the Tuy, near Pao de Zarate,
+between La Victoria and San Sebastian, near Guatire, Guarenas, and
+Caurimare. The first canes arrived in the New World from the Canary
+Islands; and even now Canarians, or Islenos, are placed at the head of
+most of the great plantations, and superintend the labours of
+cultivation and refining.
+
+It is this connexion between the Canarians and the inhabitants of
+Venezuela, that has given rise to the introduction of camels into
+those provinces. The Marquis del Toro caused three to be brought from
+Lancerote. The expense of conveyance was very considerable, owing to
+the space which these animals occupy on board merchant-vessels, and
+the great quantity of water they require during a long sea-voyage. A
+camel, bought for thirty piastres, costs between eight and nine
+hundred before it reaches the coast of Caracas. We saw four of these
+animals at Mocundo; three of which had been bred in America. Two
+others had died of the bite of the coral, a venomous serpent very
+common on the banks of the lake. These camels have hitherto been
+employed only in the conveyance of the sugarcanes to the mill. The
+males, stronger than the females, carry from forty to fifty arrobas. A
+wealthy landholder in the province of Varinas, encouraged by the
+example of the Marquis del Toro, has allotted a sum of 15,000 piastres
+for the purpose of bringing fourteen or fifteen camels at once from
+the Canary Islands. It is presumed these beasts of burden may be
+employed in the conveyance of merchandise across the burning plains of
+Casanare, from the Apure and Calabozo, which in the season of drought
+resemble the deserts of Africa. How advantageous it would have been
+had the Conquistadores, from the beginning of the sixteenth century,
+peopled America with camels, as they have peopled it with horned
+cattle, horses, and mules. Wherever there are immense distances to
+cross in uninhabited lands; wherever the construction of canals
+becomes difficult (as in the isthmus of Panama, on the table-land of
+Mexico, and in the deserts that separate the kingdom of Quito from
+Peru, and Peru from Chile), camels would be of the highest importance,
+to facilitate inland commerce. It seems the more surprising, that
+their introduction was not encouraged by the government at the
+beginning of the conquest, as, long after the taking of Grenada,
+camels, for which the Moors had a great predilection, were still very
+common in the south of Spain. A Biscayan, Juan de Reinaga, carried
+some of these animals at his own expense to Peru. Father Acosta saw
+them at the foot of the Andes, about the end of the sixteenth century;
+but little care being taken of them, they scarcely ever bred, and the
+race soon became extinct. In those times of oppression and cruelty,
+which have been described as the era of Spanish glory, the
+commendatories (encomenderos) let out the Indians to travellers like
+beasts of burden. They were assembled by hundreds, either to carry
+merchandise across the Cordilleras, or to follow the armies in their
+expeditions of discovery and pillage. The Indians endured this service
+more patiently, because, owing to the almost total want of domestic
+animals, they had long been constrained to perform it, though in a
+less inhuman manner, under the government of their own chiefs. The
+introduction of camels attempted by Juan de Reinaga spread an alarm
+among the encomenderos, who were, not by law, but in fact, lords of
+the Indian villages. The court listened to the complaints of the
+encomenderos; and in consequence America was deprived of one of the
+means which would have most facilitated inland communication, and the
+exchange of productions. Now, however, there is no reason why the
+introduction of camels should not be attempted as a general measure.
+Some hundreds of these useful animals, spread over the vast surface of
+America, in hot and barren places, would in a few years have a
+powerful influence on the public prosperity. Provinces separated by
+steppes would then appear to be brought nearer to each other; several
+kinds of inland merchandize would diminish in price on the coast; and
+by increasing the number of camels, above all the species called
+hedjin, or the ship of the desert, a new life would be given to the
+industry and commerce of the New World.
+
+On the evening of the 22nd we continued our journey from Mocundo by
+Los Guayos to the city of Nueva Valencia. We passed a little forest of
+palm-trees, which resembled, by their appearance, and their leaves
+spread like a fan, the Chamaerops humilis of the coast of Barbary. The
+trunk, however, rises to twenty-four and sometimes thirty feet high.
+It is probably a new species of the genus corypha; and is called in
+the country palma de sombrero, the footstalks of the leaves being
+employed in weaving hats resembling our straw hats. This grove of
+palm-trees, the withered foliage of which rustles at the least breath
+of air--the camels feeding in the plain--the undulating motion of the
+vapours on a soil scorched by the ardour of the sun, give the
+landscape an African aspect. The aridity of the land augments as the
+traveller approaches the town, after passing the western extremity of
+the lake. It is a clayey soil, which has been levelled and abandoned
+by the waters. The neighbouring hills, called Los Morros de Valencia,
+are composed of white tufa, a very recent limestone formation,
+immediately covering the gneiss. It is again found at Victoria, and on
+several other points along the chain of the coast. The whiteness of
+this tufa, which reflects the rays of the sun, contributes greatly to
+the excessive heat felt in this place. Everything seems smitten with
+sterility; scarcely are a few plants of cacao found on the banks of
+the Rio de Valencia; the rest of the plain is bare, and destitute of
+vegetation. This appearance of sterility is here attributed, as it is
+everywhere in the valleys of Aragua, to the cultivation of indigo;
+which, according to the planters, is, of all plants, that which most
+exhausts (cansa) the ground. The real physical causes of this
+phenomenon would be an interesting inquiry, since, like the effects of
+fallowing land, and of a rotation of crops, it is far from being
+sufficiently understood. I shall only observe in general, that the
+complaints of the increasing sterility of cultivated land become more
+frequent between the tropics, in proportion as they are near the
+period of their first breaking-up. In a region almost destitute of
+herbs, where every plant has a ligneous stem, and tends to raise
+itself as a shrub, the virgin soil remains shaded either by great
+trees, or by bushes; and under this tufted shade it preserves
+everywhere coolness and humidity. However active the vegetation of the
+tropics may appear, the number of roots that penetrate into the earth,
+is not so great in an uncultivated soil; while the plants are nearer
+to each other in lands subjected to cultivation, and covered with
+indigo, sugar-canes, or cassava. The trees and shrubs, loaded with
+branches and leaves, draw a great part of their nourishment from the
+ambient air; and the virgin soil augments its fertility by the
+decomposition of the vegetable substances which progressively
+accumulate. It is not so in the fields covered with indigo, or other
+herbaceous plants; where the rays of the sun penetrate freely into the
+earth, and by the accelerated combustion of the hydrurets of carbon
+and other acidifiable principles, destroy the germs of fecundity.
+These effects strike the imagination of the planters the more
+forcibly, as in lands newly inhabited they compare the fertility of a
+soil which has been abandoned to itself during thousands of years,
+with the produce of ploughed fields. The Spanish colonies on the
+continent, and the great islands of Porto-Rico and Cuba, possess
+remarkable advantages with respect to the produce of agriculture over
+the lesser West India islands. The former, from their extent, the
+variety of their scenery, and their small relative population, still
+bear all the characters of a new soil; while at Barbadoes, Tobago, St.
+Lucia, the Virgin Islands, and the French part of St. Domingo, it may
+be perceived that long cultivation has begun to exhaust the soil. If
+in the valleys of Aragua, instead of abandoning the indigo grounds,
+and leaving them fallow, they were covered during several years, not
+with corn, but with other alimentary plants and forage; if among these
+plants such as belong to different families were preferred, and which
+shade the soil by their large leaves, the amelioration of the fields
+would be gradually accomplished, and they would be restored to a part
+of their former fertility.
+
+The city of Nueva Valencia occupies a considerable extent of ground,
+but its population scarcely amounts to six or seven thousand souls.
+The streets are very broad, the market place, (plaza mayor,) is of
+vast dimensions; and, the houses being low, the disproportion between
+the population of the town, and the space that it occupies, is still
+greater than at Caracas. Many of the whites, (especially the poorest,)
+forsake their houses, and live the greater part of the year in their
+little plantations of indigo and cotton, where they can venture to
+work with their own hands; which, according to the inveterate
+prejudices of that country, would be a disgrace to them in the town.
+
+Nueva Valencia, founded in 1555 under the government of Villacinda, by
+Alonzo Diaz Moreno, is twelve years older than Caracas. Valencia was
+at first only a dependency of Burburata; but this latter town is
+nothing now but a place of embarkation for mules. It is regretted, and
+perhaps justly, that Valencia has not become the capital of the
+country. Its situation in a plain, on the banks of a lake, recalls to
+mind the position of Mexico. When we reflect on the easy communication
+afforded by the valleys of Aragua with the Llanos and the rivers that
+flow into the Orinoco; when we recognize the possibility of opening an
+inland navigation, by the Rio Pao and the Portuguesa, as far as the
+mouths of the Orinoco, the Cassiquiare, and the Amazon, it may be
+conceived that the capital of the vast provinces of Venezuela would
+have been better placed near the fine harbour of Porto Cabello,
+beneath a pure and serene sky, than near the unsheltered road of La
+Guayra, in a temperate but constantly foggy valley. Near the kingdom
+of New Grenada, and situate between the fertile corn-lands of La
+Victoria and Barquesimeto, the city of Valencia ought to have
+prospered; but, notwithstanding these advantages, it has been unable
+to maintain the contest with Caracas.
+
+Only those who have seen the myriads of ants, that infest the
+countries within the torrid zone, can form an idea of the destruction
+and the sinking of the ground occasioned by these insects. They abound
+to such a degree on the site of Valencia, that their excavations
+resemble subterranean canals, which are filled with water in the time
+of the rains, and become very dangerous to the buildings. Here
+recourse has not been had to the extraordinary means employed at the
+beginning of the sixteenth century in the island of St. Domingo, when
+troops of ants ravaged the fine plains of La Vega, and the rich
+possessions of the order of St. Francis. The monks, after having in
+vain burnt the larvae of the ants, and had recourse to fumigations,
+advised the inhabitants to choose by lot a saint, who would act as a
+mediator against the plague of the ants.* (* Un abogado contra los
+harmigos.) The honour of the choice fell on St. Saturnin; and the ants
+disappeared as soon as the first festival of this saint was
+celebrated. Incredulity has made great progress since the time of the
+conquest; and it was only on the back of the Cordilleras that I found
+a small chapel, destined, according to its inscription, for prayers to
+be addressed to Heaven for the destruction of the termites.
+
+Valencia affords some historical remembrances; but these, like
+everything connected with the colonies, have no remote date, and
+recall to mind either civil discords or sanguinary conflicts with the
+savages. Lopez de Aguirre, whose crimes and adventures form some of
+the most dramatic episodes of the history of the conquest, proceeded
+in 1561, from Peru, by the river Amazon to the island of Margareta;
+and thence, by the port of Burburata, into the valleys of Aragua. On
+his entrance into Valencia, which proudly entitles itself the City of
+the King, he proclaimed the independence of country, and the
+deposition of Philip II. The inhabitants withdrew to the islands of
+the lake of Tacarigua, taking with them all the boats from the shore,
+to be more secure in their retreat. In consequence of this stratagem,
+Aguirre could exercise his cruelties only on his own people. From
+Valencia he addressed to the king of Spain, a remarkable letter, in
+which he boasts alternately of his crimes and his piety; at the same
+time giving advice to the king on the government of the colonies, and
+the system of missions. Surrounded by savage Indians, navigating on a
+great sea of fresh water, as he calls the Amazon, he is alarmed at the
+heresies of Martin Luther, and the increasing influence of schismatics
+in Europe.*
+
+(* The following are some remarkable passages in the letter from
+Aguirre to the king of Spain.
+
+"King Philip, native of Spain, son of Charles the Invincible! I, Lopez
+de Aguirre, thy vassal, an old Christian, of poor but noble parents,
+and a native of the town of Onate in Biscay, passed over young to
+Peru, to labour lance in hand. I rendered thee great services in the
+conquest of India. I fought for thy glory, without demanding pay of
+thy officers, as is proved by the books of thy treasury. I firmly
+believe, Christian King and Lord, that, very ungrateful to me and my
+companions, all those who write to thee from this land [America],
+deceive thee much, because thou seest things from too far off. I
+recommend to thee to be more just toward the good vassals whom thou
+hast in this country: for I and mine, weary of the cruelties and
+injustice which thy viceroys, thy governors, and thy judges, exercise
+in thy name, are resolved to obey thee no more. We regard ourselves no
+longer as Spaniards. We wage a cruel war against thee, because we will
+not endure the oppression of thy ministers; who, to give places to
+their nephews and their children, dispose of our lives, our
+reputation, and our fortune. I am lame in the left foot from two shots
+of an arquebuss, which I received in the valley of Coquimbo, fighting
+under the orders of thy marshal, Alonzo de Alvarado, against Francis
+Hernandez Giron, then a rebel, as I am at present, and shall be
+always; for since thy viceroy, the Marquis de Canete, a cowardly,
+ambitious, and effeminate man, has hanged our most valiant warriors, I
+care no more for thy pardon than for the books of Martin Luther. It is
+not well in thee, King of Spain, to be ungrateful toward thy vassals;
+for it was whilst thy father, the emperor Charles, remained quietly in
+Castile, that they procured for thee so many kingdoms and vast
+countries. Remember, King Philip, that thou hast no right to draw
+revenues from these provinces, the conquest of which has been without
+danger to thee, but inasmuch as thou recompensest those who have
+rendered thee such great services. I am certain that few kings go to
+heaven. Therefore we regard ourselves as very happy to be here in the
+Indies, preserving in all their purity the commandments of God, and of
+the Roman Church; and we intend, though sinners during life, to become
+one day martyrs to the glory of God. On going out of the river Amazon,
+we landed in an island called La Margareta. We there received news
+from Spain of the great faction and machination (maquina) of the
+Lutherans. This news alarmed us extremely; we found among us one of
+that faction; his name was Monteverde. I had him cut to pieces, as was
+just: for, believe me, Senor, wherever I am, people live according to
+the law. But the corruption of morals among the monks is so great in
+this land that it is necessary to chastise it severely. There is not
+an ecclesiastic here who does not think himself higher than the
+governor of a province. I beg of thee, great King, not to believe what
+the monks tell thee down yonder in Spain. They are always talking of
+the sacrifices they make, as well as of the hard and bitter life they
+are forced to lead in America: while they occupy the richest lands,
+and the Indians hunt and fish for them every day. If they shed tears
+before thy throne, it is that thou mayest send them hither to govern
+provinces. Dost thou know what sort of life they lead here? Given up
+to luxury, acquiring possessions, selling the sacraments, being at
+once ambitious, violent, and gluttonous; such is the life they lead in
+America. The faith of the Indians suffer by such bad examples. If thou
+dost not change all this, O King of Spain, thy government will not be
+stable.
+
+"What a misfortune that the Emperor, thy father, should have conquered
+Germany at such a price, and spent, on that conquest, the money we
+procured for him in these very Indies! In the year 1559 the Marquis de
+Canete sent to the Amazon, Pedro de Ursua, a Navarrese, or rather a
+Frenchman: we sailed on the largest rivers of Peru till we came to a
+gulf of fresh water. We had already gone three hundred leagues when we
+killed that bad and ambitious captain. We chose a caballero of
+Seville, Fernando de Guzman, for king: and we swore fealty to him, as
+is done to thyself. I was named quarter-master-general: and because I
+did not consent to all he willed, he wanted to kill me. But I killed
+this new king, the captain of his guards, his lieutenant-general, his
+chaplain, a woman, a knight of the order of Rhodes, two ensigns, and
+five or six domestics of the pretended king. I then resolved to punish
+thy ministers and thy auditors (counsellors of the audiencia). I named
+captains and sergeants: these again wanted to kill me, but I had them
+all hanged. In the midst of these adventures we navigated for eleven
+months, till we reached the mouth of the river. We sailed more than
+fifteen hundred leagues. God knows how we got through that great mass
+of water. I advise thee, O great King, never to send Spanish fleets
+into that accursed river. God preserve thee in his holy keeping."
+
+This letter was given by Aguirre to the vicar of the island of
+Margareta, Pedro de Contreras, in order to be transmitted to King
+Philip II. Fray Pedro Simon, Provincial of the Franciscans in New
+Grenada, saw several manuscript copies of it both in America and in
+Spain. It was printed, for the first time, in 1723, in the History of
+the Province of Venezuela, by Oviedo, volume 1 page 206. Complaints no
+less violent, on the conduct of the monks of the 16th century, were
+addressed directly to the pope by the Milanese traveller, Girolamo
+Benzoni.)
+
+Lopez de Aguirre, or as he is still called by the common people, the
+Tyrant, was killed at Barquesimeto, after having been abandoned by his
+own men. At the moment when he fell, he plunged a dagger into the
+bosom of his only daughter, "that she might not have to blush before
+the Spaniards at the name of the daughter of a traitor." The soul of
+the tyrant (such is the belief of the natives) wanders in the
+savannahs, like a flame that flies the approach of men.* (* See volume
+1 chapter 1.4.)
+
+The second historical event connected with the name of Valencia is the
+great incursion made by the Caribs of the Orinoco in 1578 and 1580.
+That cannibal horde went up the banks of the Guarico, crossing the
+plains or llanos. They were happily repulsed by the valour of Garcia
+Gonzales, one of the captains whose names are still most revered in
+those provinces. It is gratifying to recollect, that the descendants
+of those very Caribs now live in the missions as peaceable husbandmen,
+and that no savage nation of Guiana dares to cross the plains which
+separate the region of the forests from that of cultivated land. The
+Cordillera of the coast is intersected by several ravines, very
+uniformly directed from south-east to north-west. This phenomenon is
+general from the Quebrada of Tocume, between Petares and Caracas, as
+far as Porto Cabello. It would seem as if the impulsion had everywhere
+come from the south-east; and this fact is the more striking, as the
+strata of gneiss and mica-slate in the Cordillera of the coast are
+generally directed from the south-west to the north-east. Most of
+these ravines penetrate into the mountains at their southern
+declivity, without crossing them entirely. But there is an opening
+(abra) on the meridian of Nueva Valencia, which leads towards the
+coast, and by which a cooling sea-breeze penetrates every evening into
+the valleys of Aragua. This breeze rises regularly two or three hours
+after sunset.
+
+By this abra, the farm of Barbula, and an eastern branch of the
+ravine, a new road is being constructed from Valencia to Porto
+Cabello. It will be so short, that it will require only four hours to
+reach the port; and the traveller will be able to go and return in the
+same day from the coast to the valleys of Aragua. In order to examine
+this road, we set out on the 26th of February in the evening for the
+farm of Barbula.
+
+On the morning of the 27th we visited the hot springs of La Trinchera,
+three leagues from Valencia. The ravine is very large, and the descent
+almost continual from the banks of the lake to the sea-coast. La
+Trinchera takes its name from some fortifications of earth, thrown up
+in 1677 by the French buccaneers, who sacked the town of Valencia. The
+hot springs (and this is a remarkable geological fact,) do not issue
+on the south side of the mountains, like those of Mariara, Onoto, and
+the Brigantine; but they issue from the chain itself almost at its
+northern declivity. They are much more abundant than any we had till
+then seen, forming a rivulet which, in times of the greatest drought,
+is two feet deep and eighteen wide. The temperature of the water,
+measured with great care, was 90.3 degrees of the centigrade
+thermometer. Next to the springs of Urijino, in Japan, which are
+asserted to be pure water at 100 degrees of temperature, the waters of
+the Trinchera of Porto Cabello appear to be the hottest in the world.
+We breakfasted near the spring; eggs plunged into the water were
+boiled in less than four minutes. These waters, strongly charged with
+sulphuretted hydrogen, gush out from the back of a hill rising one
+hundred and fifty feet above the bottom of the ravine, and tending
+from south-south-east to north-north-west. The rock from which the
+springs gush, is a real coarse-grained granite, resembling that of the
+Rincon del Diablo, in the mountains of Mariara. Wherever the waters
+evaporate in the air, they form sediments and incrustations of
+carbonate of lime; possibly they traverse strata of primitive
+limestone, so common in the mica-slate and gneiss of the coasts of
+Caracas. We were surprised at the luxuriant vegetation that surrounds
+the basin; mimosas with slender pinnate leaves, clusias, and
+fig-trees, have pushed their roots into the bottom of a pool, the
+temperature of which is 85 degrees; and the branches of these trees
+extended over the surface of the water, at two or three inches
+distance. The foliage of the mimosas, though constantly enveloped in
+the hot vapours, displayed the most beautiful verdure. An arum, with a
+woody stem, and with large sagittate leaves, rose in the very middle
+of a pool the temperature of which was 70 degrees. Plants of the same
+species vegetate in other parts of those mountains at the brink of
+torrents, the temperature of which is not 18 degrees. What is still
+more singular, forty feet distant from the point whence the springs
+gush out at a temperature of 90 degrees, other springs are found
+perfectly cold. They all follow for some time a parallel direction;
+and the natives showed us that, by digging a hole between the two
+rivulets, they could procure a bath of any given temperature they
+pleased. It seems remarkable, that in the hottest as well as the
+coldest climates, people display the same predilection for heat. On
+the introduction of Christianity into Iceland, the inhabitants would
+be baptized only in the hot springs of Hecla: and in the torrid zone,
+in the plains, as well as on the Cordilleras, the natives flock from
+all parts to the thermal waters. The sick, who come to La Trinchera to
+use vapour-baths, form a sort of frame-work over the spring with
+branches of trees and very slender reeds. They stretch themselves
+naked on this frame, which appeared to me to possess little strength,
+and to be dangerous of access. The Rio de Aguas Calientes runs towards
+the north-east, and becomes, near the coast, a considerable river,
+swarming with great crocodiles, and contributing, by its inundations,
+to the insalubrity of the shore.
+
+We descended towards Porto Cabello, having constantly the river of hot
+water on our right. The road is extremely picturesque, and the waters
+roll down on the shelves of rock. We might have fancied we were gazing
+on the cascades of the Reuss, that flows down Mount St. Gothard; but
+what a contrast in the vigour and richness of the vegetation! The
+white trunks of the cecropia rise majestically amid bignonias and
+melastomas. They do not disappear till we are within a hundred toises
+above the level of the ocean. A small thorny palm-tree extends also to
+this limit; the slender pinnate leaves of which look as if they had
+been curled toward the edges. This tree is very common in these
+mountains; but not having seen either its fruit or its flowers, we are
+ignorant whether it be the piritu palm-tree of the Caribbees, or the
+Cocos aculeata of Jacquin.
+
+The rock on this road presents a geological phenomenon, the more
+remarkable as the existence of real stratified granite has long been
+disputed. Between La Trinchera and the Hato de Cambury a
+coarse-grained granite appears, which, from the disposition of the
+spangles of mica, collected in small groups, scarcely admits of
+confounding with gneiss, or with rocks of a schistose texture. This
+granite, divided into ledges of two or three feet thick, is directed
+52 degrees north-east, and slopes to the north-west regularly at an
+angle of from 30 or 40 degrees. The feldspar, crystallized in prisms
+with four unequal sides, about an inch long, passes through every
+variety of tint from a flesh-red to yellowish white. The mica, united
+in hexagonal plates, is black, and sometimes green. The quartz
+predominates in the mass; and is generally of a milky white. I
+observed neither hornblende, black schorl, nor rutile titanite, in
+this granite. In some ledges we recognised round masses, of a blackish
+gray, very quartzose, and almost destitute of mica. They are from one
+to two inches diameter; and are found in every zone, in all granite
+mountains. These are not imbedded fragments, as at Greiffenstein in
+Saxony, but aggregations of particles which seem to have been
+subjected to partial attractions. I could not follow the line of
+junction of the gneiss and granitic formations. According to angles
+taken in the valleys of Aragua, the gneiss appears to descend below
+the granite, which must consequently be of a more recent formation.
+The appearance of a stratified granite excited my attention the more,
+because, having had the direction of the mines of Fichtelberg in
+Franconia for several years, I was accustomed to see granites divided
+into ledges of three or four feet thick, but little inclined, and
+forming masses like towers, or old ruins, at the summit of the highest
+mountains.* (* At Ochsenkopf, at Rudolphstein, at Epprechtstein, at
+Luxburg, and at Schneeberg. The dip of the strata of these granites of
+Fichtelberg is generally only from 6 to 10 degrees, rarely (at
+Schneeberg) 18 degrees. According to the dips I observed in the
+neighbouring strata of gneiss and mica-slate, I should think that the
+granite of Fichtelberg is very ancient, and serves as a basis for
+other formations; but the strata of grunstein, and the disseminated
+tin-ore which it contains, may lead us to doubt its great antiquity,
+from the analogy of the granites of Saxony containing tin.)
+
+The heat became stifling as we approached the coast. A reddish vapour
+veiled the horizon. It was near sunset, and the breeze was not yet
+stirring. We rested in the lonely farms known under the names of the
+Hato de Cambury and the house of the Canarian (Casa del Isleno). The
+river of hot water, along the banks of which we passed, became deeper.
+A crocodile, more than nine feet long, lay dead on the strand. We
+wished to examine its teeth, and the inside of its mouth; but having
+been exposed to the sun for several weeks, it exhaled a smell so fetid
+that we were obliged to relinquish our design and remount our horses.
+When we arrived at the level of the sea, the road turned eastward, and
+crossed a barren shore a league and a half broad, resembling that of
+Cumana. We there found some scattered cactuses, a sesuvium, a few
+plants of Coccoloba uvifera, and along the coast some avicennias and
+mangroves. We forded the Guayguaza and the Rio Estevan, which, by
+their frequent overflowing, form great pools of stagnant water. Small
+rocks of meandrites, madrepores, and other corals, either ramified or
+with a rounded surface, rise in this vast plain, and seem to attest
+the recent retreat of the sea. But these masses, which are the
+habitations of polypi, are only fragments imbedded in a breccia with a
+calcareous cement. I say a breccia, because we must not confound the
+fresh and white corallites of this very recent littoral formation,
+with the corallites blended in the mass of transition-rocks,
+grauwacke, and black limestone. We were astonished to find in this
+uninhabited spot a large Parkinsonia aculeata loaded with flowers. Our
+botanical works indicate this tree as peculiar to the New World; but
+during five years we saw it only twice in a wild state, once in the
+plains of the Rio Guayguaza, and once in the llanos of Cumana, thirty
+leagues from the coast, near la Villa del Pao, but there was reason to
+believe that this latter place had once been a conuco, or cultivated
+enclosure. Everywhere else on the continent of America we saw the
+Parkinsonia, like the Plumeria, only in the gardens of the Indians.
+
+At Porto Cabello, as at La Guayra, it is disputed whether the port
+lies east or west of the town, with which the communications are the
+most frequent. The inhabitants believe that Porto Cabello is
+north-north-west of Nueva Valencia; and my observations give a
+longitude of three or four minutes more towards the west.
+
+We were received with the utmost kindness in the house of a French
+physician, M. Juliac, who had studied medicine at Montpelier. His
+small house contained a collection of things the most various, but
+which were all calculated to interest travellers. We found works of
+literature and natural history; notes on meteorology; skins of the
+jaguar and of large aquatic serpents; live animals, monkeys,
+armadilloes, and birds. Our host was principal surgeon to the royal
+hospital of Porto Cabello, and was celebrated in the country for his
+skilful treatment of the yellow fever. During a period of seven years
+he had seen six or eight thousand persons enter the hospitals,
+attacked by this cruel malady. He had observed the ravages that the
+epidemic caused in Admiral Ariztizabal's fleet, in 1793. That fleet
+lost nearly a third of its men; for the sailors were almost all
+unseasoned Europeans, and held unrestrained intercourse with the
+shore. M. Juliac had heretofore treated the sick as was commonly
+practised in Terra Firma, and in the island, by bleeding, aperient
+medicines, and acid drinks. In this treatment no attempt was made to
+raise the vital powers by the action of stimulants, so that, in
+attempting to allay the fever, the languor and debility were
+augmented. In the hospitals, where the sick were crowded, the
+mortality was often thirty-three per cent among the white Creoles; and
+sixty-five in a hundred among the Europeans recently disembarked.
+Since a stimulant treatment, the use of opium, of benzoin, and of
+alcoholic draughts, has been substituted for the old debilitating
+method, the mortality has considerably diminished. It was believed to
+be reduced to twenty in a hundred among Europeans, and ten among
+Creoles;* even when black vomiting, and haemorrhage from the nose,
+ears, and gums, indicated a high degree of exacerbation in the malady.
+(* I have treated in another work of the proportions of mortality in
+the yellow fever. (Nouvelle Espagne volume 2 pages 777, 785, and 867.)
+At Cadiz the average mortality was, in 1800, twenty per cent; at
+Seville, in 1801, it amounted to sixty per cent. At Vera Cruz the
+mortality does not exceed twelve or fifteen per cent, when the sick
+can be properly attended. In the civil hospitals of Paris the number
+of deaths, one year with another, is from fourteen to eighteen per
+cent; but it is asserted that a great number of patients enter the
+hospitals almost dying, or at very advanced time of life.) I relate
+faithfully what was then given as the general result of observation:
+but I think, in these numerical comparisons, it must not be forgotten,
+that, notwithstanding appearances, the epidemics of several successive
+years do not resemble each other; and that, in order to decide on the
+use of fortifying or debilitating remedies, (if indeed this difference
+exist in an absolute sense,) we must distinguish between the various
+periods of the malady.
+
+The climate of Porto Cabello is less ardent than that of La Guayra.
+The breeze there is stronger, more frequent, and more regular. The
+houses do not lean against rocks that absorb the rays of the sun
+during the day, and emit caloric at night, and the air can circulate
+more freely between the coast and the mountains of Ilaria. The causes
+of the insalubrity of the atmosphere must be sought in the shores that
+extend to the east, as far as the eye can reach, towards the Punta de
+Tucasos, near the fine port of Chichiribiche. There are situated the
+salt-works; and there, at the beginning of the rainy season, tertian
+fevers prevail, and easily degenerate into asthenic fevers. It is
+affirmed that the mestizoes who are employed in the salt-works are
+more tawny, and have a yellower skin, when they have suffered several
+successive years from those fevers, which are called the malady of the
+coast. The poor fishermen, who dwell on this shore, are of opinion
+that it is not the inundations of the sea, and the retreat of the
+salt-water, which render the lands covered with mangroves so
+unhealthful;* (* In the West India Islands all the dreadful maladies
+which prevail during the wintry season, have been for a long time
+attributed to the south winds. These winds convey the emanations of
+the mouths of the Orinoco and of the small rivers of Terra Firma
+toward the high latitudes.) they believe that the insalubrity of the
+air is owing to the fresh water, that is, to the overflowings of the
+Guayguaza and Estevan, the swell of which is so great and sudden in
+the months of October and November. The banks of the Rio Estevan have
+been less insalubrious since little plantations of maize and plantains
+have been established; and, by raising and hardening the ground, the
+river has been confined within narrower limits. A plan is formed of
+giving another issue to the Rio San Estevan, and thus to render the
+environs of Porto Cabello more wholesome. A canal is to lead the
+waters toward that part of the coast which is opposite the island of
+Guayguaza.
+
+The salt-works of Porto Cabello somewhat resemble those of the
+peninsula of Araya, near Cumana. The earth, however, which they
+lixivate by collecting the rain-water into small basins, contains less
+salt. It is questioned here, as at Cumana, whether the ground be
+impregnated with saline particles because it has been for ages covered
+at intervals with sea-water evaporated by the heat of the sun, or
+whether the soil be muriatiferous, as in a mine very poor in native
+salt. I had not leisure to examine this plain with the same attention
+as the peninsula of Araya. Besides, does not this problem reduce
+itself to the simple question, whether the salt be owing to new or
+very ancient inundations? The labouring at the salt-works of Porto
+Cabello being extremely unhealthy, the poorest men alone engage in it.
+They collect the salt in little stores, and afterwards sell it to the
+shopkeepers in the town.
+
+During our abode at Porto Cabello, the current on the coast, generally
+directed towards the west,* ran from west to east. This upward current
+(corriente por arriba), is very frequent during two or three months of
+the year, from September to November. It is believed to be owing to
+some north-west winds that have blown between Jamaica and Cape St.
+Antony in the island of Cuba. (* The wrecks of the Spanish ships,
+burnt at the island of Trinidad, at the time of its occupation by the
+English in 1797, were carried by the general or rotary current to
+Punta Brava, near Porto Cabello. This general current toward the east,
+from the coasts of Paria to the isthmus of Panama and the western
+extremity of the island of Cuba, was the subject of a violent dispute
+between Don Diego Columbus, Oviedo, and the pilot Andres, in the
+sixteenth century.)
+
+The military defence of the coasts of Terra Firma rests on six points:
+the castle of San Antonio at Cumana; the Morro of Nueva Barcelona; the
+fortifications of La Guayra, (mounting one hundred and thirty-four
+guns); Porto Cabello; fort San Carlos, (at the mouth of the lake of
+Maracaybo); and Carthagena. Porto Cabello is, next to Carthagena, the
+most important fortified place. The town of Porto Cabello is quite
+modern, and the port is one of the finest in the world. Art has had
+scarcely anything to add to the advantages which the nature of the
+spot presents. A neck of land stretches first towards the north, and
+then towards the west. Its western extremity is opposite to a range of
+islands connected by bridges, and so close together that they might be
+taken for another neck of land. These islands are all composed of a
+calcareous breccia of extremely recent formation, and analagous to
+that on the coast of Cumana, and near the castle of Araya. It is a
+conglomerate, containing fragments of madrepores and other corals
+cemented by a limestone basis and grains of sand. We had already seen
+this conglomerate near the Rio Guayguaza. By a singular disposition of
+the ground the port resembles a basin or a little inland lake, the
+southern extremity of which is filled with little islands covered with
+mangroves. The opening of the port towards the west contributes much
+to the smoothness of the water.* (* It is disputed at Porto Cabello
+whether the port takes its name from the tranquillity of its waters,
+"which would not move a hair (cabello)," or (which is more probable)
+derived from Antonio Cabello, one of the fishermen with whom the
+smugglers of Curacoa had formed a connexion at the period when the
+first hamlet was constructed on this half-desert coast.) One vessel
+only can enter at a time; but the largest ships of the line can anchor
+very near land to take in water. There is no other danger in entering
+the harbour than the reefs of Punta Brava, opposite which a battery of
+eight guns has been erected. Towards the west and south-west we see
+the fort, which is a regular pentagon with five bastions, the battery
+of the reef, and the fortifications that surround the ancient town,
+founded on an island of a trapezoidal form. A bridge and the fortified
+gate of the Staccado join the old to the new town; the latter is
+already larger than the former, though considered only as its suburb.
+The bottom of the basin or lake which forms the harbour of Porto
+Cabello, turns behind this suburb to the south-west. It is a marshy
+ground filled with noisome and stagnant water. The town, which has at
+present nearly nine thousand inhabitants, owes its origin to an
+illicit commerce, attracted to these shores by the proximity of the
+town of Burburata, which was founded in 1549. It is only since the
+administration of the Biscayans, and of the company of Guipuzcoa, that
+Porto Cabello, which was but a hamlet, has been converted into a
+well-fortified town. The vessels of La Guayra, which is less a port
+than a bad open roadstead, come to Porto Cabello to be caulked and
+repaired.
+
+The real defence of the harbour consists in the low batteries on the
+neck of land at Punta Brava, and on the reef; but from ignorance of
+this principle, a new fort, the Mirador of Solano* has been
+constructed at a great expense, on the mountains commanding the suburb
+towards the south. (* The Mirador is situate eastward of the Vigia
+Alta, and south-east of the battery of the salt-works and the
+powder-mill.) More than ten thousand mules are annually exported from
+Porto Cabello. It is curious enough to see these animals embarked;
+they are thrown down with ropes, and then hoisted on board the vessels
+by means of a machine resembling a crane. Ranged in two files, the
+mules with difficulty keep their footing during the rolling and
+pitching of the ship; and in order to frighten and render them more
+docile, a drum is beaten during a great part of the day and night. We
+may guess what quiet a passenger enjoys, who has the courage to embark
+for Jamaica in a schooner laden with mules.
+
+We left Porto Cabello on the first of March, at sunrise. We saw with
+surprise the great number of boats that were laden with fruit to be
+sold at the market. It reminded me of a fine morning at Venice. The
+town presents in general, on the side towards the sea, a cheerful and
+agreeable aspect. Mountains covered with vegetation, and crowned with
+peaks called Las Tetas de Ilaria, which, from their outline would be
+taken for rocks of a trap-formation, form the background of the
+landscape. Near the coast all is bare, white, and strongly illumined,
+while the screen of mountains is clothed with trees of thick foliage
+that project their vast shadows upon the brown and rocky ground. On
+going out of the town we visited an aqueduct that had been just
+finished. It is five thousand varas long, and conveys the waters of
+the Rio Estevan by a trench to the town. This work has cost more than
+thirty thousand piastres; but its waters gush out in every street.
+
+We returned from Porto Cabello to the valleys of Aragua, and stopped
+at the Farm of Barbula, near which, a new road to Valencia is in the
+course of construction. We had heard, several weeks before, of a tree,
+the sap of which is a nourishing milk. It is called the cow-tree; and
+we were assured that the negroes of the farm, who drink plentifully of
+this vegetable milk, consider it a wholesome aliment. All the milky
+juices of plants being acrid, bitter, and more or less poisonous, this
+account appeared to us very extraordinary; but we found by experience
+during our stay at Barbula, that the virtues of this tree had not been
+exaggerated. This fine tree rises like the broad-leaved star-apple.*
+(* Chrysophyllum cainito.) Its oblong and pointed leaves, rough and
+alternate, are marked by lateral ribs, prominent at the lower surface,
+and parallel. Some of them are ten inches long. We did not see the
+flower: the fruit is somewhat fleshy, and contains one and sometimes
+two nuts. When incisions are made in the trunk of this tree, it yields
+abundance of a glutinous milk, tolerably thick, devoid of all
+acridity, and of an agreeable and balmy smell. It was offered to us in
+the shell of a calabash. We drank considerable quantities of it in the
+evening before we went to bed, and very early in the morning, without
+feeling the least injurious effect. The viscosity of this milk alone
+renders it a little disagreeable. The negroes and the free people who
+work in the plantations drink it, dipping into it their bread of maize
+or cassava. The overseer of the farm told us that the negroes grow
+sensibly fatter during the season when the palo de vaca furnishes them
+with most milk. This juice, exposed to the air, presents at its
+surface (perhaps in consequence of the absorption of the atmospheric
+oxygen) membranes of a strongly animalized substance, yellowish,
+stringy, and resembling cheese. These membranes, separated from the
+rest of the more aqueous liquid, are elastic, almost like caoutchouc;
+but they undergo, in time, the same phenomena of putrefaction as
+gelatine. The people call the coagulum that separates by the contact
+of the air, cheese. This coagulum grows sour in the space of five or
+six days, as I observed in the small portions which I carried to Nueva
+Valencia. The milk contained in a stopped phial, had deposited a
+little coagulum; and, far from becoming fetid, it exhaled constantly a
+balsamic odour. The fresh juice mixed with cold water was scarcely
+coagulated at all; but on the contact of nitric acid the separation of
+the viscous membranes took place. We sent two bottles of this milk to
+M. Fourcroy at Paris: in one it was in its natural state, and in the
+other, mixed with a certain quantity of carbonate of soda. The French
+consul residing in the island of St. Thomas, undertook to convey them
+to him.
+
+The extraordinary tree of which we have been speaking appears to be
+peculiar to the Cordillera of the coast, particularly from Barbula to
+the lake of Maracaybo. Some stocks of it exist near the village of San
+Mateo; and, according to M. Bredemeyer, whose travels have so much
+enriched the fine conservatories of Schonbrunn and Vienna, in the
+valley of Caucagua, three days journey east of Caracas. This
+naturalist found, like us, that the vegetable milk of the palo de vaco
+had an agreeable taste and an aromatic smell. At Caucagua, the natives
+call the tree that furnishes this nourishing juice, the milk-tree
+(arbol del leche). They profess to recognize, from the thickness and
+colour of the foliage, the trunks that yield the most juice; as the
+herdsman distinguishes, from external signs, a good milch-cow. No
+botanist has hitherto known the existence of this plant. It seems,
+according to M. Kunth, to belong to the sapota family. Long after my
+return to Europe, I found in the Description of the East Indies by
+Laet, a Dutch traveller, a passage that seems to have some relation to
+the cow-tree. "There exist trees," says Laet,* "in the province of
+Cumana, the sap of which much resembles curdled milk, and affords a
+salubrious nourishment." (* "Inter arbores quae sponte hic passim
+nascuntur, memorantur a scriptoribus Hispanis quaedam quae lacteum
+quemdam liquorem fundunt, qui durus admodum evadit instar gummi, et
+suavem odorem de se fundit; aliae quae liquorem quemdam edunt, instar
+lactis coagulati, qui in cibis ab ipsis usurpatur sine noxa." (Among
+the trees growing here, it is remarked by Spanish writers that there
+are some which pour out a milky juice which soon grows solid, like
+gum, affording a pleasant odour; and also others that give out a
+liquid which coagulates like cheese, and which they eat at meals
+without any ill effects). Descriptio Indiarum Occidentalium, lib. 18.)
+
+Amidst the great number of curious phenomena which I have observed in
+the course of my travels, I confess there are few that have made so
+powerful an impression on me as the aspect of the cow-tree. Whatever
+relates to milk or to corn, inspires an interest which is not merely
+that of the physical knowledge of things, but is connected with
+another order of ideas and sentiments. We can scarcely conceive how
+the human race could exist without farinaceous substances, and without
+that nourishing juice which the breast of the mother contains, and
+which is appropriated to the long feebleness of the infant. The
+amylaceous matter of corn, the object of religious veneration among so
+many nations, ancient and modern, is diffused in the seeds, and
+deposited in the roots of vegetables; milk, which serves as an
+aliment, appears to us exclusively the produce of animal organization.
+Such are the impressions we have received in our earliest infancy:
+such is also the source of that astonishment created by the aspect of
+the tree just described. It is not here the solemn shades of forests,
+the majestic course of rivers, the mountains wrapped in eternal snow,
+that excite our emotion. A few drops of vegetable juice recall to our
+minds all the powerfulness and the fecundity of nature. On the barren
+flank of a rock grows a tree with coriaceous and dry leaves. Its large
+woody roots can scarcely penetrate into the stone. For several months
+of the year not a single shower moistens its foliage. Its branches
+appear dead and dried; but when the trunk is pierced there flows from
+it a sweet and nourishing milk. It is at the rising of the sun that
+this vegetable fountain is most abundant. The negroes and natives are
+then seen hastening from all quarters, furnished with large bowls to
+receive the milk, which grows yellow, and thickens at its surface.
+Some empty their bowls under the tree itself; others carry the juice
+home to their children.
+
+In examining the physical properties of animal and vegetable products,
+science displays them as closely linked together; but it strips them
+of what is marvellous, and perhaps, therefore, of a part of their
+charms. Nothing appears isolated; the chemical principles that were
+believed to be peculiar to animals are found in plants; a common chain
+links together all organic nature.
+
+Long before chemists had recognized small portions of wax in the
+pollen of flowers, the varnish of leaves, and the whitish dust of our
+plums and grapes, the inhabitants of the Andes of Quindiu made tapers
+with the thick layer of wax that covers the trunk of a palm-tree.* (*
+Coroxylon andicola.) It is but a few years since we discovered, in
+Europe, caseum, the basis of cheese, in the emulsion of almonds; yet
+for ages past, in the mountains of the coast of Venezuela, the milk of
+a tree, and the cheese separated from that vegetable milk, have been
+considered as a salutary aliment. How are we to account for this
+singular course in the development of knowledge? How have the
+unlearned inhabitants of one hemisphere become cognizant of a fact
+which, in the other, so long escaped the sagacity of the scientific?
+It is because a small number of elements and principles differently
+combined are spread through several families of plants; it is because
+the genera and species of these natural families are not equally
+distributed in the torrid, the frigid, and the temperate zones; it is
+that tribes, excited by want, and deriving almost all their
+subsistence from the vegetable kingdom, discover nutritive principles,
+farinaceous and alimentary substances, wherever nature has deposited
+them in the sap, the bark, the roots, or the fruits of vegetables.
+That amylaceous fecula which the seeds of the cereal plants furnish in
+all its purity, is found united with an acrid and sometimes even
+poisonous juice, in the roots of the arums, the Tacca pinnatifida, and
+the Jatropha manihot. The savage of America, like the savage of the
+South Sea islands, has learned to dulcify the fecula, by pressing and
+separating it from its juice. In the milk of plants, and in the milky
+emulsions, matter extremely nourishing, albumen, caseum, and sugar,
+are found mixed with caoutchouc and with deleterious and caustic
+principles, such as morphine and hydrocyanic acid.* (* Opium contains
+morphine, caoutchouc, etc.) These mixtures vary not only in the
+different families, but also in the species which belong to the same
+genus. Sometimes it is morphine or the narcotic principle, that
+characterises the vegetable milk, as in some papaverous plants;
+sometimes it is caoutchouc, as in the hevea and the castilloa;
+sometimes albumen and caseum, as in the cow-tree.
+
+The lactescent plants belong chiefly to the three families of the
+euphorbiaceae, the urticeae, and the apocineae.* (* After these three
+great families follow the papaveraceae, the chicoraceae, the
+lobeliaceae, the campanulaceae, the sapoteae, and the cucurbitaceae.
+The hydrocyanic acid is peculiar to the group of rosaceo-amygdalaceae.
+In the monocotyledonous plants there is no milky juice; but the
+perisperm of the palms, which yields such sweet and agreeable milky
+emulsions, contains, no doubt, caseum. Of what nature is the milk of
+mushrooms?) Since, on examining the distribution of vegetable forms
+over the globe, we find that those three families are more numerous in
+species in the low regions of the tropics, we must thence conclude,
+that a very elevated temperature contributes to the elaboration of the
+milky juices, to the formation of caoutchouc, albumen, and caseous
+matter. The sap of the palo de vaca furnishes unquestionably the most
+striking example of a vegetable milk in which the acrid and
+deleterious principle is not united with albumen, caseum, and
+caoutchouc: the genera euphorbia and asclepias, however, though
+generally known for their caustic properties, already present us with
+a few species, the juice of which is sweet and harmless. Such are the
+Tabayba dulce of the Canary Islands, which we have already mentioned,*
+(* Euphorbia balsamifera. The milky juice of the Cactus mamillaris is
+equally sweet.) and the Asclepias lactifera of Ceylon. Burman relates
+that, in the latter country, when cow's milk is wanting, the milk of
+this asclepias is used; and that the ailments commonly prepared with
+animal milk are boiled with its leaves. It may be possible, as
+Decandolle has well observed, that the natives employ only the juice
+that flows from the young plant, at a period when the acrid principle
+is not yet developed. In fact, the first shoots of the apocyneous
+plants are eaten in several countries.
+
+I have endeavoured by these comparisons to bring into consideration,
+under a more general point of view, the milky juices that circulate in
+vegetables; and the milky emulsions that the fruits of the
+amygdalaceous plants and palms yield. I may be permitted to add the
+result of some experiments which I attempted to make on the juice of
+the Carica papaya during my stay in the valleys of Aragua, though I
+was then almost destitute of chemical tests. The juice has been since
+examined by Vauquelin, and this celebrated chemist has very clearly
+recognized the albumen and caseous matter; he compares the milky sap
+to a substance strongly animalized--to the blood of animals; but his
+researches were confined to a fermented juice and a coagulum of a
+fetid smell, formed during the passage from the Mauritius to France.
+He has expressed a wish that some traveller would examine the milk of
+the papaw-tree just as it flows from the stem or the fruit.
+
+The younger the fruit of the carica, the more milk it yields: it is
+even found in the germen scarcely fecundated. In proportion as the
+fruit ripens, the milk becomes less abundant, and more aqueous. Less
+of that animal matter which is coagulable by acids and by the
+absorption of atmospheric oxygen, is found in it. As the whole fruit
+is viscous,* (* The same viscosity is also remarked in the fresh milk
+of the palo de vaca. It is no doubt occasioned by the caoutchouc,
+which is not yet separated, and which forms one mass with the albumen
+and the caseum, as the butter and the caseum in animal milk. The juice
+of a euphorbiaceous plant (Sapium aucuparium), which also yields
+caoutchouc, is so glutinous that it is used to catch parrots.) it
+might be supposed that, as it grows larger, the coagulable matter is
+deposed in the organs, and forms a part of the pulp, or the fleshy
+substance. When nitric acid, diluted with four parts of water, is
+added drop by drop to the milk expressed from a very young fruit, a
+very extraordinary phenomenon appears. At the centre of each drop a
+gelatinous pellicle is formed, divided by greyish streaks. These
+streaks are simply the juice rendered more aqueous, owing to the
+contact of the acid having deprived it of the albumen. At the same
+time, the centre of the pellicles becomes opaque, and of the colour of
+the yolk of an egg; they enlarge as if by the prolongation of
+divergent fibres. The whole liquid assumes at first the appearance of
+an agate with milky clouds; and it seems as if organic membranes were
+forming under the eye of the observer. When the coagulum extends to
+the whole mass, the yellow spots again disappear. By agitation it
+becomes granulous like soft cheese.* (* The substance which falls down
+in grumous and filamentous clots is not pure caoutchouc, but perhaps a
+mixture of this substance with caseum and albumen. Acids precipitate
+the caoutchouc from the milky juice of the euphorbiums, fig-trees, and
+hevea; they precipitate the caseum from the milk of animals. A white
+coagulum was formed in phials closely stopped, containing the milk of
+the hevea, and preserved among our collections, during our journey to
+the Orinoco. It is perhaps the development of a vegetable acid which
+then furnishes oxygen to the albumen. The formation of the coagulum of
+the hevea, or of real caoutchouc, is nevertheless much more rapid in
+contact with the air. The absorption of atmospheric oxygen is not in
+the least necessary to the production of butter which exists already
+formed in the milk of animals; but I believe it cannot be doubted
+that, in the milk of plants, this absorption produces the pellicles of
+caoutchouc, of coagulated albumen, and of caseum, which are
+successively formed in vessels exposed to the open air.) The yellow
+colour reappears on adding a few more drops of nitric acid. The acid
+acts in this instance as the oxygen of the atmosphere at a temperature
+from 27 to 35 degrees; for the white coagulum grows yellow in two or
+three minutes, when exposed to the sun. After a few hours the yellow
+colour turns to brown, no doubt because the carbon is set more free
+progressively as the hydrogen, with which it was combined, is burnt.
+The coagulum formed by the acid becomes viscous, and acquires that
+smell of wax which I have observed in treating muscular flesh and
+mushrooms (morels) with nitric acid. According to the fine experiments
+of Mr. Hatchett, the albumen may be supposed to pass partly to the
+state of gelatine. The coagulum of the papaw-tree, when newly
+prepared, being thrown into water, softens, dissolves in part, and
+gives a yellowish tint to the fluid. The milk, placed in contact with
+water only, forms also membranes. In an instant a tremulous jelly is
+precipitated, resembling starch. This phenomenon is particularly
+striking if the water employed be heated to 40 or 60 degrees. The
+jelly condenses in proportion as more water is poured upon it. It
+preserves a long time its whiteness, only growing yellow by the
+contact of a few drops of nitric acid. Guided by the experiments of
+Fourcroy and Vauquelin on the juice of the hevea, I mixed a solution
+of carbonate of soda with the milk of the papaw. No clot is formed,
+even when pure water is poured on a mixture of the milk with the
+alkaline solution. The membranes appear only when, by adding an acid,
+the soda is neutralized, and the acid is in excess. I made the
+coagulum formed by nitric acid, the juice of lemons, or hot water,
+likewise disappear by mixing it with carbonate of soda. The sap again
+becomes milky and liquid, as in its primitive state; but this
+experiment succeeds only when the coagulum has been recently formed.
+
+On comparing the milky juices of the papaw, the cow-tree, and the
+hevea, there appears a striking analogy between the juices which
+abound in caseous matter, and those in which caoutchouc prevails. All
+the white and newly prepared caoutchouc, as well as the waterproof
+cloaks, manufactured in Spanish America by placing a layer of milk of
+hevea between two pieces of cloth, exhale an animal and nauseating
+smell. This seems to indicate that the caoutchouc, in coagulating,
+carries with it the caseum, which is perhaps only an altered albumen.
+
+The produce of the bread-fruit tree can no more be considered as bread
+than plantains before the state of maturity, or the tuberous and
+amylaceous roots of the cassava, the dioscorea, the Convolvulus
+batatas, and the potato. The milk of the cow-tree contains, on the
+contrary, a caseous matter, like the milk of mammiferous animals.
+Advancing to more general considerations, we may regard, with M.
+Gay-Lussac, the caoutchouc as the oily part--the butter of vegetable
+milk. We find in the milk of plants caseum and caoutchouc; in the milk
+of animals, caseum and butter. The proportions of the two albuminous
+and oily principles differ in the various species of animals and of
+lactescent plants. In these last they are most frequently mixed with
+other substances hurtful as food; but of which the separation might
+perhaps be obtained by chemical processes. A vegetable milk becomes
+nourishing when it is destitute of acrid and narcotic principles; and
+abounds less in caoutchouc than in caseous matter.*
+
+(* The milk of the lactescent agarics has not been separately
+analysed; it contains an acrid principle in the Agaricus piperatus,
+and in other species it is sweet and harmless. The experiments of MM.
+Braconnot, Bouillon-Lagrange, and Vauquelin (Annales de Chimie, volume
+46, volume 51, volume 79, volume 80, volume 85, have pointed out a
+great quantity of albumen in the substance of the Agaricus deliciosus,
+an edible mushroom. It is this albumen contained in their juice which
+renders them so hard when boiled. It has been proved that morels
+(Morchella esculenta) can be converted into sebaceous and adipocerous
+matter, capable of being used in the fabrication of soap. (De
+Candolle, sur les Proprietes medicinales des Plantes.) Saccharine
+matter has also been found in mushrooms by Gunther. It is in the
+family of the fungi, more especially in the clavariae, phalli,
+helvetiae, the merulii, and the small gymnopae which display
+themselves in a few hours after a storm of rain, that organic nature
+produces with most rapidity the greatest variety of chemical
+principles--sugar, albumen, adipocire, acetate of potash, fat,
+ozmazome, the aromatic principles, etc. It would be interesting to
+examine, besides the milk of the lactescent fungi, those species
+which, when cut in pieces, change their colour on the contact of
+atmospheric air.
+
+Though we have referred the palo de vaca to the family of the sapotas,
+we have nevertheless found in it a great resemblance to some plants of
+the urticeous kind, especially to the fig-tree, because of its
+terminal stipulae in the shape of a horn; and to the brosimum, on
+account of the structure of its fruit. M. Kunth would even have
+preferred this last classification; if the description of the fruit,
+made on the spot, and the nature of the milk, which is acrid in the
+urticeae, and sweet in the sapotas, did not seem to confirm our
+conjecture. Bredemeyer saw, like us, the fruit, and not the flower of
+the cow tree. He asserts that he observed [sometimes?] two seeds,
+lying one against the other, as in the alligator pear-tree (Laurus
+persea). Perhaps this botanist had the intention of expressing the
+same conformation of the nucleus that Swartz indicates in the
+description of the brosimum--"nucleus bilobus aut bipartibilis." We
+have mentioned the places where this remarkable tree grows: it will be
+easy for botanical travellers to procure the flower of the palo de
+vaca and to remove the doubts which still remain, of the family to
+which it belongs.)
+
+Whilst the palo de vaca manifests the immense fecundity and the bounty
+of nature in the torrid zone, it also reminds us of the numerous
+causes which favour in those fine climates the careless indolence of
+man. Mungo Park has made known the butter-tree of Bambarra, which M.
+De Candolle suspects to be of the family of sapotas, as well as our
+milk-tree. The plantain, the sago-tree, and the mauritia of the
+Orinoco, are as much bread-trees as the rema of the South Sea. The
+fruits of the crescentia and the lecythis serve as vessels for
+containing food, while the spathes of the palms, and the bark of
+trees, furnish caps and garments without a seam. The knots, or rather
+the interior cells of the trunks of bamboos, supply ladders, and
+facilitate in a thousand ways the construction of a hut, and the
+fabrication of chairs, beds, and other articles of furniture that
+compose the wealth of a savage household. In the midst of this lavish
+vegetation, so varied in its productions, it requires very powerful
+motives to excite man to labour, to rouse him from his lethargy, and
+to unfold his intellectual faculties.
+
+Cacao and cotton are cultivated at Barbula. We there found, what is
+very rare in that country, two large cylindrical machines for
+separating the cotton from its seed; one put in motion by an hydraulic
+wheel, and the other by a wheel turned by mules. The overseer of the
+farm, who had constructed these machines, was a native of Merida. He
+was acquainted with the road that leads from Nueva Valencia, by the
+way of Guanare and Misagual, to Varinas; and thence by the ravine of
+Collejones, to the Paramo de Mucuchies and the mountains of Merida
+covered with eternal snows. The notions he gave us of the time
+requisite for going from Valencia by Varinas to the Sierra Nevada, and
+thence by the port of Torunos, and the Rio Santo Domingo, to San
+Fernando de Apure, were of infinite value to us. It can scarcely be
+imagined in Europe, how difficult it is to obtain accurate information
+in a country where the communications are so rare; and where distances
+are diminished or exaggerated according to the desire that may be felt
+to encourage the traveller, or to deter him from his purpose. I had
+resolved to visit the eastern extremity of the Cordilleras of New
+Grenada, where they lose themselves in the paramos of Timotes and
+Niquitao. I learned at Barbula, that this excursion would retard our
+arrival at the Orinoco thirty-five days. This delay appeared to us so
+much the longer, as the rains were expected to begin sooner than
+usual. We had the hope of examining afterwards a great number of
+mountains covered with perpetual snow, at Quito, Peru, and Mexico; and
+it appeared to me still more prudent to relinquish our project of
+visiting the mountains of Merida, since by so doing we might miss the
+real object of our journey, that of ascertaining by astronomical
+observations the point of communication between the Orinoco, the Rio
+Negro, and the river Amazon. We returned in consequence from Barbula
+to Guacara, to take leave of the family of the Marquis del Toro, and
+pass three days more on the borders of the lake.
+
+It was the carnival season, and all was gaiety. The sports in which
+the people indulge, and which are called carnes tollendas,* assume
+occasionally somewhat of a savage character. (* Or "farewell to
+flesh." The word carnival has the same meaning, these sports being
+always held just before the commencement of Lent.) Some led an ass
+loaded with water, and, where-ever they found a window open, inundated
+the apartment within by means of a pump. Others carried bags filled
+with hairs of picapica;* (* Dolichos pruriens (cowage).) and blew the
+hair, which causes a great irritation of the skin, into the faces of
+those who passed by.
+
+From Guacara we returned to Nueva Valencia. We found there a few
+French emigrants, the only ones we saw during five years passed in the
+Spanish colonies. Notwithstanding the ties of blood which unite the
+royal families of France and Spain, even French priests were not
+permitted to take refuge in that part of the New World, where man with
+such facility finds food and shelter. Beyond the Atlantic, the United
+States of America afford the only asylum to misfortune. A government,
+strong because it is free, confiding because it is just, has nothing
+to fear in giving refuge to the proscribed.
+
+We have endeavoured above to give some notions of the state of the
+cultivation of indigo, cotton, and sugar, in the province of Caracas.
+Before we quit the valley of Aragua and its neighbouring coast, it
+remains for us to speak of the cacao-plantations, which have at all
+times been considered as the principal source of the prosperity of
+those countries. The province of Caracas,* (* The province, not the
+capitania-general, consequently not including the cacao plantations of
+Cumana, the province of Barcelona, of Maracaybo, of Varinas, and of
+Spanish Guiana.) at the end of the eighteenth century, produced
+annually a hundred and fifty thousand fanegas, of which a hundred
+thousand were consumed in Spain, and thirty thousand in the province.
+Estimating a fanega of cacao at only twenty-five piastres for the
+price given at Cadiz, we find that the total value of the exportation
+of cacao, by the six ports of the Capitania General of Caracas,
+amounts to four million eight hundred thousand piastres. So important
+an object of commerce merits a careful discussion; and I flatter
+myself, that, from the great number of materials I have collected on
+all the branches of colonial agriculture, I shall be able to add
+something to the information published by M. Depons, in his valuable
+work on the provinces of Venezuela.
+
+The tree which produces the cacao is not at present found wild in the
+forests of Terra Firma to the north of the Orinoco; we began to find
+it only beyond the cataracts of Ature and Maypure. It abounds
+particularly near the banks of the Ventuari, and on the Upper Orinoco,
+between the Padamo and the Gehette. This scarcity of wild cacao-trees
+in South America, north of the latitude of 6 degrees, is a very
+curious phenomenon of botanical geography, and yet little known. This
+phenomenon appears the more surprising, as, according to the annual
+produce of the harvest, the number of trees in full bearing in the
+cacao-plantations of Caracas, Nueva Barcelona, Venezuela, Varinas, and
+Maracaybo, is estimated at more than sixteen millions. The wild
+cacao-tree has many branches, and is covered with a tufted and dark
+foliage. It bears a very small fruit, like that variety which the
+ancient Mexicans called tlalcacahuatl. Transplanted into the conucos
+of the Indians of Cassiquiare and the Rio Negro, the wild tree
+preserves for several generations that force of vegetable life, which
+makes it bear fruit in the fourth year; while, in the province of
+Caracas, the harvest begins only the sixth, seventh, or eighth year.
+It is later in the inland parts than on the coasts and in the valley
+of Guapo. We met with no tribe on the Orinoco that prepared a beverage
+with the seeds of the cacao-tree. The savages suck the pulp of the
+pod, and throw away the seeds, which are often found in heaps where
+they have passed the night. Though chorote, which is a very weak
+infusion of cacao, is considered on the coast to be a very ancient
+beverage, no historical fact proves that chocolate, or any preparation
+whatever of cacao, was known to the natives of Venezuela before the
+arrival of the Spaniards. It appears to me more probable that the
+cacao-plantations of Caracas were suggested by those of Mexico and
+Guatimala; and that the Spaniards inhabiting Terra Firma learned the
+cultivation of the cacao-tree, sheltered in its youth by the foliage
+of the erythrina and plantain;* (This process of the Mexican
+cultivators, practised on the coast of Caracas, is described in the
+memoirs known under the title of "Relazione di certo Gentiluomo del
+Signor Cortez, Conquistadore del Messico." (Ramusio, tome 2 page
+134).) the fabrication of cakes of chocolatl, and the use of the
+liquid of the same name, in course of their communications with
+Mexico, Guatimala, and Nicaragua.
+
+Down to the sixteenth century travellers differed in opinion
+respecting the chocolatl. Benzoni plainly says that it is a drink
+"fitter for hogs than men."* (* Benzoni, Istoria del Mondo Nuovo, 1572
+page 104.) The Jesuit Acosta asserts, that "the Spaniards who inhabit
+America are fond of chocolate to excess; but that it requires to be
+accustomed to that black beverage not to be disgusted at the mere
+sight of its froth, which swims on it like yeast on a fermented
+liquor." He adds, "the cacao is a prejudice (una supersticion) of the
+Mexicans, as the coca is a prejudice of the Peruvians." These opinions
+remind us of Madame de Sevigne's prediction respecting the use of
+coffee. Fernando Cortez and his page, the gentilhombre del gran
+Conquistador, whose memoirs were published by Ramusio, on the
+contrary, highly praise chocolate, not only as an agreeable drink,
+though prepared cold,* but in particular as a nutritious substance. (*
+Father Gili has very clearly shown, from two passages in Torquemada
+(Monarquia Indiana, lib. 14) that the Mexicans prepared the infusion
+cold, and that the Spaniards introduced the custom of preparing
+chocolate by boiling water with the paste of cacao.) "He who has drunk
+one cup," says the page of Fernando Cortez, "can travel a whole day
+without any other food, especially in very hot climates; for chocolate
+is by its nature cold and refreshing." We shall not subscribe to the
+latter part of this assertion; but we shall soon have occasion, in our
+voyage on the Orinoco, and our excursions towards the summit of the
+Cordilleras, to celebrate the salutary properties of chocolate. It is
+easily conveyed and readily employed: as an aliment it contains a
+large quantity of nutritive and stimulating particles in a small
+compass. It has been said with truth, that in the East, rice, gum, and
+ghee (clarified butter), assist man in crossing the deserts; and so,
+in the New World, chocolate and the flour of maize, have rendered
+accessible to the traveller the table-lands of the Andes, and vast
+uninhabited forests.
+
+The cacao harvest is extremely variable. The tree vegetates with such
+vigour that flowers spring out even from the roots, wherever the earth
+leaves them uncovered. It suffers from the north-east winds, even when
+they lower the temperature only a few degrees. The heavy showers that
+fall irregularly after the rainy season, during the winter months,
+from December to March, are also very hurtful to the cacao-tree. The
+proprietor of a plantation of fifty thousand trees often loses the
+value of more than four or five thousand piastres in cacao in one
+hour. Great humidity is favourable to the tree only when it augments
+progressively, and is for a long time uninterrupted. If, in the season
+of drought, the leaves and the young fruit be wetted by a violent
+shower, the fruit falls from the stem; for it appears that the vessels
+which absorb water break from being rendered turgid. Besides, the
+cacao-harvest is one of the most uncertain, on account of the fatal
+effects of inclement seasons, and the great number of worms, insects,
+birds, and quadrupeds,* (* Parrots, monkeys, agoutis, squirrels, and
+stags.) which devour the pod of the cacao-tree; and this branch of
+agriculture has the disadvantage of obliging the new planter to wait
+eight or ten years for the fruit of his labours, and of yielding after
+all an article of very difficult preservation.
+
+The finest plantations of cacao are found in the province of Caracas,
+along the coast, between Caravalleda and the mouth of the Rio Tocuyo,
+in the valleys of Caucagua, Capaya, Curiepe, and Guapo; and in those
+of Cupira, between cape Conare and cape Unare, near Aroa,
+Barquesimeto, Guigue, and Uritucu. The cacao that grows on the banks
+of the Uritucu, at the entrance of the llanos, in the jurisdiction of
+San Sebastian de las Reyes, is considered to be of the finest quality.
+Next to the cacao of Uritucu comes that of Guigue, of Caucagua, of
+Capaya, and of Cupira. The merchants of Cadiz assign the first rank to
+the cacao of Caracas, immediately after that of Socomusco; and its
+price is generally from thirty to forty per cent higher than that of
+Guayaquil.
+
+It is only since the middle of the seventeenth century, when the
+Dutch, tranquil possessors of the island of Curacoa, awakened, by
+their smuggling, the agricultural industry of the inhabitants of the
+neighbouring coasts, that cacao has become an object of exportation in
+the province of Caracas. We are ignorant of everything that passed in
+those countries before the establishment of the Biscay Company of
+Guipuzcoa, in 1728. No precise statistical data have reached us: we
+only know that the exportation of cacao from Caracas scarcely
+amounted, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, to thirty
+thousand fanegas a-year. From 1730 to 1748, the company sent to Spain
+eight hundred and fifty-eight thousand nine hundred and seventy-eight
+fanegas, which make, on an average, forty-seven thousand seven hundred
+fanegas a-year; the price of the fanega fell, in 1732, to forty-five
+piastres, when it had before kept at eighty piastres. In 1763 the
+cultivation had so much augmented, that the exportation rose to eighty
+thousand six hundred and fifty-nine fanegas.
+
+In an official document, taken from the papers of the minister of
+finance, the annual produce (la cosecha) of the province of Caracas is
+estimated at a hundred and thirty-five thousand fanegas of cacao;
+thirty-three thousand of which are for home consumption, ten thousand
+for other Spanish colonies, seventy-seven thousand for the
+mother-country, fifteen thousand for the illicit commerce with the
+French, English, Dutch, and Danish colonies. From 1789 to 1793, the
+importation of cacao from Caracas into Spain was, on an average,
+seventy-seven thousand seven hundred and nineteen fanegas a-year, of
+which sixty-five thousand seven hundred and sixty-six were consumed in
+the country, and eleven thousand nine hundred and fifty-three exported
+to France, Italy, and Germany.
+
+The late wars have had much more fatal effects on the cacao trade of
+Caracas than on that of Guayaquil. On account of the increase of
+price, less cacao of the first quality has been consumed in Europe.
+Instead of mixing, as was done formerly for common chocolate, one
+quarter of the cacao of Caracas, with three-quarters of that of
+Guayaquil, the latter has been employed pure in Spain. We must here
+remark, that a great deal of cacao of an inferior quality, such as
+that of Maranon, the Rio Negro, Honduras, and the island of St. Lucia,
+bears the name, in commerce, of Guayaquil cacao. The exportation from
+that port amounts only to sixty thousand fanegas; consequently it is
+two-thirds less than that of the ports of the Capitania-General of
+Caracas.
+
+Though the plantations of cacao have augmented in the provinces of
+Cumana, Barcelona, and Maracaybo, in proportion as they have
+diminished in the province of Caracas, it is still believed that, in
+general, this ancient branch of agricultural industry gradually
+declines. In many parts coffee and cotton-trees progressively take
+place of the cacao, of which the lingering harvests weary the patience
+of the cultivator. It is also asserted, that the new plantations of
+cacao are less productive than the old; the trees do not acquire the
+same vigour, and yield later and less abundant fruit. The soil is
+still said to be exhausted; but probably it is rather the atmosphere
+that is changed by the progress of clearing and cultivation. The air
+that reposes on a virgin soil covered with forests is loaded with
+humidity and those gaseous mixtures that serve for the nutriment of
+plants, and arise from the decomposition of organic substances. When a
+country has been long subjected to cultivation, it is not the
+proportions between the azote and oxygen that vary. The constituent
+bases of the atmosphere remain unaltered; but it no longer contains,
+in a state of suspension, those binary and ternary mixtures of carbon,
+hydrogen, and nitrogen, which a virgin soil exhales, and which are
+regarded as a source of fecundity. The air, purer and less charged
+with miasmata and heterogeneous emanations, becomes at the same time
+drier. The elasticity of the vapours undergoes a sensible diminution.
+On land long cleared, and consequently little favourable to the
+cultivation of the cacao-tree (as, for instance, in the West India
+Islands), the fruit is almost as small as that of the wild cacao-tree.
+It is on the banks of the Upper Orinoco, after having crossed the
+Llanos, that we find the true country of the cacao-tree; thick
+forests, in which, on a virgin soil, and surrounded by an atmosphere
+continually humid, the trees furnish, from the fourth year, abundant
+crops. Wherever the soil is not exhausted, the fruit has become by
+cultivation larger and bitter, but also later.
+
+On seeing the produce of cacao gradually diminish in Terra Firma, it
+may be inquired, whether the consumption will diminish in the same
+proportion in Spain, Italy, and the rest of Europe; or whether it be
+not probable, that by the destruction of the cacao plantations, the
+price will augment sufficiently to rouse anew the industry of the
+cultivator. This latter opinion is generally admitted by those who
+deplore, at Caracas, the diminution of so ancient and profitable a
+branch of commerce. In proportion as civilization extends towards the
+humid forests of the interior, the banks of the Orinoco and the
+Amazon, or towards the valleys that furrow the eastern declivity of
+the Andes, the new planters will find lands and an atmosphere equally
+favourable to the culture of the cacao-tree.
+
+The Spaniards, in general, dislike a mixture of vanilla with the
+cacao, as irritating the nervous system; the fruit, therefore, of that
+orchideous plant is entirely neglected in the province of Caracas,
+though abundant crops of it might be gathered on the moist and
+feverish coast between Porto Cabello and Ocumare; especially at
+Turiamo, where the fruits of the Epidendrum vanilla attain the length
+of eleven or twelve inches. The English and the Anglo-Americans often
+seek to make purchases of vanilla at the port of La Guayra, but the
+merchants procure with difficulty a very small quantity. In the
+valleys that descend from the chain of the coast towards the Caribbean
+Sea, in the province of Truxillo, as well as in the Missions of
+Guiana, near the cataracts of the Orinoco, a great quantity of vanilla
+might be collected; the produce of which would be still more abundant,
+if, according to the practice of the Mexicans, the plant were
+disengaged, from time to time, from the creeping plants by which it is
+entwined and stifled.
+
+The hot and fertile valleys of the Cordillera of the coast of
+Venezuela occupy a tract of land which, on the west, towards the lake
+of Maracaybo, displays a remarkable variety of scenery. I shall
+exhibit in one view, to close this chapter, the facts I have been able
+to collect respecting the quality of the soil and the metallic riches
+of the districts of Aroa, of Barquesimeto, and of Carora.
+
+From the Sierra Nevada of Merida, and the paramos of Niquitao, Bocono,
+and Las Rosas,* (Many travellers, who were monks, have asserted that
+the little Paramo de Las Rosas, the height of which appears to be more
+than 1,600 toises, is covered with rosemary, and the red and white
+roses of Europe grow wild there. These roses are gathered to decorate
+the altars in the neighbouring villages on the festivals of the
+church. By what accident has our Rosa centifolia become wild in this
+country, while we nowhere found it in the Andes of Quito and Peru? Can
+it really be the rose-tree of our garden?) which contain the valuable
+bark-tree, the eastern Cordillera of New Granada* (* The bark exported
+from the port of Maracaybo does not come from the territory of
+Venezuela, but from the mountains of Pamplona in New Grenada, being
+brought down the Rio de San Faustino, that flows into the lake of
+Maracaybo. (Pombo, Noticias sobre las Quinas, 1814 page 65.) Some is
+collected near Merida, in the ravine of Viscucucuy.) decreases in
+height so rapidly, that, between the ninth and tenth degrees of
+latitude, it forms only a chain of little mountains, which, stretching
+to the north-east by the Altar and Torito, separates the rivers that
+join the Apure and the Orinoco from those numerous rivers that flow
+either into the Caribbean Sea or the lake of Maracaybo. On this
+dividing ridge are built the towns of Nirgua, San Felipe el Fuerte,
+Barquesimeto, and Tocuyo. The first three are in a very hot climate;
+but Tocuyo enjoys great coolness, and we heard with surprise, that,
+beneath so fine a sky, the inhabitants have a strong propensity to
+suicide. The ground rises towards the south; for Truxillo, the lake of
+Urao, from which carbonate of soda is extracted, and La Grita, all to
+the east of the Cordillera, though no farther distant, are four or
+five hundred toises high.
+
+On examining the law which the primitive strata of the Cordillera of
+the coast follow in their dip, we believe we recognize one of the
+causes of the extreme humidity of the land bounded by this Cordillera
+and the ocean. The dip of the strata is most frequently to the
+north-west; so that the waters flow in that direction on the ledges of
+rock; and form, as we have stated above, that multitude of torrents
+and rivers, the inundations of which become so fatal to the health of
+the inhabitants, from cape Codera as far as the lake of Maracaybo.
+
+Among the rivers which descend north-east toward the coast of Porto
+Cabello, and La Punta de Hicacos, the most remarkable are those of
+Tocuyo, Aroa, and Yaracuy. Were it not for the miasmata which infect
+the atmosphere, the valleys of Aroa and of Yaracuy would perhaps be
+more populous than those of Aragua. Navigable rivers would even give
+the former the advantage of facilitating the exportation of their own
+crops of sugar and cacao, and that of the productions of the
+neighbouring lands; as the wheat of Quibor, the cattle of Monai, and
+the copper of Aroa. The mines from which this copper is extracted, are
+in a lateral valley, opening into that of Aroa; and which is less hot,
+and less unhealthy, than the ravines nearer the sea. In the latter the
+Indians have their gold-washings, and the soil conceals rich
+copper-ores, which no one has yet attempted to extract. The ancient
+mines of Aroa, after having been long neglected, have been wrought
+anew by the care of Don Antonio Henriquez, whom we met at San Fernando
+on the borders of the Apure. The total produce of metallic copper is
+twelve or fifteen hundred quintals a year. This copper, known at Cadiz
+by the name of Caracas copper, is of excellent quality. It is even
+preferred to that of Sweden, and of Coquimbo in Chile. Part of the
+copper of Aroa is employed for making bells, which are cast on the
+spot. Some ores of silver have been recently discovered between Aroa
+and Nirgua, near Guanita, in the mountain of San Pablo. Grains of gold
+are found in all the mountainous lands between the Rio Yaracuy, the
+town of San Felipe, Nirgua, and Barquesimeto; particularly in the Rio
+de Santa Cruz, in which the Indian gold-gatherers have sometimes found
+lumps of the value of four or five piastres. Do the neighbouring rocks
+of mica-slate and gneiss contain veins? or is the gold disseminated
+here, as in the granites of Guadarama in Spain, and of the Fichtelberg
+in Franconia, throughout the whole mass of the rock? Possibly the
+waters, in filtering through it, bring together the disseminated
+grains of gold; in which case every attempt to work the rock would be
+useless. In the Savana de la Miel, near the town of Barquesimeto, a
+shaft has been sunk in a black shining slate resembling ampelite. The
+minerals extracted from this shaft, which were sent to me at Caracas,
+were quartz, non-auriferous pyrites, and carbonated lead, crystallized
+in needles of a silky lustre.
+
+In the early times of the conquest the working of the mines of Nirgua
+and of Buria* was begun, notwithstanding the incursions of the warlike
+nation of the Giraharas. (* The valley of Buria, and the little river
+of the same name, communicate with the valley of the Rio Coxede, or
+the Rio de Barquesimeto.) In this very district the accumulation of
+negro slaves in 1553 gave rise to an event bearing some analogy to the
+insurrection in St. Domingo. A negro slave excited an insurrection
+among the miners of the Real de San Felipe de Buria. He retired into
+the woods, and founded, with two hundred of his companions, a town,
+where he was proclaimed king. Miguel, this new king, was a friend to
+pomp and parade. He caused his wife Guiomar, to assume the title of
+queen; and, according to Oviedo, he appointed ministers and
+counsellors of state, officers of the royal household, and even a
+negro bishop. He soon after ventured to attack the neighbouring town
+of Nueva Segovia de Barquesimeto; but, being repulsed by Diego de
+Losada, he perished in the conflict. This African monarchy was
+succeeded at Nirgua by a republic of Zamboes, the descendants of
+negroes and Indians. The whole municipality (cabildo) is composed of
+men of colour to whom the king of Spain has given the title of "his
+faithful and loyal subjects, the Zamboes of Nirgua." Few families of
+Whites will inhabit a country where the system of government is so
+adverse to their pretensions; and the little town is called in
+derision La republica de Zambos y Mulatos.
+
+If the hot valleys of Aroa, of Yaracuy, and of the Rio Tocuyo,
+celebrated for their excellent timber, be rendered feverish by
+luxuriance of vegetation, and extreme atmospheric humidity, it is
+different in the savannahs of Monai and Carora. These Llanos are
+separated by the mountainous tract of Tocuyo and Nirgua from the great
+plains of La Portuguesa and Calabozo. It is very extraordinary to see
+barren savannahs loaded with miasmata. No marshy ground is found
+there, but several phenomena indicate a disengagement of hydrogen.* (*
+What is that luminous phenomenon known under the name of the Lantern
+(farol) of Maracaybo, which is perceived every night toward the
+seaside as well as in the inland parts, at Merida for example, where
+M. Palacios observed it during two years? The distance, greater than
+40 leagues, at which the light is observed, has led to the supposition
+that it might be owing to the effects of a thunderstorm, or of
+electrical explosions which might daily take place in a pass in the
+mountains. It is asserted that, on approaching the farol, the rolling
+of thunder is heard. Others vaguely allege that it is an air-volcano,
+and that asphaltic soils, like those of Mena, cause these inflammable
+exhalations which are so constant in their appearance. The phenomenon
+is observed on a mountainous and uninhabited spot, on the borders of
+the Rio Catatumbo, near the junction with the Rio Sulia. The situation
+of the farol is such that, being nearly in the meridian of the opening
+(boca) of the lake of Maracaybo, navigators are guided by it as by a
+lighthouse.) When travellers, who are not acquainted with natural
+inflammable gases, are shown the Cueva del Serrito de Monai, the
+people of the country love to frighten them by setting fire to the
+gaseous combination which is constantly accumulated in the upper part
+of the cavern. May we attribute the insalubrity of the atmosphere to
+the same causes as those which operate in the plains between Tivoli
+and Rome, namely, disengagements of sulphuretted hydrogen?* (* Don
+Carlos del Pozo has discovered in this district, at the bottom of the
+Quebrada de Moroturo, a stratum of clayey earth, black, strongly
+soiling the fingers, emitting a powerful smell of sulphur, and
+inflaming spontaneously when slightly moistened and exposed for a long
+time to the rays of the tropical sun. The detonation of this muddy
+substance is very violent.) Possibly, also, the mountainous lands,
+near the llanos of Monai, may have a baneful influence on the
+surrounding plains. The south-easterly winds may convey to them the
+putrid exhalations that rise from the ravine of Villegas, and from La
+Sienega de Cabra, between Carora and Carache. I am desirous of
+collecting every circumstance having a relation to the salubrity of
+the air; for, in a matter so obscure, it is only by the comparison of
+a great number of phenomena, that we can hope to discover the truth.
+
+The barren yet feverish savannahs, extending from Barquesimeto to the
+eastern shore of the lake of Maracaybo, are partly covered with
+cactus; but the good silvester-cochineal, known by the vague name of
+grana de Carora, comes from a more temperate region, between Carora
+and Truxillo, and particularly from the valley of the Rio Mucuju,* to
+the east of Merida. (* This little river descends from the Paramo de
+los Conejos, and flows into the Rio Albarregas.) The inhabitants
+altogether neglect this production, so much sought for in commerce.
+
+
+CHAPTER 2.17.
+
+MOUNTAINS WHICH SEPARATE THE VALLEYS OF ARAGUA FROM THE LLANOS OF
+CARACAS.
+VILLA DE CURA.
+PARAPARA.
+LLANOS OR STEPPES.
+CALABOZO.
+
+The chain of mountains, bordering the lake of Tacarigua towards the
+south, forms in some sort the northern shore of the great basin of the
+Llanos or savannahs of Caracas. To descend from the valleys of Aragua
+into these savannahs, it is necessary to cross the mountains of Guigue
+and of Tucutunemo. From a peopled country embellished by cultivation,
+we plunge into a vast solitude. Accustomed to the aspect of rocks, and
+to the shade of valleys, the traveller beholds with astonishment these
+savannahs without trees, these immense plains, which seem to ascend to
+the horizon.
+
+Before I trace the scenery of the Llanos, or of the region of
+pasturage, I will briefly describe the road we took from Nueva
+Valencia, by Villa de Cura and San Juan, to the little village of
+Ortiz, at the entrance of the steppes. We left the valleys of Aragua
+on the 6th of March before sunrise. We passed over a plain richly
+cultivated, keeping along the south-west side of the lake of Valencia,
+and crossing the ground left uncovered by the waters of the lake. We
+were never weary of admiring the fertility of the soil, covered with
+calabashes, water-melons, and plantains. The rising of the sun was
+announced by the distant noise of the howling monkeys. Approaching a
+group of trees, which rise in the midst of the plain, between those
+parts which were anciently the islets of Don Pedro and La Negra, we
+saw numerous bands of araguatos moving as in procession and very
+slowly, from one tree to another. A male was followed by a great
+number of females; several of the latter carrying their young on their
+shoulders. The howling monkeys, which live in society in different
+parts of America, everywhere resemble each other in their manners,
+though the species are not always the same. The uniformity with which
+the araguatos* (* Simia ursina.) perform their movements is extremely
+striking. Whenever the branches of neighbouring trees do not touch
+each other, the male who leads the party suspends himself by the
+callous and prehensile part of his tail; and, letting fall the rest of
+his body, swings himself till in one of his oscillations he reaches
+the neighbouring branch. The whole file performs the same movements on
+the same spot. It is almost superfluous to add how dubious is the
+assertion of Ulloa, and so many otherwise well-informed travellers,
+according to whom, the marimondos,* (* Simia belzebuth.) the
+araguatos, and other monkeys with a prehensile tail, form a sort of
+chain, in order to reach the opposite side of a river.* (* Ulloa has
+not hesitated to represent in an engraving this extraordinary feat of
+the monkeys with a prehensile tail.--See Viage a la America
+Meridional, Madrid 1748.) We had opportunities, during five years, of
+observing thousands of these animals; and for this very reason we
+place no confidence in statements possibly invented by the Europeans
+themselves, though repeated by the Indians of the Missions, as if they
+had been transmitted to them by their fathers. Man, the most remote
+from civilization, enjoys the astonishment he excites in recounting
+the marvels of his country. He says he has seen what he imagines may
+have been seen by others. Every savage is a hunter, and the stories of
+hunters borrow from the imagination in proportion as the animals, of
+which they boast the artifices, are endowed with a high degree of
+intelligence. Hence arise the fictions of which foxes, monkeys, crows,
+and the condor of the Andes, have been the subjects in both
+hemispheres.
+
+The araguatos are accused of sometimes abandoning their young, that
+they may be lighter for flight when pursued by the Indian hunters. It
+is said that mothers have been seen removing their young from their
+shoulders, and throwing them down to the foot of the tree. I am
+inclined to believe that a movement merely accidental has been
+mistaken for one premeditated. The Indians have a dislike and a
+predilection for certain races of monkeys; they love the viuditas, the
+titis, and generally all the little sagoins; while the araguatos, on
+account of their mournful aspect, and their uniform howling, are at
+once detested and abused. In reflecting on the causes that may
+facilitate the propagation of sound in the air during the night, I
+thought it important to determine with precision the distance at
+which, especially in damp and stormy weather, the howling of a band of
+araguatos is heard. I believe I obtained proof of its being
+distinguished at eight hundred toises distance. The monkeys which are
+furnished with four hands cannot make excursions in the Llanos; and it
+is easy, amidst vast plains covered with grass, to recognize a
+solitary group of trees, whence the noise proceeds, and which is
+inhabited by howling monkeys. Now, by approaching or withdrawing from
+this group of trees, the maximum of the distance may be measured, at
+which the howling is heard. These distances appeared to me sometimes
+one-third greater during the night, especially when the weather was
+cloudy, very hot, and humid.
+
+The Indians pretend that when the araguatos fill the forests with
+their howling, there is always one that chaunts as leader of the
+chorus. The observation is pretty accurate. During a long interval one
+solitary and strong voice is generally distinguished, till its place
+is taken by another voice of a different pitch. We may observe from
+time to time the same instinct of imitation among frogs, and almost
+all animals which live together and exert their voices in union. The
+Missionaries further assert, that, when a female among the araguatos
+is on the point of bringing forth, the choir suspends its howlings
+till the moment of the birth of the young. I could not myself judge of
+the accuracy of this assertion; but I do not believe it to be entirely
+unfounded. I have observed that, when an extraordinary incident, the
+moans for instance of a wounded araguato, fixed the attention of the
+band, the howlings were for some minutes suspended. Our guides assured
+us gravely, that, to cure an asthma, it is sufficient to drink out of
+the bony drum of the hyoidal bone of the araguato. This animal having
+so extraordinary a volume of voice, it is supposed that its larynx
+must necessarily impart to the water poured into it the virtue of
+curing affections of the lungs. Such is the science of the vulgar,
+which sometimes resembles that of the ancients.
+
+We passed the night at the village of Guigue, the latitude of which I
+found by observations of Canopus to be 10 degrees 4 minutes 11
+seconds. The village, surrounded with the richest cultivation, is only
+a thousand toises distant from the lake of Tacarigua. We lodged with
+an old sergeant, a native of Murcia, a man of a very original
+character. To prove to us that he had studied among the Jesuits, he
+recited the history of the creation of the world in Latin. He knew the
+names of Augustus, Tiberius, and Diocletian; and while enjoying the
+agreeable coolness of the nights in an enclosure planted with bananas,
+he employed himself in reading all that related to the courts of the
+Roman emperors. He inquired of us with earnestness for a remedy for
+the gout, from which he suffered severely. "I know," said he, "a Zambo
+of Valencia, a famous curioso, who could cure me; but the Zambo would
+expect to be treated with attentions which I cannot pay to a man of
+his colour, and I prefer remaining as I am."
+
+On leaving Guigue we began to ascend the chain of mountains, extending
+on the south of the lake towards Guacimo and La Palma. From the top of
+a table-land, at three hundred and twenty toises of elevation, we saw
+for the last time the valleys of Aragua. The gneiss appeared
+uncovered, presenting the same direction of strata, and the same dip
+towards the north-west. Veins of quartz, that traverse the gneiss, are
+auriferous; and hence the neighbouring ravine bears the name of
+Quebrada del Oro. We heard with surprise at every step the name of
+"ravine of gold," in a country where only one single mine of copper is
+wrought. We travelled five leagues to the village of Maria Magdalena,
+and two leagues more to the Villa de Cura. It was Sunday, and at the
+village of Maria Magdalena the inhabitants were assembled before the
+church. They wanted to force our muleteers to stop and hear mass. We
+resolved to remain; but, after a long altercation, the muleteers
+pursued their way. I may observe, that this is the only dispute in
+which we became engaged from such a cause. Very erroneous ideas are
+formed in Europe of the intolerance, and even of the religious fervour
+of the Spanish colonists.
+
+San Luis de Cura, or, as it is commonly called, the Villa de Cura,
+lies in a very barren valley, running north-west and south-east, and
+elevated, according to my barometrical observations, two hundred and
+sixty-six toises above the level of the ocean. The country, with the
+exception of some fruit-trees, is almost destitute of vegetation. The
+dryness of the plateau is the greater, because (and this circumstance
+is rather extraordinary in a country of primitive rocks) several
+rivers lose themselves in crevices in the ground. The Rio de Las
+Minas, north of the Villa de Cura, is lost in a rock, again appears,
+and then is ingulphed anew without reaching the lake of Valencia,
+towards which it flows. Cura resembles a village more than a town. We
+lodged with a family who had excited the resentment of government
+during the revolution at Caracas in 1797. One of the sons, after
+having languished in a dungeon, had been sent to the Havannah, to be
+imprisoned in a strong fortress. With what joy his mother heard that
+after our return from the Orinoco, we should visit the Havannah! She
+entrusted me with five piastres, "the whole fruit of her savings." I
+earnestly wished to return them to her; but I feared to wound her
+delicacy, and give pain to a mother, who felt a pleasure in the
+privations she imposed on herself.
+
+All the society of the town was assembled in the evening, to admire in
+a magic lantern views of the great capitals of Europe. We were shown
+the palace of the Tuileries, and the statue of the Elector at Berlin.
+
+An apothecary who had been ruined by an unhappy propensity for working
+mines, accompanied us in our excursion to the Serro de Chacao, very
+rich in auriferous pyrites. We continued to descend the southern
+declivity of the Cordillera of the coast, in which the plains of
+Aragua form a longitudinal valley. We passed a part of the night of
+the 11th of March at the village of San Juan, remarkable for its
+thermal waters, and the singular form of two neighbouring mountains,
+called the Morros of San Juan. They form slender peaks, which rise
+from a wall of rocks with a very extensive base. The wall is
+perpendicular, and resembles the Devil's Wall, which surrounds a part
+of the group of mountains in the Hartz.* (* Die Teufels Mauer near
+Wernigerode in Germany.) These peaks, when seen from afar in the
+Llanos, strike the imagination of the inhabitants of the plain, who
+are not accustomed to the least unequal ground, and the height of the
+peaks is singularly exaggerated by them. They were described to us as
+being in the middle of the steppes (which they in reality bound on the
+north) far beyond a range of hills called La Galera. Judging from
+angles taken at the distance of two miles, these hills are scarcely
+more than a hundred and fifty-six toises higher than the village of
+San Juan, and three hundred and fifty toises above the level of the
+Llanos. The thermal waters glide out at the foot of these hills, which
+are formed of transition-limestone. The waters are impregnated with
+sulphuretted hydrogen, like those of Mariara, and form a little pool
+or lagoon, in which the thermometer rose only to 31.3 degrees. I
+found, on the night of the 9th of March, by very satisfactory
+observations of the stars, the latitude of Villa de Cura to be 10
+degrees 2 minutes 47 seconds.
+
+The Villa de Cura is celebrated in the country for the miracles of an
+image of the Virgin, known by the name of Nuestra Senora de los
+Valencianos. This image was found in a ravine by an Indian, about the
+middle of the eighteenth century, when it became the object of a
+contest between the towns of Cura and San Sebastian de los Reyes. The
+vicars of the latter town asserting that the Virgin had made her first
+appearance on the territory of their parish, the Bishop of Caracas, in
+order to put an end to the scandal of this long dispute, caused the
+image to be placed in the archives of his bishopric, and kept it
+thirty years under seal. It was not restored to the inhabitants of
+Cura till 1802.
+
+After having bathed in the cool and limpid water of the little river
+of San Juan, the bottom of which is of basaltic grunstein, we
+continued our journey at two in the morning, by Ortiz and Parapara, to
+the Mesa de Paja. The road to the Llanos being at that time infested
+with robbers, several travellers joined us so as to form a sort of
+caravan. We proceeded down hill during six or seven hours; and we
+skirted the Cerro de Flores, near which the road turns off, leading to
+the great village of San Jose de Tisnao. We passed the farms of Luque
+and Juncalito, to enter the valleys which, on account of the bad road,
+and the blue colour of the slates, bear the names of Malpaso and
+Piedras Azules.
+
+This ground is the ancient shore of the great basin of the steppes,
+and it furnishes an interesting subject of research to the geologist.
+We there find trap-formations, probably more recent than the veins of
+diabasis near the town of Caracas, which seem to belong to the rocks
+of igneous formation. They are not long and narrow streams as in
+Auvergne, but large sheets, streams that appear like real strata. The
+lithoid masses here cover, if we may use the expression, the shore of
+the ancient interior sea; everything subject to destruction, such as
+the liquid dejections, and the scoriae filled with bubbles, has been
+carried away. These phenomena are particularly worthy of attention on
+account of the close affinities observed between the phonolites and
+the amygdaloids, which, containing pyroxenes and
+hornblende-grunsteins, form strata in a transition-slate. The better
+to convey an idea of the whole situation and superposition of these
+rocks, we will name the formations as they occur in a profile drawn
+from north to south.
+
+We find at first, in the Sierra de Mariara, which belongs to the
+northern branch of the Cordillera of the coast, a coarse-grained
+granite; then, in the valleys of Aragua, on the borders of the lake,
+and in the islands, it contains, as in the southern branch of the
+chain of the coast, gneiss and mica-slate. These last-named rocks are
+auriferous in the Quebrada del Oro, near Guigue; and between Villa de
+Cura and the Morros de San Juan, in the mountain of Chacao. The gold
+is contained in pyrites, which are found sometimes disseminated almost
+imperceptibly in the whole mass of the gneiss,* and sometimes united
+in small veins of quartz. (* The four metals, which are found
+disseminated in the granite rocks, as if they were of contemporaneous
+formation, are gold, tin, titanium, and cobalt.) Most of the torrents
+that traverse the mountains bear along with them grains of gold. The
+poor inhabitants of Villa de Cura and San Juan have sometimes gained
+thirty piastres a-day by washing the sand; but most commonly, in spite
+of their industry, they do not in a week find particles of gold of the
+value of two piastres. Here, however, as in every place where native
+gold and auriferous pyrites are disseminated in the rock, or by the
+destruction of the rocks, are deposited in alluvial lands, the people
+conceive the most exaggerated ideas of the metallic riches of the
+soil. But the success of the workings, which depends less on the
+abundance of the ore in a vast space of land than on its accumulation
+in one point, has not justified these favourable prepossessions. The
+mountain of Chacao, bordered by the ravine of Tucutunemo, rises seven
+hundred feet above the village of San Juan. It is formed of gneiss,
+which, especially in the superior strata, passes into mica-slate. We
+saw the remains of an ancient mine, known by the name of Real de Santa
+Barbara. The works were directed to a stratum of cellular quartz,*
+full of polyhedric cavities, mixed with iron-ore, containing
+auriferous pyrites and small grains of gold, sometimes, it is said,
+visible to the naked eye. (* This stratum of quartz, and the gneiss in
+which it is contained, lie hor 8 of the Freyberg compass, and dip 70
+degrees to the south-west. At a hundred toises distance from the
+auriferous quartz, the gneiss resumes its ordinary situation, hor 3 to
+4, with 60 degrees dip to the north-west. A few strata of gneiss
+abound in silvery mica, and contain, instead of garnets, an immense
+quantity of small octohedrons of pyrites. This silvery gneiss
+resembles that of the famous mine of Himmelsfurst, in Saxony.) It
+appears that the gneiss of the Cerro de Chacao also furnishes another
+metallic deposit, a mixture of copper and silver-ores. This deposit
+has been the object of works attempted with great ignorance by some
+Mexican miners under the superintendance of M. Avalo. The gallery*
+directed to the north-east, is only twenty-five toises long. (* La
+Cueva de los Mexicanos.) We there found some fine specimens of blue
+carbonated copper mingled with sulphate of barytes and quartz; but we
+could not ourselves judge whether the ore contained any argentiferous
+fahlerz, and whether it occurred in a stratum, or, as the apothecary
+who was our guide asserted, in real veins. This much is certain, that
+the attempt at working the mine cost more than twelve thousand
+piastres in two years. It would no doubt have been more prudent to
+have resumed the works on the auriferous stratum of the Real de Santa
+Barbara.
+
+The zone of gneiss just mentioned is, in the coast-chain from the sea
+to the Villa de Cura, ten leagues broad. In this great extent of land,
+gneiss and mica-slate are found exclusively, and they constitute one
+formation.* (* This formation, which we shall call gneiss-mica-slate,
+is peculiar to the chain of the coast of Caracas. Five formations must
+be distinguished, as MM. von Buch and Raumer have so ably demonstrated
+in their excellent papers on Landeck and the Riesengebirge, namely,
+granite, granite-gneiss, gneiss, gneiss-mica-slate, and mica-slate.
+Geologists whose researches have been confined to a small tract of
+land, having confounded these formations which nature has separated in
+several countries in the most distinct manner, have admitted that the
+gneiss and mica-slate alternate everywhere in superimposed beds, or
+furnish insensible transitions from one rock to the other. These
+transitions and alternating superpositions take place no doubt in
+formations of granite-gneiss and gneiss-mica-slate; but because these
+phenomena are observed in one region, it does not follow that in other
+regions we may not find very distinct circumscribed formations of
+granite, gneiss, and mica-slate. The same considerations may be
+applied to the formations of serpentine, which are sometimes isolated,
+and sometimes belong to the eurite, mica-slate, and grunstein.) Beyond
+the town of Villa de Cura and the Cerro de Chacao the aspect of the
+country presents greater geognostic variety. There are still eight
+leagues of declivity from the table-land of Cura to the entry of the
+Llanos; and on the southern slope of the mountains of the coast, four
+different formations of rock cover the gneiss. We shall first give the
+description of the different strata, without grouping them
+systematically.
+
+On the south of the Cerro de Chacao, between the ravine of Tucutunemo
+and Piedras Negras, the gneiss is concealed beneath a formation of
+serpentine, of which the composition varies in the different
+superimposed strata. Sometimes it is very pure, very homogeneous, of a
+dusky olive-green, and of a conchoidal fracture: sometimes it is
+veined, mixed with bluish steatite, of an unequal fracture, and
+containing spangles of mica. In both these states I could not discover
+in it either garnets, hornblende, or diallage. Advancing farther to
+the south (and we always passed over this ground in that direction)
+the green of the serpentine grows deeper, and feldspar and hornblende
+are recognised in it: it is difficult to determine whether it passes
+into diabasis or alternates with it. There is, however, no doubt of
+its containing veins of copper-ore.* (* One of these veins, on which
+two shafts have been sunk, was directed hor. 2.1, and dipped 80
+degrees east. The strata of the serpentine, where it is stratified
+with some regularity, run hor. 8, and dip almost perpendicularly. I
+found malachite disseminated in this serpentine, where it passes into
+grunstein.) At the foot of this mountain two fine springs gush out
+from the serpentine. Near the village of San Juan, the granular
+diabasis appears alone uncovered, and takes a greenish black hue. The
+feldspar intimately mixed with the mass, may be separated into
+distinct crystals. The mica is very rare, and there is no quartz. The
+mass assumes at the surface a yellowish crust like dolerite and
+basalt.
+
+In the midst of this tract of trap-formation, the Morros of San Juan
+rise like two castles in ruins. They appear linked to the mornes of
+St. Sebastian, and to La Galera which bounds the Llanos like a rocky
+wall. The Morros of San Juan are formed of limestone of a crystalline
+texture; sometimes very compact, sometimes spongy, of a greenish-grey,
+shining, composed of small grains, and mixed with scattered spangles
+of mica. This limestone yields a strong effervescence with acids. I
+could not find in it any vestige of organized bodies. It contains in
+subordinate strata, masses of hardened clay of a blackish blue, and
+carburetted. These masses are fissile, very heavy, and loaded with
+iron; their streak is whitish, and they produce no effervescence with
+acids. They assume at their surface, by their decomposition in the
+air, a yellow colour. We seem to recognize in these argillaceous
+strata a tendency either to the transition-slates, or to the
+kieselschiefer (schistose jasper), which everywhere characterise the
+black transition-limestones. When in fragments, they might be taken at
+first sight for basalt or hornblende.* (* I had an opportunity of
+examining again, with the greatest care, the rocks of San Juan, of
+Chacao, of Parapara, and of Calabozo, during my stay at Mexico, where,
+conjointly with M. del Rio, one of the most distinguished pupils of
+the school of Freyberg, I formed a geognostical collection for the
+Colegio de Mineria of New Spain.) Another white limestone, compact,
+and containing some fragments of shells, backs the Morros de San Juan.
+I could not see the line of junction of these two limestones, or that
+of the calcareous formation and the diabasis.
+
+The transverse valley which descends from Piedras Negras and the
+village of San Juan, towards Parapara and the Llanos, is filled with
+trap-rocks, displaying close affinity with the formation of green
+slates, which they cover. Sometimes we seem to see serpentine,
+sometimes grunstein, and sometimes dolerite and basalt. The
+arrangement of these problematical masses is not less extraordinary.
+Between San Juan, Malpaso, and Piedras Azules, they form strata
+parallel to each other; and dipping regularly northward at an angle of
+40 or 50 degrees, they cover even the green slates in concordant
+stratification. Lower down, towards Parapara and Ortiz, where the
+amygdaloids and phonolites are connected with the grunstein,
+everything assumes a basaltic aspect. Balls of grunstein heaped one
+upon another, form those rounded cones, which are found so frequently
+in the Mittelgebirge in Bohemia, near Bilin, the country of
+phonolites. The following is the result of my partial observations.
+
+The grunstein, which at first alternated with strata of serpentine, or
+was connected with that rock by insensible transitions, is seen alone,
+sometimes in strata considerably inclined, and sometimes in balls with
+concentric strata, imbedded in strata of the same substance. It lies,
+near Malpaso, on green slates, steatitic, mingled with hornblende,
+destitute of mica and grains of quartz, dipping, like the grunsteins,
+45 degrees toward the north, and directed, like them, 75 degrees
+north-west.
+
+A great sterility prevails where these green slates predominate, no
+doubt on account of the magnesia they contain, which (as is proved by
+the magnesian-limestone of England*) is very hurtful to vegetation. (*
+Magnesian limestone is of a straw-yellow colour, and contains
+madrepores: it lies beneath red marl, or muriatiferous red sandstone.)
+The dip of the green slates continues the same; but by degrees the
+direction of their strata becomes parallel to the general direction of
+the primitive rocks of the chain of the coast. At Piedras Azules these
+slates, mingled with hornblende, cover in concordant stratification a
+blackish-blue slate, very fissile, and traversed by small veins of
+quartz. The green slates include some strata of grunstein, and even
+contain balls of that substance. I nowhere saw the green slates
+alternate with the black slates of the ravine of Piedras Azules: at
+the line of junction these two slates appear rather to pass one into
+the other, the green slates becoming of a pearl-grey in proportion as
+they lose their hornblende.
+
+Farther south, towards Parapara and Ortiz, the slates disappear. They
+are concealed under a trap-formation more varied in its aspect. The
+soil becomes more fertile; the rocky masses alternate with strata of
+clay, which appear to be produced by the decomposition of the
+grunsteins, the amygdaloids, and the phonolites.
+
+The grunstein, which farther north was less granulous, and passed into
+serpentine, here assumes a very different character. It contains balls
+of mandelstein, or amygdaloid, eight or ten inches in diameter. These
+balls, sometimes a little flattened, are divided into concentric
+layers: this is the effect of decomposition. Their nucleus is almost
+as hard as basalt, and they are intermingled with little cavities,
+owing to bubbles of gas, filled with green earth, and crystals of
+pyroxene and mesotype. Their basis is greyish blue, rather soft, and
+showing small white spots which, by the regular form they present, I
+should conceive to be decomposed feldspar. M. von Buch examined with a
+powerful lens the species we brought. He discovered that each crystal
+of pyroxene, enveloped in the earthy mass, is separated from it by
+fissures parallel to the sides of the crystal. These fissures seem to
+be the effect of a contraction which the mass or basis of the
+mandelstein has undergone. I sometimes saw these balls of mandelstein
+arranged in strata, and separated from each other by beds of grunstein
+of ten or fourteen inches thick; sometimes (and this situation is most
+common) the balls of mandelstein, two or three feet in diameter, are
+found in heaps, and form little mounts with rounded summits, like
+spheroidal basalt. The clay which separates these amygdaloid
+concretions arises from the decomposition of their crust. They acquire
+by the contact of the air a very thin coating of yellow ochre.
+
+South-west of the village of Parapara rises the little Cerro de
+Flores, which is discerned from afar in the steppes. Almost at its
+foot, and in the midst of the mandelstein tract we have just been
+describing, a porphyritic phonolite, a mass of compact feldspar of a
+greenish grey, or mountain-green, containing long crystals of vitreous
+feldspar, appears exposed. It is the real porphyrschiefer of Werner;
+and it would be difficult to distinguish, in a collection of stones,
+the phonolite of Parapara from that of Bilin, in Bohemia. It does not,
+however, here form rocks in grotesque shapes, but little hills covered
+with tabular blocks, large plates extremely sonorous, translucid on
+the edges, and wounding the hands when broken.
+
+Such are the successions of rocks, which I described on the spot as I
+progressively found them, from the lake of Tacarigua to the entrance
+of the steppes. Few places in Europe display a geological arrangement
+so well worthy of being studied. We saw there in succession six
+formations: namely, mica-slate-gneiss, green transition-slate, black
+transition-limestone, serpentine and grunstein, amygdaloid (with
+pyroxene), and phonolite.
+
+I must observe, in the first place, that the substance just described
+under the name of grunstein, in every respect resembles that which
+forms layers in the mica-slate of Cabo Blanco, and veins near Caracas.
+It differs only by containing neither quartz, garnets, nor pyrites.
+The close relations we observed near the Cerro de Chacao, between the
+grunstein and the serpentine, cannot surprise these geologists who
+have studied the mountains of Franconia and Silesia. Near Zobtenberg*
+(* Between Tampadel and Silsterwiz.) a serpentine rock alternates also
+with gabbro. In the district of Glatz the fissures of the gabbro are
+filled with a steatite of a greenish white colour, and the rock which
+was long thought to belong to the grunsteins* is a close mixture of
+feldspar and diallage. (* In the mountains of Bareuth, in Franconia,
+so abundant in grunstein and serpentine, these formations are not
+connected together. The serpentine there belongs rather to the
+schistose hornblende (hornblendschiefer), as in the island of Cuba.
+Near Guanaxuato, in Mexico, I saw it alternating with syenite. These
+phenomena of serpentine rocks forming layers in eurite (weisstein), in
+schistose hornblende, in gabbro, and in syenite, are so much the more
+remarkable, as the great mass of garnetiferous serpentines, which are
+found in the mountains of gneiss and mica-slate, form little distinct
+mounts, masses not covered by other formations. It is not the same in
+the mixtures of serpentine and granulated limestone.)
+
+The grunsteins of Tucutunemo, which we consider as constituting the
+same formation as the serpentine rock, contain veins of malachite and
+copper-pyrites. These same metalliferous combinations are found also
+in Franconia, in the grunsteins of the mountains of Steben and
+Lichtenberg. With respect to the green slates of Malpaso, which have
+all the characters of transition-slates, they are identical with those
+which M. von Buch has so well described, near Schonau, in Silesia.
+They contain beds of grunstein, like the slates of the mountains of
+Steben just mentioned.* (* On advancing into the adit for draining the
+Friedrich-Wilhelmstollen mine, which I caused to be begun in 1794,
+near Steben, and which is yet only 340 toises long, there have
+successively been found, in the transition-slate subordinate strata of
+pure and porphyritic grunstein, strata, of Lydian stone and ampelite
+(alaunschiefer), and strata of fine-grained grunstein. All these
+strata characterise the transition-slates.) The black limestone of the
+Morros de San Juan is also a transition-limestone. It forms perhaps a
+subordinate stratum in the slates of Malpaso. This situation would be
+analogous to what is observed in several parts of Switzerland.* (* For
+Instance, at the Glyshorn, at the Col de Balme, etc.) The slaty zone,
+the centre of which is the ravine of Piedras Azules, appears divided
+into two formations. On some points we think we observe one passing
+into the other.
+
+The grunsteins, which begin again to the south of these slates, appear
+to me to differ little from those found north of the ravine of Piedras
+Azules. I did not see there any pyroxene; but on the very spot I
+recognized a number of crystals in the amygdaloid, which appears so
+strongly linked to the grunstein that they alternate several times.
+
+The geologist may consider his task as fulfilled when he has traced
+with accuracy the positions of the diverse strata; and has pointed out
+the analogies traceable between these positions and what has been
+observed in other countries. But how can he avoid being tempted to go
+back to the origin of so many different substances, and to inquire how
+far the dominion of fire has extended in the mountains that bound the
+great basin of the steppes? In researches on the position of rocks we
+have generally to complain of not sufficiently perceiving the
+connection between the masses, which we believe to be superimposed on
+one another. Here the difficulty seems to arise from the too intimate
+and too numerous relations observed in rocks that are thought not to
+belong to the same family.
+
+The phonolite (or leucostine compacte of Cordier) is pretty generally
+regarded by all who have at once examined burning and extinguished
+volcanoes, as a flow of lithoid lava. I found no real basalt or
+dolerite; but the presence of pyroxene in the amygdaloid of Parapara
+leaves little doubt of the igneous origin of those spheroidal masses,
+fissured, and full of cavities. Balls of this amygdaloid are enclosed
+in the grunstein; and this grunstein alternates on one side with a
+green slate, on the other with the serpentine of Tucutunemo. Here,
+then, is a connexion sufficiently close established between the
+phonolites and the green slates, between the pyroxenic amygdaloids and
+the serpentines containing copper-ores, between volcanic substances
+and others that are included under the vague name of transition-traps.
+All these masses are destitute of quartz like the real
+trap-porphyries, or volcanic trachytes. This phenomenon is the more
+remarkable, as the grunsteins which are called primitive almost always
+contain quartz in Europe. The most general dip of the slates of
+Piedras Azules, of the grunsteins of Parapara, and of the pyroxenic
+amygdaloids embedded in strata of grunstein, does not follow the slope
+of the ground from north to south, but is pretty regular towards the
+north. The strata incline towards the chain of the coast, as
+substances which had not been in fusion might be supposed to do. Can
+we admit that so many alternating rocks, imbedded one in the other,
+have a common origin? The nature of the phonolites, which are lithoid
+lavas with a feldspar basis, and the nature of the green slates
+intermixed with hornblende, oppose this opinion. In this state of
+things we may choose between two solutions of the problem in question.
+In one of these solutions the phonolite of the Cerro de Flores is to
+be regarded as the sole volcanic production of the tract; and we are
+forced to unite the pyroxenic amygdaloids with the rest of the
+grunsteins, in one single formation, that which is so common in the
+transition-mountains of Europe, considered hitherto as not volcanic.
+In the other solution of the problem, the masses of phonolite,
+amygdaloid, and grunstein, which are found in the south of the ravine
+of Piedras Azules, are separated from the grunsteins and serpentine
+rocks that cover the declivity of the mountains north of the ravine.
+In the present state of knowledge I find difficulties almost equally
+great in adopting either of these suppositions; but I have no doubt
+that, when the real grunsteins (not the hornblende-grunsteins)
+contained in the gneiss and mica-slates, shall have been more
+attentively examined in other places; when the basalts (with pyroxene)
+forming strata in primitive rocks* (* For instance, at Krobsdorf, in
+Silesia, a stratum of basalt has been recognized in the mica-slate by
+two celebrated geologists, MM. von Buch and Raumer. (Vom Granite des
+Riesengebirges, 1813.) and the diabases and amygdaloids in the
+transition mountains, shall have been carefully studied; when the
+texture of the masses shall have been subjected to a kind of
+mechanical analysis, and the hornblendes better distinguished from the
+pyroxenes,* (* The grunsteins or diabases of the Fichtelgebirge, in
+Franconia, which belong to the transition-slate, sometimes contain
+pyroxenes.) and the grunsteins from the dolerites; a great number of
+phenomena which now appear isolated and obscure, will be ranged under
+general laws. The phonolite and other rocks of igneous origin at
+Parapara are so much the more interesting, as they indicate ancient
+eruptions in a granite zone; as they belong to the shore of the basin
+of the steppes, as the basalts of Harutsh belong to the shore of the
+desert of Sahara; and lastly, as they are the only rocks of the kind
+we observed in the mountains of the Capitania-General of Caracas,
+which are also destitute of trachytes or trap-porphyry, basalts, and
+volcanic productions.* (* From the Rio Negro to the coasts of Cumana
+and Caracas, to the east of the mountains of Merida, which we did not
+visit.)
+
+The southern declivity of the western chain is tolerably steep; the
+steppes, according to my barometrical measurements, being a thousand
+feet lower than the bottom of the basin of Aragua. From the extensive
+table-land of the Villa de Cura we descended towards the banks of the
+Rio Tucutunemo, which has hollowed for itself, in a serpentine rock, a
+longitudinal valley running from east to west, at nearly the same
+level as La Victoria. A transverse valley, lying generally north and
+south, led us into the Llanos, by the villages of Parapara and Ortiz.
+It grows very narrow in several parts. Basins, the bottoms of which
+are perfectly horizontal, communicate together by narrow passes with
+steep declivities. They were, no doubt, formerly small lakes, which,
+owing to the accumulation of the waters, or some more violent
+catastrophe, have broken down the dykes by which they were separated.
+This phenomenon is found in both continents, wherever we examine the
+longitudinal valleys forming the passages of the Andes, the Alps,* (*
+For example, the road from the valley of Ursern to the Hospice of St.
+Gothard, and thence to Airolo.) or the Pyrenees. It is probable, that
+the irruption of the waters towards the Llanos have given, by
+extraordinary rents, the form of ruins to the Morros of San Juan and
+of San Sebastian. The volcanic tract of Parapara and Ortis is now only
+30 or 40 toises above the Llanos. The eruptions consequently took
+place at the lowest point of the granitic chain.
+
+In the Mesa de Paja, in the ninth degree of latitude, we entered the
+basin of the Llanos. The sun was almost at its zenith; the earth,
+wherever it appeared sterile and destitute of vegetation, was at the
+temperature of 48 or 50 degrees.* (* A thermometer, placed in the
+sand, rose to 38.4 and 40 degrees Reaumur.) Not a breath of air was
+felt at the height at which we were on our mules; yet, in the midst of
+this apparent calm, whirls of dust incessantly arose, driven on by
+those small currents of air which glide only over the surface of the
+ground, and are occasioned by the difference of temperature between
+the naked sand and the spots covered with grass. These sand-winds
+augment the suffocating heat of the air. Every grain of quartz, hotter
+than the surrounding air, radiates heat in every direction; and it is
+difficult to observe the temperature of the atmosphere, owing to these
+particles of sand striking against the bulb of the thermometer. All
+around us the plains seemed to ascend to the sky, and the vast and
+profound solitude appeared like an ocean covered with sea-weed.
+According to the unequal mass of vapours diffused through the
+atmosphere, and the variable decrement in the temperature of the
+different strata of air, the horizon in some parts was clear and
+distinct; in other parts it appeared undulating, sinuous, and as if
+striped. The earth there was confounded with the sky. Through the dry
+mist and strata of vapour the trunks of palm-trees were seen from
+afar, stripped of their foliage and their verdant summits, and looking
+like the masts of a ship descried upon the horizon.
+
+There is something awful, as well as sad and gloomy, in the uniform
+aspect of these steppes. Everything seems motionless; scarcely does a
+small cloud, passing across the zenith, and denoting the approach of
+the rainy season, cast its shadow on the earth. I know not whether the
+first aspect of the Llanos excite less astonishment than that of the
+chain of the Andes. Mountainous countries, whatever may be the
+absolute elevation of the highest summits, have an analogous
+physiognomy; but we accustom ourselves with difficulty to the view of
+the Llanos of Venezuela and Casanare, to that of the Pampas of Buenos
+Ayres and of Chaco, which recal to mind incessantly, and during
+journeys of twenty or thirty days, the smooth surface of the ocean. I
+had seen the plains or llanos of La Mancha in Spain, and the heaths
+(ericeta) that extend from the extremity of Jutland, through Luneburg
+and Westphalia, to Belgium. These last are really steppes, and, during
+several ages, only small portions of them have yielded to cultivation;
+but the plains of the west and north of Europe present only a feeble
+image of the immense llanos of South America. It is in the south-east
+of our continent, in Hungary, between the Danube and the Theiss; in
+Russia, between the Borysthenes, the Don, and the Volga, that we find
+those vast pastures, which seem to have been levelled by a long abode
+of the waters, and which meet the horizon on every side. The plains of
+Hungary, where I traversed them on the frontiers of Germany, between
+Presburg and Oedenburg, strike the imagination of the traveller by the
+constant mirage; but their greatest extent is more to the east,
+between Czegled, Debreczin, and Tittel. There they present the
+appearance of a vast ocean of verdure, having only two outlets, one
+near Gran and Waitzen, the other between Belgrade and Widdin.
+
+The different quarters of the world have been supposed to be
+characterized by the remark, that Europe has its heaths, Asia its
+steppes, Africa its deserts, and America its savannahs; but by this
+distinction, contrasts are established that are not founded either on
+the nature of things, or the genius of languages. The existence of a
+heath always supposes an association of plants of the family of
+ericae; the steppes of Asia are not everywhere covered with saline
+plants; the savannahs of Venezuela furnish not only the gramina, but
+with them small herbaceous mimosas, legumina, and other dicotyledonous
+plants. The plains of Songaria, those which extend between the Don and
+the Volga, and the puszta of Hungary, are real savannahs, pasturages
+abounding in grasses;* (* These vast steppes of Hungary are elevated
+only thirty or forty toises above the level of the sea, which is more
+than eighty leagues distant from them. See Wahlenberg's Flora
+Carpathianica. Baron Podmanitzky, an Hungarian nobleman, highly
+distinguished for his knowledge of the physical sciences, caused the
+level of these plains to be taken, to facilitate the formation of a
+canal then projected between the Danube and the Theiss. He found the
+line of division, or the convexity of the ground, which slopes on each
+side towards the beds of the two rivers, to be only thirteen toises
+above the height of the Danube. The widely extended pastures, which
+reach in every direction to the horizon, are called in the country,
+Puszta, and, over a distance of many leagues, are without any human
+habitation. Plains of this kind, intermingled with marshes and sandy
+tracts, are found on the western side of the Theiss, between Czegled,
+Csaba, Komloss, and Szarwass; and on the eastern side, between
+Debreczin, Karczag, and Szoboszlo. The area of these plains of the
+interior basin of Hungary has been estimated, by a pretty accurate
+calculation, to be between two thousand five hundred and three
+thousand square leagues (twenty to a degree). Between Czegled,
+Szolnok, and Ketskemet, the plain resembles a sea of sand.) while the
+savannahs to the east and west of the Rocky Mountains and of New
+Mexico produce chenopodiums containing carbonate and muriate of soda.
+Asia has real deserts destitute of vegetation, in Arabia, in Gobi, and
+in Persia. Since we have become better acquainted with the deserts in
+the interior of Africa, so long and so vaguely confounded together
+under the name of desert of Sahara (Zahra); it has been observed, that
+in this continent, towards the east, savannahs and pastures are found,
+as in Arabia, situated in the midst of naked and barren tracts. It is
+these deserts, covered with gravel and destitute of plants, which are
+almost entirely wanting in the New World. I saw them only in that part
+of Peru, between Amotape and Coquimbo, on the shores of the Pacific.
+These are called by the Spaniards, not llanos, but the desiertos of
+Sechura and Atacamez. This solitary tract is not broad, but it is four
+hundred and forty leagues long. The rock pierces everywhere through
+the quicksands. No drop of rain ever falls on it; and, like the desert
+of Sahara, north of Timbuctoo, the Peruvian desert affords, near
+Huaura, a rich mine of native salt. Everywhere else, in the New World,
+there are plains desert because not inhabited, but no real deserts.*
+(* We are almost tempted, however, to give the name of desert to that
+vast and sandy table-land of Brazil, the Campos dos Parecis, which
+gives birth to the rivers Tapajos, Paraguay, and Madeira, and which
+reaches the summit of the highest mountains. Almost destitute of
+vegetation, it reminds us of Gobi, in Mongolia.)
+
+The same phenomena are repeated in the most distant regions; and,
+instead of designating those vast treeless plains in accordance with
+the nature of the plants they produce, it seems natural to class them
+into deserts, steppes, or savannahs; into bare lands without any
+appearance of vegetation, and lands covered with gramina or small
+plants of the dicotyledonous tribe. The savannahs of America,
+especially those of the temperate zone, have in many works been
+designated by the French term prairies; but this appears to me little
+applicable to pastures which are often very dry, though covered with
+grass of four or five feet in height. The Llanos and the Pampas of
+South America are really steppes. They are covered with beautiful
+verdure in the rainy season, but in the time of great drought they
+assume the aspect of a desert. The grass is then reduced to powder;
+the earth cracks; the alligators and the great serpents remain buried
+in the dried mud, till awakened from their long lethargy by the first
+showers of spring. These phenomena are observed on barren tracts of
+fifty or sixty leagues in length, wherever the savannahs are not
+traversed by rivers; for on the borders of rivulets, and around little
+pools of stagnant water, the traveller finds at certain distances,
+even during the period of the great droughts, thickets of mauritia, a
+palm, the leaves of which spread out like a fan, and preserve a
+brilliant verdure.
+
+The steppes of Asia are all beyond the tropics, and form very elevated
+table-lands. America also has savannahs of considerable extent on the
+backs of the mountains of Mexico, Peru, and Quito; but its most
+extensive steppes, the Llanos of Cumana, Caracas, and Meta, are little
+raised above the level of the ocean, and all belong to the equinoctial
+zone. These circumstances give them a peculiar character. They have
+not, like the steppes of southern Asia, and the deserts of Persia,
+those lakes without issue, those small systems of rivers which lose
+themselves either in the sands, or by subterranean filtrations. The
+Llanos of America incline to the east and south; and their running
+waters are branches of the Orinoco.
+
+The course of these rivers once led me to believe, that the plains
+formed table-lands, raised at least from one hundred to one hundred
+and fifty toises above the level of the ocean. I supposed that the
+deserts of interior Africa were also at a considerable height; and
+that they rose one above another as in tiers, from the coast to the
+interior of the continent. No barometer has yet been carried into the
+Sahara. With respect to the Llanos of America, I found by barometric
+heights observed at Calabozo, at the Villa del Pao, and at the mouth
+of the Meta, that their height is only forty or fifty toises above the
+level of the sea. The fall of the rivers is extremely gentle, often
+nearly imperceptible; and therefore the least wind, or the swelling of
+the Orinoco, causes a reflux in those rivers that flow into it. The
+Indians believe themselves to be descending during a whole day, when
+navigating from the mouths of these rivers to their sources. The
+descending waters are separated from those that flow back by a great
+body of stagnant water, in which, the equilibrium being disturbed,
+whirlpools are formed very dangerous for boats.
+
+The chief characteristic of the savannahs or steppes of South America
+is the absolute want of hills and inequalities--the perfect level of
+every part of the soil. Accordingly the Spanish conquerors, who first
+penetrated from Coro to the banks of the Apure, did not call them
+deserts or savannahs, or meadows, but plains (llanos). Often within a
+distance of thirty square leagues there is not an eminence of a foot
+high. This resemblance to the surface of the sea strikes the
+imagination most powerfully where the plains are altogether destitute
+of palm-trees; and where the mountains of the shore and of the Orinoco
+are so distant that they cannot be seen, as in the Mesa de Pavones. A
+person would be tempted there to take the altitude of the sun with a
+quadrant, if the horizon of the land were not constantly misty on
+account of the variable effects of refraction. This equality of
+surface is still more perfect in the meridian of Calabozo, than
+towards the east, between Cari, La Villa del Pao, and Nueva Barcelona;
+but it extends without interruption from the mouths of the Orinoco to
+La Villa de Araure and to Ospinos, on a parallel of a hundred and
+eighty leagues in length; and from San Carlos to the savannahs of
+Caqueat, on a meridian of two hundred leagues. It particularly
+characterises the New Continent, as it does the low steppes of Asia,
+between the Borysthenes and the Volga, between the Irtish and the Obi.
+The deserts of central Africa, of Arabia, Syria, and Persia, Gobi, and
+Casna, present, on the contrary, many inequalities, ranges of hills,
+ravines without water, and rocks which pierce the sands.
+
+The Llanos, however, notwithstanding the apparent uniformity of their
+surface, present two kinds of inequalities, which cannot escape the
+observation of the traveller. The first is known by the name of banks
+(bancos); they are in reality shoals in the basin of the steppes,
+fractured strata of sandstone, or compact limestone, standing four or
+five feet higher than the rest of the plain. These banks are sometimes
+three or four leagues in length; they are entirely smooth, with a
+horizontal surface; their existence is perceived only by examining
+their margins. The second species of inequality can be recognised only
+by geodesical or barometric levellings, or by the course of rivers. It
+is called a mesa or table, and is composed of small flats, or rather
+convex eminences, that rise insensibly to the height of a few toises.
+Such are, towards the east, in the province of Cumana, on the north of
+the Villa de la Merced and Candelaria, the Mesas of Amana, of Guanipa,
+and of Jonoro, the direction of which is south-west and north-east;
+and which, in spite of their inconsiderable elevation, divide the
+waters between the Orinoco and the northern coast of Terra Firma. The
+convexity of the savannah alone occasions this partition: we there
+find the dividing of the waters (divortia aquarum* (* "C. Manlium
+prope jugis [Tauri] ad divortia aquarum castra posuisse." Livy lib. 38
+c. 75.)), as in Poland, where, far from the Carpathian mountains, the
+plain itself divides the waters between the Baltic and the Black Sea.
+Geographers, who suppose the existence of a chain of mountains
+wherever there is a line of division, have not failed to mark one in
+the maps, at the sources of the Rio Neveri, the Unare, the Guarapiche,
+and the Pao. Thus the priests of Mongol race, according to ancient and
+superstitious custom, erect oboes, or little mounds of stone, on every
+point where the rivers flow in an opposite direction.
+
+The uniform landscape of the Llanos; the extremely small number of
+their inhabitants; the fatigue of travelling beneath a burning sky,
+and an atmosphere darkened by dust; the view of that horizon, which
+seems for ever to fly before us; those lonely trunks of palm-trees,
+which have all the same aspect, and which we despair of reaching,
+because they are confounded with other trunks that rise by degrees on
+the visual horizon; all these causes combine to make the steppes
+appear far more extensive than they are in reality. The planters who
+inhabit the southern declivity of the chain of the coast see the
+steppes extend towards the south, as far as the eye can reach, like an
+ocean of verdure. They know that from the Delta of the Orinoco to the
+province of Varinas, and thence, by traversing the banks of the Meta,
+the Guaviare, and the Caguan, they can advance three hundred and
+eighty leagues* (* This is the distance from Timbuctoo to the northern
+coast of Africa.) into the plains, first from east to west, and then
+from north-east to south-east beyond the Equator, to the foot of the
+Andes of Pasto. They know by the accounts of travellers the Pampas of
+Buenos Ayres, which are also Llanos covered with fine grass, destitute
+of trees, and filled with oxen and horses become wild. They suppose
+that, according to the greater part of our maps of America, this
+continent has only one chain of mountains, that of the Andes, which
+stretches from south to north; and they form a vague idea of the
+contiguity of all the plains from the Orinoco and the Apure to the Rio
+de la Plata and the Straits of Magellan.
+
+Without stopping here to give a mineralogical description of the
+transverse chains which divide America from east to west, it will be
+sufficient to notice the general structure of a continent, the
+extremities of which, though situated in climates little analogous,
+nevertheless present several features of resemblance. In order to have
+an exact idea of the plains, their configuration, and their limits, we
+must know the chains of mountains that form their boundaries. We have
+already described the Cordillera of the coast, of which the highest
+summit is the Silla de Caraccas, and which is linked by the Paramo de
+las Rosas to the Nevada de Merida, and the Andes of New Grenada. We
+have seen that, in the tenth degree of north latitude, it stretches
+from Quibor and Barquesimeto as far as the point of Paria. A second
+chain of mountains, or rather a less elevated but much larger group,
+extends between the parallels of 3 and 7 degrees from the mouths of
+the Guaviare and the Meta to the sources of the Orinoco, the Marony,
+and the Essequibo, towards French and Dutch Guiana. I call this chain
+the Cordillera of Parime, or of the great cataracts of the Orinoco. It
+may be followed for a length of two hundred and fifty leagues; but it
+is less a chain, than a collection of granitic mountains, separated by
+small plains, without being everywhere disposed in lines. The group of
+the mountains of Parime narrows considerably between the sources of
+the Orinoco and the mountains of Demerara, in the Sierras of
+Quimiropaca and Pacaraimo, which divide the waters between the Carony
+and the Rio Parime, or Rio de Aguas Blancas. This is the scene of the
+expeditions which were undertaken in search of El Dorado, and the
+great city of Manoa, the Timbuctoo of the New Continent. The
+Cordillera of Parime does not join the Andes of New Grenada, but is
+separated from them by a space eighty leagues broad. If we suppose it
+to have been destroyed in this space by some great revolution of the
+globe (which is scarcely probable) we must admit that it anciently
+branched off from the Andes between Santa Fe de Bogota and Pamplona.
+This remark serves to fix more easily in the memory of the reader the
+geographical position of a Cordillera till now very imperfectly known.
+A third chain of mountains unites in 16 and 18 degrees south latitude
+(by Santa Cruz de la Sierra, the Serranias of Aguapehy, and the famous
+Campos dos Parecis) the Andes of Peru, to the mountains of Brazil. It
+is the Cordillera of Chiquitos which widens in the Capitania de Minas
+Geraes, and divides the rivers flowing into the Amazon from those of
+the Rio de la Plata,* (* There is only a portage or carrying-place of
+5322 bracas between the Guapore (a branch of the Marmore and of the
+Madeira), and the Rio Aguapehy (a branch of the Jaura and of the
+Paraguay).) not only in the interior of the country, in the meridian
+of Villa Boa, but also at a few leagues from the coast, between Rio
+Janeiro and Bahia.* (* The Cordillera of Chiquitos and of Brazil
+stretches toward the south-east, in the government of the Rio Grande,
+beyond the latitude of 30 degrees south.)
+
+These three transverse chains, or rather these three groups of
+mountains stretching from west to east, within the limits of the
+torrid zone, are separated by tracts entirely level, the plains of
+Caracas, or of the Lower Orinoco; the plains of the Amazon and the Rio
+Negro; and the plains of Buenos Ayres, or of La Plata. I use the term
+plains, because the Lower Orinoco and the Amazon, far from flowing in
+a valley, form but a little furrow in the midst of a vast level. The
+two basins, placed at the extremities of South America, are savannahs
+or steppes, pasturage without trees; the intermediate basin, which
+receives the equatorial rains during the whole year, is almost
+entirely one vast forest, through which no other roads are known save
+the rivers. The strong vegetation which conceals the soil, renders
+also the uniformity of its level less perceptible; and the plains of
+Caracas and La Plata bear no other name. The three basins we have just
+described are called, in the language of the colonists, the Llanos of
+Varinas and of Caracas, the bosques or selvas (forests) of the Amazon,
+and the Pampas of Buenos Ayres. The trees not only for the most part
+cover the plains of the Amazon, from the Cordillera de Chiquitos, as
+far as that of Parime; they also crown these two chains of mountains,
+which rarely attain the height of the Pyrenees.* (* We must except the
+most western part of the Cordillera of Chiquitos, between Cochabamba
+and Santa Cruz de la Sierra where the summits are covered with snow;
+but this colossal group almost belongs to the Andes de la Paz, of
+which it forms a promontory or spur, directed toward the east.) On
+this account, the vast plains of the Amazon, the Madeira, and the Rio
+Negro, are not so distinctly bounded as the Llanos of Caracas, and the
+Pampas of Buenos Ayres. As the region of forests comprises at once the
+plains and the mountains, it extends from 18 degrees south to 7 and 8
+degrees north,* (* To the west, in consequence of the Llanos of Manso,
+and the Pampas de Huanacos, the forests do not extend generally beyond
+the parallels of 18 or 19 degrees south latitude; but to the east, in
+Brazil (in the capitanias of San Pablo and Rio Grande) as well as in
+Paraguay, on the borders of the Parana, they advance as far as 25
+degrees south.) and occupies an extent of near a hundred and twenty
+thousand square leagues. This forest of South America, for in fact
+there is only one, is six times larger than France. It is known to
+Europeans only on the shores of a few rivers, by which it is
+traversed; and has its openings, the extent of which is in proportion
+to that of the forests. We shall soon skirt the marshy savannahs,
+between the Upper Orinoco, the Conorichite, and the Cassiquiare, in
+the latitude of 3 and 4 degrees. There are other openings, or as they
+are called, clear savannahs,* (* Savannas limpias, that is to say,
+clear of trees.) in the same parallel, between the sources of the Mao
+and the Rio de Aguas Blancas, south of the Sierra de Pacaraima. These
+last savannahs, which are inhabited by Caribs, and nomad Macusis, lie
+near the frontiers of Dutch and French Guiana.
+
+Having noticed the geological constitution of South America, we shall
+now mark its principal features. The western coasts are bordered by an
+enormous wall of mountains, rich in precious metals wherever volcanic
+fire has not pierced through the eternal snow. This is the Cordillera
+of the Andes. Summits of trap-porphyry rise beyond three thousand
+three hundred toises, and the mean height of the chain* is one
+thousand eight hundred and fifty toises. (* In New Grenada, Quito, and
+Peru, according to measurements taken by Bouguer, La Condamine, and
+myself.) It stretches in the direction of a meridian, and sends into
+each hemisphere a lateral branch, in the latitudes of 10 degrees
+north, and 16 and 18 degrees south. The first of these two branches,
+that of the coast of Caracas, is of considerable length, and forms in
+fact a chain. The second branch, the Cordillera of Chiquitos and of
+the sources of the Guapore, is very rich in gold, and widens toward
+the east, in Brazil, into vast tablelands, having a mild and temperate
+climate. Between these two transverse chains, contiguous to the Andes,
+an isolated group of granitic mountains is situated, from 3 to 7
+degrees north latitude; which also runs parallel to the Equator, but,
+not passing the meridian of 71 degrees, terminates abruptly towards
+the west, and is not united to the Andes of New Grenada. These three
+transverse chains have no active volcanoes; we know not whether the
+most southern, like the two others, be destitute of trachytes or
+trap-porphyry. None of their summits enter the limit of perpetual
+snow; and the mean height of the Cordillera of La Parime, and of the
+littoral chain of Caracas, does not reach six hundred toises, though
+some of its summits rise fourteen hundred toises above the level of
+the sea.* (* We do not reckon here, as belonging to the chain of the
+coast, the Nevados and Paramos of Merida and of Truxillo, which are a
+prolongation of the Andes of New Grenada.) The three transverse chains
+are separated by plains entirely closed towards the west, and open
+towards the east and south-east. When we reflect on their small
+elevation above the surface of the ocean, we are tempted to consider
+them as gulfs stretching in the direction of the current of rotation.
+If, from the effect of some peculiar attraction, the waters of the
+Atlantic were to rise fifty toises at the mouth of the Orinoco, and
+two hundred toises at the mouth of the Amazon, the flood would
+submerge more than the half of South America. The eastern declivity,
+or the foot of the Andes, now six hundred leagues distant from the
+coast of Brazil, would become a shore beaten by the waves. This
+consideration is the result of a barometric measurement, taken in the
+province of Jaen de Bracamoros, where the river Amazon issues from the
+Cordilleras. I found the mean height of this immense river only one
+hundred and ninety-four toises above the present level of the
+Atlantic. The intermediate plains, however, covered with forests, are
+still five times higher than the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, and the
+grass-covered Llanos of Caracas and the Meta.
+
+Those Llanos which form the basin of the Orinoco, and which we crossed
+twice in one year, in the months of March and July, communicate with
+the basin of the Amazon and the Rio Negro, bounded on one side by the
+Cordillera of Chiquitos, and on the other by the mountains of Parime.
+The opening which is left between the latter and the Andes of New
+Grenada, occasions this communication. The aspect of the country here
+reminds us, but on a much larger scale, of the plains of Lombardy,
+which also are only fifty or sixty toises above the level of the
+ocean; and are directed first from La Brenta to Turin, east and west;
+and then from Turin to Coni, north and south. If we were authorized,
+from other geological facts, to regard the three great plains of the
+Lower Orinoco, the Amazon, and the Rio de la Plata as basins of
+ancient lakes,* (* In Siberia, the great steppes between the Irtish
+and the Obi, especially that of Baraba, full of salt lakes (Tchabakly,
+Tchany, Karasouk, and Topolony), appear to have been, according to the
+Chinese traditions, even within historical times, an inland sea.) we
+should imagine we perceived in the plains of the Rio Vichada and the
+Meta, a channel by which the waters of the upper lake (those of the
+plains of the Amazon) forced their way towards the lower basin, (that
+of the Llanos of Caracas,) separating the Cordillera of La Parime from
+that of the Andes. This channel is a kind of land-strait. The ground,
+which is perfectly level between the Guaviare, the Meta, and the
+Apure, displays no vestige of a violent irruption of the waters; but
+on the edge of the Cordillera of Parime, between the latitudes of 4
+and 7 degrees, the Orinoco, flowing in a westerly direction from its
+source to the mouth of the Guaviare, has forced its way through the
+rocks, directing its course from south to north. All the great
+cataracts, as we shall soon see, are within the latitudes just named.
+When the river has reached the mouth of the Apure in that very low
+ground where the slope towards the north is met by the counter-slope
+towards the south-east, that is to say, by the inclination of the
+plains which rise imperceptibly towards the mountains of Caracas, the
+river turns anew and flows eastward. It appeared to me, that it was
+proper to fix the attention of the reader on these singular inflexions
+of the Orinoco because, belonging at once to two basins, its course
+marks, in some sort, even on the most imperfect maps, the direction of
+that part of the plains intervening between New Grenada and the
+western border of the mountains of La Parime.
+
+The Llanos or steppes of the Lower Orinoco and of the Meta, like the
+deserts of Africa, bear different names in different parts. From the
+mouths of the Dragon the Llanos of Cumana, of Barcelona, and of
+Caracas or Venezuela,* follow, running from east to west. (* The
+following are subdivisions of these three great Llanos, as I marked
+them down on the spot. The Llanos of Cumana and New Andalusia include
+those of Maturin and Terecen, of Amana, Guanipa, Jonoro, and Cari. The
+Llanos of Nueva Barcelona comprise those of Aragua, Pariaguan, and
+Villa del Pao. We distinguish in the Llanos of Caracas those of
+Chaguaramas, Uritucu, Calabozo or Guarico, La Portuguesa, San Carlos,
+and Araure.) Where the steppes turn towards the south and
+south-south-west, from the latitude of 8 degrees, between the
+meridians of 70 and 73 degrees, we find from north to south, the
+Llanos of Varinas, Casanare, the Meta, Guaviare, Caguau, and Caqueta.*
+(* The inhabitants of these plains distinguish as subdivisions, from
+the Rio Portuguesa to Caqueta, the Llanos of Guanare, Bocono, Nutrius
+or the Apure, Palmerito near Quintero, Guardalito and Arauca, the
+Meta, Apiay near the port of Pachaquiaro, Vichada, Guaviare, Arriari,
+Inirida, the Rio Hacha, and Caguan. The limits between the savannahs
+and the forests, in the plains that extend from the sources of the Rio
+Negro to Putumayo, are not sufficiently known.) The plains of Varinas
+contain some few monuments of the industry of a nation that has
+disappeared. Between Mijagual and the Cano de la Hacha, we find some
+real tumuli, called in the country the Serillos de los Indios. They
+are hillocks in the shape of cones, artificially formed of earth, and
+probably contain bones, like the tumuli in the steppes of Asia. A fine
+road is also discovered near Hato de la Calzada, between Varinas and
+Canagua, five leagues long, made before the conquest, in the most
+remote times, by the natives. It is a causeway of earth fifteen feet
+high, crossing a plain often overflowed. Did nations farther advanced
+in civilization descend from the mountains of Truxillo and Merido to
+the plains of the Rio Apure? The Indians whom we now find between this
+river and the Meta, are in too rude a state to think of making roads
+or raising tumuli.
+
+I calculated the area of these Llanos from the Caqueta to the Apure,
+and from the Apure to the Delta of the Orinoco, and found it to be
+seventeen thousand square leagues twenty to a degree. The part running
+from north to south is almost double that which stretches from east to
+west, between the Lower Orinoco and the littoral chain of Caracas. The
+Pampas on the north and north-west of Buenos Ayres, between this city
+and Cordova, Jujuy, and the Tucuman, are of nearly the same extent as
+the Llanos; but the Pampas stretch still farther on to the length of
+18 degrees southward; and the land they occupy is so vast, that they
+produce palm-trees at one of their extremities, while the other,
+equally low and level, is covered with eternal frost.
+
+The Llanos of America, where they extend in the direction of a
+parallel of the equator, are three-fourths narrower then the great
+desert of Africa. This circumstance is very important in a region
+where the winds constantly blow from east to west. The farther the
+plains stretch in this direction, the more ardent is their climate.
+The great ocean of sand in Africa communicates by Yemen* with Gedrosia
+and Beloochistan, as far as the right bank of the Indus. (* We cannot
+be surprised that the Arabic should be richer than any other language
+of the East in words expressing the ideas of desert, uninhabited
+plains, and plains covered with gramina. I could give a list of
+thirty-five of these words, which the Arabian authors employ without
+always distinguishing them by the shades of meaning which each
+separate word expresses. Makadh and kaah indicate, in preference,
+plains; bakaak, a table-land; kafr, mikfar, smlis, mahk, and habaucer,
+a naked desert, covered with sand and gravel; tanufah, a steppe. Zahra
+means at once a naked desert and a savannah. The word steppe, or step,
+is Russian, and not Tartarian. In the Turco-Tartar dialect a heath is
+called tala or tschol. The word gobi, which Europeans have corrupted
+into cobi, signifies in the Mongol tongue a naked desert. It is
+equivalent to the scha-mo or khan-hai of the Chinese. A steppe, or
+plain covered with herbs, is in Mongol, kudah; in Chinese, kouana.) It
+is from the effect of winds that have passed over the deserts situated
+to the east, that the little basin of the Red Sea, surrounded by
+plains which send forth from all sides radiant caloric, is one of the
+hottest regions of the globe. The unfortunate captain Tuckey relates,*
+(* Expedition to explore the river Zahir, 1818.) that the centigrade
+thermometer keeps there generally in the night at 34 degrees, and by
+day from 40 to 44 degrees. We shall soon see that, even in the
+westernmost part of the steppes of Caracas, we seldom found the
+temperature of the air, in the shade, above 37 degrees.
+
+These physical considerations on the steppes of the New World are
+linked with others more interesting, inasmuch as they are connected
+with the history of our species. The great sea of sand in Africa, the
+deserts without water, are frequented only by caravans, that take
+fifty days to traverse them.* (* This is the maximum of the time,
+according to Major Rennell, Travels of Mungo Park volume 2.)
+Separating the Negro race from the Moors, and the Berber and Kabyle
+tribes, the Sahara is inhabited only in the oases. It affords
+pasturage only in the eastern part, where, from the effect of the
+trade-winds, the layer of sand being less thick, the springs appear at
+the surface of the earth. In America, the steppes, less vast, less
+scorching, fertilized by fine rivers, present fewer obstacles to the
+intercourse of nations. The Llanos separate the chain of the coast of
+Caracas and the Andes of New Grenada from the region of forests; from
+that woody region of the Orinoco which, from the first discovery of
+America, has been inhabited by nations more rude, and farther removed
+from civilization, than the inhabitants of the coast, and still more
+than the mountaineers of the Cordilleras. The steppes, however, were
+no more heretofore the rampart of civilization than they are now the
+rampart of the liberty of the hordes that live in the forests. They
+have not hindered the nations of the Lower Orinoco from going up the
+little rivers and making incursions to the north and the west. If,
+according to the various distribution of animals on the globe, the
+pastoral life could have existed in the New World--if, before the
+arrival of the Spaniards, the Llanos and the Pampas had been filled
+with those numerous herds of cows and horses that graze there,
+Columbus would have found the human race in a state quite different.
+Pastoral nations living on milk and cheese, real nomad races, would
+have spread themselves over those vast plains which communicate with
+each other. They would have been seen at the period of great droughts,
+and even at that of inundations, fighting for the possession of
+pastures; subjugating one another mutually; and, united by the common
+tie of manners, language, and worship, they would have risen to that
+state of demi-civilization which we observe with surprise in the
+nations of the Mongol and Tartar race. America would then, like the
+centre of Asia, have had its conquerors, who, ascending from the
+plains to the tablelands of the Cordilleras, and abandoning a
+wandering life, would have subdued the civilized nations of Peru and
+New Grenada, overturned the throne of the Incas and of the Zaque,* and
+substituted for the despotism which is the fruit of theocracy, that
+despotism which arises from the patriarchal government of a pastoral
+people. (* The Zaque was the secular chief of Cundinamarca. His power
+was shared with the high priest (lama) of Iraca.) In the New World the
+human race has not experienced these great moral and political
+changes, because the steppes, though more fertile than those of Asia,
+have remained without herds; because none of the animals that furnish
+milk in abundance are natives of the plains of South America; and
+because, in the progressive unfolding of American civilization, the
+intermediate link is wanting that connects the hunting with the
+agricultural nations.
+
+We have thought proper to bring together these general notions on the
+plains of the New Continent, and the contrast they exhibit to the
+deserts of Africa and the fertile steppes of Asia, in order to give
+some interest to the narrative of a journey across lands of so
+monotonous an aspect. Having now accomplished this task, I shall trace
+the route by which we proceeded from the volcanic mountains of
+Parapara and the northern side of the Llanos, to the banks of the
+Apure, in the province of Varinas.
+
+After having passed two nights on horseback, and sought in vain, by
+day, for some shelter from the heat of the sun beneath the tufts of
+the moriche palm-trees, we arrived before night at the little Hato del
+Cayman,* (* The Farm of the Alligator.) called also La Guadaloupe. It
+was a solitary house in the steppes, surrounded by a few small huts,
+covered with reeds and skins. The cattle, oxen, horses, and mules are
+not penned, but wander freely over an extent of several square
+leagues. There is nowhere any enclosure; men, naked to the waist and
+armed with a lance, ride over the savannahs to inspect the animals;
+bringing back those that wander too far from the pastures of the farm,
+and branding all that do not already bear the mark of their
+proprietor. These mulattos, who are known by the name of peones
+llaneros, are partly freed-men and partly slaves. They are constantly
+exposed to the burning heat of the tropical sun. Their food is meat,
+dried in the air, and a little salted; and of this even their horses
+sometimes partake. Being always in the saddle, they fancy they cannot
+make the slightest excursion on foot. We found an old negro slave, who
+managed the farm in the absence of his master. He told us of herds
+composed of several thousand cows, that were grazing in the steppes;
+yet we asked in vain for a bowl of milk. We were offered, in a
+calabash, some yellow, muddy, and fetid water, drawn from a
+neighbouring pool. The indolence of the inhabitants of the Llanos is
+such that they do not dig wells, though they know that almost
+everywhere, at ten feet deep, fine springs are found in a stratum of
+conglomerate, or red sandstone. After suffering during one half of the
+year from the effect of inundations, they quietly resign themselves,
+during the other half; to the most distressing deprivation of water.
+The old negro advised us to cover the cup with a linen cloth, and
+drink as through a filter, that we might not be incommoded by the
+smell, and might swallow less of the yellowish mud suspended in the
+water. We did not then think that we should afterwards be forced,
+during whole months, to have recourse to this expedient. The waters of
+the Orinoco are always loaded with earthy particles; they are even
+putrid, where dead bodies of alligators are found in the creeks, lying
+on banks of sand, or half-buried in the mud.
+
+No sooner were our instruments unloaded and safely placed, than our
+mules were set at liberty to go, as they say here, para buscar agua,
+that is, "to search for water." There are little pools round the farm,
+which the animals find, guided by their instinct, by the view of some
+scattered tufts of mauritia, and by the sensation of humid coolness,
+caused by little currents of air amid an atmosphere which to us
+appears calm and tranquil. When the pools of water are far distant,
+and the people of the farm are too lazy to lead the cattle to these
+natural watering-places, they confine them during five or six hours in
+a very hot stable before they let them loose. Excess of thirst then
+augments their sagacity, sharpening as it were their senses and their
+instinct. No sooner is the stable opened, than the horses and mules,
+especially the latter (for the penetration of these animals exceeds
+the intelligence of the horses), rush into the savannahs. With
+upraised tails and heads thrown back they run against the wind,
+stopping from time to time as if exploring space; they follow less the
+impressions of sight than of smell; and at length announce, by
+prolonged neighings, that there is water in the direction of their
+course. All these movements are executed more promptly, and with
+readier success, by horses born in the Llanos, and which have long
+enjoyed their liberty, than by those that come from the coast, and
+descend from domestic horses. In animals, for the most part, as in
+man, the quickness of the senses is diminished by long subjection, and
+by the habits that arise from a fixed abode and the progress of
+cultivation.
+
+We followed our mules in search of one of those pools, whence the
+muddy water had been drawn, that so ill quenched our thirst. We were
+covered with dust, and tanned by the sandy wind, which burns the skin
+even more than the rays of the sun. We longed impatiently to take a
+bath, but we found only a great pool of feculent water, surrounded
+with palm-trees. The water was turbid, though, to our great
+astonishment, a little cooler than the air. Accustomed during our long
+journey to bathe whenever we had an opportunity, often several times
+in one day, we hastened to plunge into the pool. We had scarcely begun
+to enjoy the coolness of the bath, when a noise which we heard on the
+opposite bank, made us leave the water precipitately. It was an
+alligator plunging into the mud.
+
+We were only at the distance of a quarter of a league from the farm,
+yet we continued walking more than an hour without reaching it. We
+perceived too late that we had taken a wrong direction. Having left it
+at the decline of day, before the stars were visible, we had gone
+forward into the plain at hazard. We were, as usual, provided with a
+compass, and it might have been easy for us to steer our course from
+the position of Canopus and the Southern Cross; but unfortunately we
+were uncertain whether, on leaving the farm, we had gone towards the
+east or the south. We attempted to return to the spot where we had
+bathed, and we again walked three quarters of an hour without finding
+the pool. We sometimes thought we saw fire on the horizon; but it was
+the light of the rising stars enlarged by the vapours. After having
+wandered a long time in the savannah, we resolved to seat ourselves
+beneath the trunk of a palm-tree, in a spot perfectly dry, surrounded
+by short grass; for the fear of water-snakes is always greater than
+that of jaguars among Europeans recently disembarked. We could not
+flatter ourselves that our guides, of whom we knew the insuperable
+indolence, would come in search of us in the savannah before they had
+prepared their food and finished their repast. Whilst somewhat
+perplexed by the uncertainty of our situation, we were agreeably
+affected by hearing from afar the sound of a horse advancing towards
+us. The rider was an Indian, armed with a lance, who had just made the
+rodeo, or round, in order to collect the cattle within a determinate
+space of ground. The sight of two white men, who said they had lost
+their way, led him at first to suspect some trick. We found it
+difficult to inspire him with confidence; he at last consented to
+guide us to the farm of the Cayman, but without slackening the gentle
+trot of his horse. Our guides assured us that "they had already begun
+to be uneasy about us;" and, to justify this inquietude, they gave a
+long enumeration of persons who, having lost themselves in the Llanos,
+had been found nearly exhausted. It may be supposed that the danger is
+imminent only to those who lose themselves far from any habitation, or
+who, having been stripped by robbers, as has happened of late years,
+have been fastened by the body and hands to the trunk of a palm-tree.
+
+In order to escape as much as possible from the heat of the day, we
+set off at two in the morning, with the hope of reaching Calabozo
+before noon, a small but busy trading-town, situated in the midst of
+the Llanos. The aspect of the country was still the same. There was no
+moonlight; but the great masses of nebulae that spot the southern sky
+enlighten, as they set, a part of the terrestrial horizon. The solemn
+spectacle of the starry vault, seen in its immense expanse--the cool
+breeze which blows over the plain during the night--the waving motion
+of the grass, wherever it has attained any height; everything recalled
+to our minds the surface of the ocean. The illusion was augmented when
+the disk of the sun appearing on the horizon, repeated its image by
+the effects of refraction, and, soon losing its flattened form,
+ascended rapidly and straight towards the zenith.
+
+Sunrise in the plains is the coolest moment of the day; but this
+change of temperature does not make a very lively impression on the
+organs. We did not find the thermometer in general sink below 27.5;
+while near Acapulco, at Mexico, and in places equally low, the
+temperature at noon is often 32, and at sunrise only 17 or 18 degrees.
+The level surface of the ground in the Llanos, which, during the day,
+is never in the shade, absorbs so much heat that, notwithstanding the
+nocturnal radiation toward a sky without clouds, the earth and air
+have not time to cool very sensibly from midnight to sunrise.
+
+In proportion as the sun rose towards the zenith, and the earth and
+the strata of superincumbent air took different temperatures, the
+phenomenon of the mirage displayed itself in its numerous
+modifications. This phenomenon is so common in every zone, that I
+mention it only because we stopped to measure with some precision the
+breadth of the aerial distance between the horizon and the suspended
+object. There was a constant suspension, without inversion. The little
+currents of air that swept the surface of the soil had so variable a
+temperature that, in a drove of wild oxen, one part appeared with the
+legs raised above the surface of the ground, while the other rested on
+it. The aerial distance was, according to the distance of the animal,
+from 3 to 4 minutes. Where tufts of the moriche palm were found
+growing in long ranges, the extremities of these green rows were
+suspended like the capes which were, for so long a time, the subject
+of my observations at Cumana. A well-informed person assured us, that
+he had seen, between Calabozo and Uritucu, the image of an animal
+inverted, without there being any direct image. Niebuhr made a similar
+observation in Arabia. We several times thought we saw on the horizon
+the figures of tumuli and towers, which disappeared at intervals,
+without our being able to discern the real shape of the objects. They
+were perhaps hillocks, or small eminences, situated beyond the
+ordinary visual horizon. I need not mention those tracts destitute of
+vegetation, which appear like large lakes with an undulating surface.
+This phenomenon, observed in very remote times, has occasioned the
+mirage to receive in Sanscrit the expressive name of desire of the
+antelope. We admire the frequent allusions in the Indian, Persian, and
+Arabic poets, to the magical effects of terrestrial refraction. It was
+scarcely known to the Greeks and Romans. Proud of the riches of their
+soil, and the mild temperature of the air, they would have felt no
+envy of this poetry of the desert. It had its birth in Asia; and the
+oriental poets found its source in the nature of the country they
+inhabited. They were inspired with the aspect of those vast solitudes,
+interposed like arms of the sea or gulfs, between lands which nature
+had adorned with her most luxuriant fertility.
+
+The plain assumes at sunrise a more animated aspect. The cattle, which
+had reposed during the night along the pools, or beneath clumps of
+mauritias and rhopalas, were now collected in herds; and these
+solitudes became peopled with horses, mules, and oxen, that live here
+free, rather than wild, without settled habitations, and disdaining
+the care and protection of man. In these hot climates, the oxen,
+though of Spanish breed, like those of the cold table-lands of Quito,
+are of a gentle disposition. A traveller runs no risk of being
+attacked or pursued, as we often were in our excursions on the back of
+the Cordilleras, where the climate is rude, the aspect of the country
+more wild, and food less abundant. As we approached Calabozo, we saw
+herds of roebucks browsing peacefully in the midst of horses and oxen.
+They are called matacani; their flesh is good; they are a little
+larger than our roes, and resemble deer with a very sleek skin, of a
+fawn-colour, spotted with white. Their horns appear to me to have
+single points. They had little fear of the presence of man: and in
+herds of thirty or forty we observed several that were entirely white.
+This variety, common enough among the large stags of the cold climates
+of the Andes, surprised us in these low and burning plains. I have
+since learned, that even the jaguar, in the hot regions of Paraguay,
+sometimes affords albino varieties, the skin of which is of such
+uniform whiteness that the spots or rings can be distinguished only in
+the sunshine. The number of matacani, or little deer,* (* They are
+called in the country Venados de tierras calientes (deer of the warm
+lands.)) is so considerable in the Llanos, that a trade might be
+carried on with their skins.* (* This trade is carried on, but on a
+very limited scale, at Carora and at Barquesimeto.) A skilful hunter
+could easily kill more than twenty in a day; but such is the indolence
+of the inhabitants, that often they will not give themselves the
+trouble of taking the skin. The same indifference is evinced in the
+chase of the jaguar, a skin of which fetches only one piastre in the
+steppes of Varinas, while at Cadiz it costs four or five.
+
+The steppes that we traversed are principally covered with grasses of
+the genera Killingia, Cenchrus, and Paspalum.* (* Killingia
+monocephala, K. odorata, Cenchrus pilosus, Vilfa tenacissima,
+Andropogon plumosum, Panicum micranthum, Poa repens, Paspalum
+leptostachyum, P. conjugatum, Aristida recurvata. (Nova Genera et
+Species Plantarum, volume 1 pages 84 to 243.) At this season, near
+Calabozo and San Jerome del Pirital, these grasses scarcely attain the
+height of nine or ten inches. Near the banks of the Apure and the
+Portuguesa they rise to four feet in height, so that the jaguar can
+conceal himself among them, to spring upon the mules and horses that
+cross the plain. Mingled with these gramina some plants of the
+dicotyledonous class are found; as turneras, malvaceae, and, what is
+very remarkable, little mimosas with irritable leaves,* called by the
+Spaniards dormideras. (* The sensitive-plant Mimosa dormiens.) The
+same breed of cows, which fatten in Europe on sainfoin and clover,
+find excellent nourishment in the herbaceous sensitive plants. The
+pastures where these shrubs particularly abound are sold at a higher
+price than others. To the east, in the llanos of Cari and Barcelona,
+the cypura and the craniolaria,* (* Cypura graminea, Craniolaria
+annua, the scorzonera of the natives.) the beautiful white flower of
+which is from six to eight inches long, rise solitarily amid the
+gramina. The pastures are richest not only around the rivers subject
+to inundations, but also wherever the trunks of palm-trees are near
+each other. The least fertile spots are those destitute of trees; and
+attempts to cultivate them would be nearly fruitless. We cannot
+attribute this difference to the shelter afforded by the palm-trees,
+in preventing the solar rays from drying and burning up the soil. I
+have seen, it is true, trees of this family, in the forests of the
+Orinoco, spreading a tufted foliage; but we cannot say much for the
+shade of the palm-tree of the llanos, the palma de cobija,* (* The
+roofing palm-tree Corypha tectorum.) which has but a few folded and
+palmate leaves, like those of the chamaerops, and of which the
+lower-most are constantly withered. We were surprised to see that
+almost all these trunks of the corypha were nearly of the same size,
+namely, from twenty to twenty-four feet high, and from eight to ten
+inches diameter at the foot. Nature has produced few species of
+palm-trees in such prodigious numbers. Amidst thousands of trunks
+loaded with olive-shaped fruits we found about one hundred without
+fruit. May we suppose that there are some trees with flowers purely
+monoecious, mingled with others furnished with hermaphrodite flowers?
+
+The Llaneros, or inhabitants of the plains, believe that all these
+trees, though so low, are many centuries old. Their growth is almost
+imperceptible, being scarcely to be noticed in the lapse of twenty or
+thirty years. The wood of the palma de cobija is excellent for
+building. It is so hard, that it is difficult to drive a nail into it.
+The leaves, folded like a fan, are employed to cover the roofs of the
+huts scattered through the Llanos; and these roofs last more than
+twenty years. The leaves are fixed by bending the extremity of the
+footstalks, which have been beaten beforehand between two stones, so
+that they may bend without breaking.
+
+Beside the solitary trunks of this palm-tree, we find dispersed here
+and there in the steppes a few clumps, real groves (palmares), in
+which the corypha is intermingled with a tree of the proteaceous
+family, called chaparro by the natives. It is a new species of
+rhopala,* (* Resembling the Embothrium, of which we found no species
+in South America. The embothriums are represented in American
+vegetation by the genera Lomatia and Oreocallis.) with hard and
+resonant leaves. The little groves of rhopala are called chaparales;
+and it may be supposed that, in a vast plain, where only two or three
+species of trees are to be found, the chaparro, which affords shade,
+is considered a highly valuable plant. The corypha spreads through the
+Llanos of Caracas from Mesa de Peja as far as Guayaval; farther north
+and north-west, near Guanare and San Carlos, its place is taken by
+another species of the same genus, with leaves alike palmate but
+larger. It is called the royal palm of the plains (palma real de los
+Llanos).* (* This palm-tree of the plains must not be confounded with
+the palma real of Caracas and of Curiepe, with pinnate leaves.) Other
+palm-trees rise south of Guayaval, especially the piritu with pinnate
+leaves,* (* Perhaps an Aiphanes.) and the moriche (Mauritia flexuosa),
+celebrated by Father Gumilla under the name of arbol de la vida, or
+tree of life. It is the sago-tree of America, furnishing flour, wine,
+thread for weaving hammocks, baskets, nets, and clothing. Its fruit,
+of the form of the cones of the pine, and covered with scales,
+perfectly resembles that of the Calamus rotang. It has somewhat the
+taste of the apple. When arrived at its maturity it is yellow within
+and red without. The araguato monkeys eat it with avidity; and the
+nation of the Guaraounos, whose whole existence, it may be said, is
+closely linked with that of the moriche palm-tree, produce from it a
+fermented liquor, slightly acid, and extremely refreshing. This
+palm-tree, with its large shining leaves, folded like a fan, preserves
+a beautiful verdure at the period of the greatest drought. The mere
+sight of it produces an agreeable sensation of coolness, and when
+loaded with scaly fruit, it contrasts singularly with the mournful
+aspect of the palma de cobija, the foliage of which is always grey and
+covered with dust. The Llaneros believe that the former attracts the
+vapours in the air;* (* If the head of the moriche were better
+furnished with leaves than it generally is, we might perhaps admit
+that the soil round the tree preserves its humidity through the
+influence of the shade.) and that for this reason, water is constantly
+found at its foot, when dug for to a certain depth. The effect is
+confounded with the cause. The moriche grows best in moist places; and
+it may rather be said that the water attracts the tree. The natives of
+the Orinoco, by analogous reasoning, admit, that the great serpents
+contribute to preserve humidity in a province. "You would look in vain
+for water-serpents," said an old Indian of Javita to us gravely,
+"where there are no marshes; because the water ceases to collect when
+you imprudently kill the serpents that attract it."
+
+We suffered greatly from the heat in crossing the Mesa de Calabozo.
+The temperature of the air augmented sensibly every time that the wind
+began to blow. The air was loaded with dust; and during these gusts
+the thermometer rose to 40 or 41 degrees. We went slowly forward, for
+it would have been dangerous to leave the mules that carried our
+instruments. Our guides advised us to fill our hats with the leaves of
+the rhopala, to diminish the action of the solar rays on the hair and
+the crown of the head. We found relief from this expedient, which was
+particularly agreeable, when we could procure the thick leaves of the
+pothos or some other similar plant.
+
+It is impossible to cross these burning plains, without inquiring
+whether they have always been in the same state; or whether they have
+been stripped of their vegetation by some revolution of nature. The
+stratum of mould now found on them is in fact very thin. The natives
+believe that the palmares and the chaparales (the little groves of
+palm-trees and rhopala) were more frequent and more extensive before
+the arrival of the Spaniards. Since the Llanos have been inhabited and
+peopled with cattle become wild, the savannah is often set on fire, in
+order to ameliorate the pasturage. Groups of scattered trees are
+accidentally destroyed with the grasses. The plains were no doubt less
+bare in the fifteenth century, than they now are; yet the first
+Conquistadores, who came from Coro, described them then as savannahs,
+where nothing could be perceived but the sky and the turf, generally
+destitute of trees, and difficult to traverse on account of the
+reverberation of heat from the soil. Why does not the great forest of
+the Orinoco extend to the north, on the left bank of that river? Why
+does it not fill that vast space that reaches as far as the Cordillera
+of the coast, and which is fertilized by numerous rivers? These
+questions are connected with all that relates to the history of our
+planet. If, indulging in geological reveries, we suppose that the
+steppes of America, and the desert of Sahara, have been stripped of
+their vegetation by an irruption of the ocean, or that they formed
+originally the bottom of an inland sea, we may conceive that thousands
+of years have not sufficed for the trees and shrubs to advance from
+the borders of the forests, from the skirts of the plains either naked
+or covered with turf, toward the centre, and darken so vast a space
+with their shade. It is more difficult to explain the origin of bare
+savannahs, encircled by forests, than to recognize the causes that
+maintain forests and savannahs within their ancient limits, like
+continents and seas.
+
+We found the most cordial hospitality at Calabozo, in the house of the
+superintendent of the royal plantations, Don Miguel Cousin. The town,
+situated between the banks of the Guarico and the Uritucu, contained
+at this period only five thousand inhabitants; but everything denoted
+increasing prosperity. The wealth of most of the inhabitants consists
+in herds, under the management of farmers, who are called hateros,
+from the word hato, which signifies in Spanish a house or farm placed
+in the midst of pastures. The scattered population of the Llanos being
+accumulated on certain points, principally around towns, Calabozo
+reckons already five villages or missions in its environs. It is
+computed, that 98,000 head of cattle wander in the pastures nearest to
+the town. It is very difficult to form an exact idea of the herds
+contained in the Llanos of Caracas, Barcelona, Cumana, and Spanish
+Guiana. M. Depons, who lived in the town of Caracas longer than I, and
+whose statistical statements are generally accurate, reckons in those
+vast plains, from the mouths of the Orinoco to the lake of Maracaybo,
+1,200,000 oxen, 180,000 horses, and 90,000 mules. He estimates the
+produce of these herds at 5,000,000 francs; adding to the value of the
+exportation the price of the hides consumed in the country. There
+exist, it is believed, in the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, 12,000,000 cows,
+and 3,000,000 horses, without comprising in this enumeration the
+cattle that have no acknowledged proprietor.
+
+I shall not hazard any general estimates, which from their nature are
+too uncertain; but shall only observe that, in the Llanos of Caracas,
+the proprietors of the great hatos are entirely ignorant of the number
+of the cattle they possess. They only know that of the young cattle,
+which are branded every year with a letter or mark peculiar to each
+herd. The richest proprietors mark as many as 14,000 head every year;
+and sell to the number of five or six thousand. According to official
+documents, the exportation of hides from the whole capitania-general
+of Caracas amounted annually to 174,000 skins of oxen, and 11,500 of
+goats. When we reflect, that these documents are taken from the books
+of the custom-houses, where no mention is made of the fraudulent
+dealings in hides, we are tempted to believe that the estimate of
+1,200,000 oxen wandering in the Llanos, from the Rio Carony and the
+Guarapiche to the lake of Maracaybo, is much underrated. The port of
+La Guayra alone exported annually from 1789 to 1792, 70,000 or 80,000
+hides, entered in the custom-house books, scarcely one-fifth of which
+was sent to Spain. The exportation from Buenos Ayres, at the end of
+the eighteenth century, was, according to Don Felix de Azara, 800,000
+skins. The hides of Caracas are preferred in the Peninsula to those of
+Buenos Ayres; because the latter, on account of a longer passage,
+undergo a loss of twelve per cent in the tanning. The southern part of
+the savannahs, commonly called the Upper Plains (Llanos de arriba), is
+very productive in mules and oxen; but the pasturage being in general
+less good, these animals are obliged to be sent to other plains to be
+fattened before they are sold. The Llano de Monai, and all the Lower
+Plains (Llanos de abaxo), abound less in herds, but the pastures are
+so fertile, that they furnish meat of an excellent quality for the
+supply of the coast. The mules, which are not fit for labour before
+the fifth year, are purchased on the spot at the price of fourteen or
+eighteen piastres. The horses of the Llanos, descending from the fine
+Spanish breed, are not very large; they are generally of a uniform
+colour, brown bay, like most of the wild animals. Suffering
+alternately from drought and floods, tormented by the stings of
+insects and the bites of the large bats, they lead a sorry life. After
+having enjoyed for some months the care of man, their good qualities
+are developed. Here there are no sheep: we saw flocks only on the
+table-land of Quito.
+
+The hatos of oxen have suffered considerably of late from troops of
+marauders, who roam over the steppes killing the animals merely to
+take their hides. This robbery has increased since the trade of the
+Lower Orinoco has become more flourishing. For half a century, the
+banks of that great river, from the mouth of the Apure as far as
+Angostura, were known only to the missionary-monks. The exportation of
+cattle took place from the ports of the northern coast only, namely
+from Cumana, Barcelona, Burburata, and Porto Cabello. This dependence
+on the coast is now much diminished. The southern part of the plains
+has established an internal communication with the Lower Orinoco; and
+this trade is the more brisk, as those who devote themselves to it
+easily escape the trammels of the prohibitory laws.
+
+The greatest herds of cattle in the Llanos of Caracas are those of the
+hatos of Merecure, La Cruz, Belen, Alta Gracia, and Pavon. The Spanish
+cattle came from Coro and Tocuyo into the plains. History has
+preserved the name of the colonist who first conceived the idea of
+peopling these pasturages, inhabited only by deer, and a large species
+of cavy.* (* The thick-nosed tapir, or river cavy (Cavia capybara),
+called chiguire in those countries.) Christoval Rodriguez sent the
+first horned cattle into the Llanos, about the year 1548. He was an
+inhabitant of the town of Tocuyo, and had long resided in New Grenada.
+
+When we hear of the innumerable quantity of oxen, horses, and mules,
+that are spread over the plains of America, we seem generally to
+forget that in civilized Europe, on lands of much less extent, there
+exist, in agricultural countries, quantities no less prodigious.
+France, according to M. Peuchet, feeds 6,000,000 large horned cattle,
+of which 3,500,000 are oxen employed in drawing the plough. In the
+Austrian monarchy, the number of oxen, cows, and calves, has been
+estimated at 13,400,000 head. Paris alone consumes annually 155,000
+horned cattle. Germany receives 150,000 oxen yearly from Hungary.
+Domestic animals, collected in small herds, are considered by
+agricultural nations as a secondary object in the riches of the state.
+Accordingly they strike the imagination much less than those wandering
+droves of oxen and horses which alone fill the uncultivated tracts of
+the New World. Civilization and social order favour alike the progress
+of population, and the multiplication of animals useful to man.
+
+We found at Calabozo, in the midst of the Llanos, an electrical
+machine with large plates, electrophori, batteries, electrometers; an
+apparatus nearly as complete as our first scientific men in Europe
+possess. All these articles had not been purchased in the United
+States; they were the work of a man who had never seen any instrument,
+who had no person to consult, and who was acquainted with the
+phenomena of electricity only by reading the treatise of De Lafond,
+and Franklin's Memoirs. Senor Carlos del Pozo, the name of this
+enlightened and ingenious man, had begun to make cylindrical
+electrical machines, by employing large glass jars, after having cut
+off the necks. It was only within a few years he had been able to
+procure, by way of Philadelphia, two plates, to construct a plate
+machine, and to obtain more considerable effects. It is easy to judge
+what difficulties Senor Pozo had to encounter, since the first works
+upon electricity had fallen into his hands, and that he had the
+courage to resolve to procure himself, by his own industry, all that
+he had seen described in his books. Till now he had enjoyed only the
+astonishment and admiration produced by his experiments on persons
+destitute of all information, and who had never quitted the solitude
+of the Llanos; our abode at Calabozo gave him a satisfaction
+altogether new. It may be supposed that he set some value on the
+opinions of two travellers who could compare his apparatus with those
+constructed in Europe. I had brought with me electrometers mounted
+with straw, pith-balls, and gold-leaf; also a small Leyden jar which
+could be charged by friction according to the method of Ingenhousz,
+and which served for my physiological experiments. Senor del Pozo
+could not contain his joy on seeing for the first time instruments
+which he had not made, yet which appeared to be copied from his own.
+We also showed him the effect of the contact of heterogeneous metals
+on the nerves of frogs. The name of Galvani and Volta had not
+previously been heard in those vast solitudes.
+
+Next to his electrical apparatus, the work of the industry and
+intelligence of an inhabitant of the Llanos, nothing at Calabozo
+excited in us so great an interest as the gymnoti, which are animated
+electrical apparatuses. I was impatient, from the time of my arrival
+at Cumana, to procure electrical eels. We had been promised them
+often, but our hopes had always been disappointed. Money loses its
+value as you withdraw from the coast; and how is the imperturbable
+apathy of the ignorant people to be vanquished, when they are not
+excited by the desire of gain?
+
+The Spaniards confound all electric fishes under the name of
+tembladores.* (* Literally "tremblers," or "producers of trembling.")
+There are some of these in the Caribbean Sea, on the coast of Cumana.
+The Guayquerie Indians, who are the most skilful and active fishermen
+in those parts, brought us a fish, which, they said, benumbed their
+hands. This fish ascends the little river Manzanares. It is a new
+species of ray, the lateral spots of which are scarcely visible, and
+which much resembles the torpedo. The torpedos, which are furnished
+with an electric organ externally visible, on account of the
+transparency of the skin, form a genus or subgenus different from the
+rays properly so called.* (* Cuvier, Regne Animal volume 2. The
+Mediterranean contains, according to M. Risso, four species of
+electrical torpedos, all formerly confounded under the name of Raia
+torpedo; these are Torpedo narke, T. unimaculata, T. galvanii, and T.
+marmorata. The torpedo of the Cape of Good Hope, the subject of the
+recent experiments of Mr. Todd, is, no doubt, a nondescript species.)
+The torpedo of Cumana was very lively, very energetic in its muscular
+movements, and yet the electric shocks it gave us were extremely
+feeble. They became stronger on galvanizing the animal by the contact
+of zinc and gold. Other tembladores, real gymnoti or electric eels,
+inhabit the Rio Colorado, the Guarapiche, and several little streams
+which traverse the Missions of the Chayma Indians. They abound also in
+the large rivers of America, the Orinoco, the Amazon, and the Meta;
+but the force of the currents and the depth of the water, prevent them
+from being caught by the Indians. They see these fish less frequently
+than they feel shocks from them when swimming or bathing in the river.
+In the Llanos, particularly in the environs of Calabozo, between the
+farms of Morichal and the Upper and Lower Missions, the basins of
+stagnant water and the confluents of the Orinoco (the Rio Guarico and
+the canos Rastro, Berito, and Paloma) are filled with electric eels.
+We at first wished to make our experiments in the house we inhabited
+at Calabozo; but the dread of the shocks caused by the gymnoti is so
+great, and so exaggerated among the common people, that during three
+days we could not obtain one, though they are easily caught, and we
+had promised the Indians two piastres for every strong and vigorous
+fish. This fear of the Indians is the more extraordinary, as they do
+not attempt to adopt precautions in which they profess to have great
+confidence. When interrogated on the effect of the tembladores, they
+never fail to tell the Whites, that they may be touched with impunity
+while you are chewing tobacco. This supposed influence of tobacco on
+animal electricity is as general on the continent of South America, as
+the belief among mariners of the effect of garlic and tallow on the
+magnetic needle.
+
+Impatient of waiting, and having obtained very uncertain results from
+an electric eel which had been brought to us alive, but much
+enfeebled, we repaired to the Cano de Bera, to make our experiments in
+the open air, and at the edge of the water. We set off on the 19th of
+March, at a very early hour, for the village of Rastro; thence we were
+conducted by the Indians to a stream, which, in the time of drought,
+forms a basin of muddy water, surrounded by fine trees,* (* Amyris
+lateriflora, A. coriacea, Laurus pichurin. Myroxylon secundum,
+Malpighia reticulata.) the clusia, the amyris, and the mimosa with
+fragrant flowers. To catch the gymnoti with nets is very difficult, on
+account of the extreme agility of the fish, which bury themselves in
+the mud. We would not employ the barbasco, that is to say, the roots
+of the Piscidea erithyrna, the Jacquinia armillaris, and some species
+of phyllanthus, which thrown into the pool, intoxicate or benumb the
+eels. These methods have the effect of enfeebling the gymnoti. The
+Indians therefore told us that they would "fish with horses,"
+(embarbascar con caballos.* (* Meaning to excite the fish by horses.))
+We found it difficult to form an idea of this extraordinary manner of
+fishing; but we soon saw our guides return from the savannah, which
+they had been scouring for wild horses and mules. They brought about
+thirty with them, which they forced to enter the pool.
+
+The extraordinary noise caused by the horses' hoofs, makes the fish
+issue from the mud, and excites them to the attack. These yellowish
+and livid eels, resembling large aquatic serpents, swim on the surface
+of the water, and crowd under the bellies of the horses and mules. A
+contest between animals of so different an organization presents a
+very striking spectacle. The Indians, provided with harpoons and long
+slender reeds, surround the pool closely; and some climb up the trees,
+the branches of which extend horizontally over the surface of the
+water. By their wild cries, and the length of their reeds, they
+prevent the horses from running away and reaching the bank of the
+pool. The eels, stunned by the noise, defend themselves by the
+repeated discharge of their electric batteries. For a long interval
+they seem likely to prove victorious. Several horses sink beneath the
+violence of the invisible strokes which they receive from all sides,
+in organs the most essential to life; and stunned by the force and
+frequency of the shocks, they disappear under the water. Others,
+panting, with mane erect, and haggard eyes expressing anguish and
+dismay, raise themselves, and endeavour to flee from the storm by
+which they are overtaken. They are driven back by the Indians into the
+middle of the water; but a small number succeed in eluding the active
+vigilance of the fishermen. These regain the shore, stumbling at every
+step, and stretch themselves on the sand, exhausted with fatigue, and
+with limbs benumbed by the electric shocks of the gymnoti.
+
+In less than five minutes two of our horses were drowned. The eel
+being five feet long, and pressing itself against the belly of the
+horses, makes a discharge along the whole extent of its electric
+organ. It attacks at once the heart, the intestines, and the caeliac
+fold of the abdominal nerves. It is natural that the effect felt by
+the horses should be more powerful than that produced upon man by the
+touch of the same fish at only one of his extremities. The horses are
+probably not killed, but only stunned. They are drowned from the
+impossibility of rising amid the prolonged struggle between the other
+horses and the eels.
+
+We had little doubt that the fishing would terminate by killing
+successively all the animals engaged; but by degrees the impetuosity
+of this unequal combat diminished, and the wearied gymnoti dispersed.
+They require a long rest, and abundant nourishment, to repair the
+galvanic force which they have lost.* (* The Indians assured us that
+when the horses are made to run two days successively into the same
+pool, none are killed the second day. See, on the fishing for gymnoti
+Views of Nature Bohn's edition page 18.) The mules and horses appear
+less frightened; their manes are no longer bristled, and their eyes
+express less dread. The gymnoti approach timidly the edge of the
+marsh, where they are taken by means of small harpoons fastened to
+long cords. When the cords are very dry the Indians feel no shock in
+raising the fish into the air. In a few minutes we had five large
+eels, most of which were but slightly wounded. Some others were taken,
+by the same means, towards evening.
+
+The temperature of the waters in which the gymnoti habitually live, is
+from 26 to 27 degrees. Their electric force diminishes it is said, in
+colder waters; and it is remarkable that, in general, animals endowed
+with electromotive organs, the effects of which are sensible to man,
+are not found in the air, but in a fluid that is a conductor of
+electricity. The gymnotus is the largest of electrical fishes. I
+measured some that were from five feet to five feet three inches long;
+and the Indians assert that they have seen them still larger. We found
+that a fish of three feet ten inches long weighed twelve pounds. The
+transverse diameter of the body, without reckoning the anal fin, which
+is elongated in the form of a keel, was three inches and a half. The
+gymnoti of the Cano de Bera are of a fine olive-green. The under part
+of the head is yellow mingled with red. Two rows of small yellow spots
+are placed symmetrically along the back, from the head to the end of
+the tail. Every spot contains an excretory aperture. In consequence,
+the skin of the animal is constantly covered with a mucous matter,
+which, as Volta has proved, conducts electricity twenty or thirty
+times better than pure water. It is in general somewhat remarkable,
+that no electric fish yet discovered in the different parts of the
+world, is covered with scales.* (* We yet know with certainty only
+seven electric fishes; Torpedo narke, Risso, T. unimaculata, T.
+marmorata, T. galvanii, Silurus electricus, Tetraodon electricus,
+Gymnotus electricus. It appears uncertain whether the Trichiurus
+indicus has electrical properties or not. See Cuvier's Regne Animal
+volume 2. But the genus Torpedo, very different from that of the rays
+properly so called, has numerous species in the equatorial seas; and
+it is probable that there exist several gymnoti specifically
+different. The Indians mentioned to us a black and very powerful
+species, inhabiting the marshes of the Apure, which never attains a
+length of more than two feet, but which we were not able to procure.
+The raton of the Rio de la Magdalena, which I have described under the
+name of Gymnotus aequilabiatus (Observations de Zoologie volume 1)
+forms a particular sub-genus. This is a Carapa, not scaly, and without
+an electric organ. This organ is also entirely wanting in the
+Brazilian Carapo, and in all the rays which were carefully examined by
+Cuvier.)
+
+The gymnoti, like our eels, are fond of swallowing and breathing air
+on the surface of the water; but we must not thence conclude that the
+fish would perish if it could not come up to breathe the air. The
+European eel will creep during the night upon the grass; but I have
+seen a very vigorous gymnotus that had sprung out of the water, die on
+the ground. M. Provencal and myself have proved by our researches on
+the respiration of fishes, that their humid bronchiae perform the
+double function of decomposing the atmospheric air, and of
+appropriating the oxygen contained in water. They do not suspend their
+respiration in the air; but they absorb the oxygen like a reptile
+furnished with lungs. It is known that carp may be fattened by being
+fed, out of the water, if their gills are wet from time to time with
+humid moss, to prevent them from becoming dry. Fish separate their
+gill-covers wider in oxygen gas than in water. Their temperature
+however, does not rise; and they live the same length of time in pure
+vital air, and in a mixture of ninety parts nitrogen and ten oxygen.
+We found that tench placed under inverted jars filled with air, absorb
+half a cubic centimetre of oxygen in an hour. This action takes place
+in the gills only; for fishes on which a collar of cork has been
+fastened, and leaving their head out of the jar filled with air, do
+not act upon the oxygen by the rest of their body.
+
+The swimming-bladder of the gymnotus is two feet five inches long in a
+fish of three feet ten inches.* (* Cuvier has shown that in the
+Gymnotus electricus there exists, besides the large swimming-bladder,
+another situated before it, and much smaller. It looks like the
+bifurcated swimming-bladder in the Gymnotus aequilabiatus.) It is
+separated by a mass of fat from the external skin; and rests upon the
+electric organs, which occupy more than two-thirds of the animal's
+body. The same vessels which penetrate between the plates or leaves of
+these organs, and which cover them with blood when they are cut
+transversely, also send out numerous branches to the exterior surface
+of the air-bladder. I found in a hundred parts of the air of the
+swimming-bladder four of oxygen and ninety-six of nitrogen. The
+medullary substance of the brain displays but a feeble analogy with
+the albuminous and gelatinous matter of the electric organs. But these
+two substances have in common the great quantity of arterial blood
+which they receive, and which is deoxidated in them. We may again
+remark, on this occasion, that an extreme activity in the functions of
+the brain causes the blood to flow more abundantly towards the head,
+as the energy of the movement of the muscles accelerates the
+deoxidation of the arterial blood. What a contrast between the
+multitude and the diameter of the blood-vessels of the gymnotus, and
+the small space occupied by its muscular system! This contrast reminds
+the observer, that three functions of animal life, which appear in
+other respects sufficiently distinct--the functions of the brain,
+those of the electrical organ, and those of the muscles, all require
+the afflux and concourse of arterial or oxygenated blood.
+
+It would be temerity to expose ourselves to the first shocks of a very
+large and strongly irritated gymnotus. If by chance a stroke be
+received before the fish is wounded or wearied by long pursuit, the
+pain and numbness are so violent that it is impossible to describe the
+nature of the feeling they excite. I do not remember having ever
+received from the discharge of a large Leyden jar, a more dreadful
+shock than that which I experienced by imprudently placing both my
+feet on a gymnotus just taken out of the water. I was affected during
+the rest of the day with a violent pain in the knees, and in almost
+every joint. To be aware of the difference that exists between the
+sensation produced by the Voltaic battery and an electric fish, the
+latter should be touched when they are in a state of extreme weakness.
+The gymnoti and the torpedos then cause a twitching of the muscles,
+which is propagated from the part that rests on the electric organs,
+as far as the elbow. We seem to feel, at every stroke, an internal
+vibration, which lasts two or three seconds, and is followed by a
+painful numbness. Accordingly, the Tamanac Indians call the gymnotus,
+in their expressive language, arimna, which means something that
+deprives of motion.
+
+The sensation caused by the feeble shocks of an electric eel appeared
+to me analogous to that painful twitching with which I have been
+seized at each contact of two heterogeneous metals applied to wounds
+which I had made on my back by means of cantharides. This difference
+of sensation between the effects of electric fishes and those of a
+Voltaic battery or a Leyden jar feebly charged has struck every
+observer; there is, however, nothing in this contrary to the
+supposition of the identity of electricity and the galvanic action of
+fishes. The electricity may be the same; but its effects will be
+variously modified by the disposition of the electrical apparatus, by
+the intensity of the fluid, by the rapidity of the current, and by the
+particular mode of action.
+
+In Dutch Guiana, at Demerara for instance, electric eels were formerly
+employed to cure paralytic affections. At a time when the physicians
+of Europe had great confidence in the effects of electricity, a
+surgeon of Essequibo, named Van der Lott, published in Holland a
+treatise on the medical properties of the gymnotus. These electric
+remedies are practised among the savages of America, as they were
+among the Greeks. We are told by Scribonius Largus, Galen, and
+Dioscorides, that torpedos cure the headache and the gout. I did not
+hear of this mode of treatment in the Spanish colonies which I
+visited; and I can assert that, after having made experiments during
+four hours successively with gymnoti, M. Bonpland and myself felt,
+till the next day, a debility in the muscles, a pain in the joints,
+and a general uneasiness, the effect of a strong irritation of the
+nervous system.
+
+The gymnotus is neither a charged conductor, nor a battery, nor an
+electromotive apparatus, the shock of which is received every time
+they are touched with one hand, or when both hands are applied to form
+a conducting circle between the opposite poles. The electric action of
+the fish depends entirely on its will; because it does not keep its
+electric organs always charged, or whether by the secretion of some
+fluid, or by any other means alike mysterious to us, it be capable of
+directing the action of its organs to an external object. We often
+tried, both insulated and otherwise, to touch the fish, without
+feeling the least shock. When M. Bonpland held it by the head, or by
+the middle of the body, while I held it by the tail, and, standing on
+the moist ground, did not take each other's hand, one of us received
+shocks, which the other did not feel. It depends upon the gymnotus to
+direct its action towards the point where it finds itself most
+strongly irritated. The discharge is then made at one point only, and
+not at the neighbouring points. If two persons touch the belly of the
+fish with their fingers, at an inch distance, and press it
+simultaneously, sometimes one, sometimes the other, will receive the
+shock. In the same manner, when one insulated person holds the tail of
+a vigorous gymnotus, and another pinches the gills or pectoral fin, it
+is often the first only by whom the shock is received. It did not
+appear to us that these differences could be attributed to the dryness
+or moisture of our hands, or to their unequal conducting power. The
+gymnotus seemed to direct its strokes sometimes from the whole surface
+of its body, sometimes from one point only. This effect indicates less
+a partial discharge of the organ composed of an innumerable quantity
+of layers, than the faculty which the animal possesses, (perhaps by
+the instantaneous secretion of a fluid spread through the cellular
+membrane,) of establishing the communication between its organs and
+the skin only, in a very limited space.
+
+Nothing proves more strongly the faculty, which the gymnotus
+possesses, of darting and directing its stroke at will, than the
+observations made at Philadelphia and Stockholm,* on gymnoti rendered
+extremely tame. (* By MM. Williamson and Fahlberg. The following
+account is given by the latter gentleman. "The gymnotus sent from
+Surinam to M. Norderling, at Stockholm, lived more than four months in
+a state of perfect health. It was twenty-seven inches long; and the
+shocks it gave were so violent, especially in the open air, that I
+found scarcely any means of protecting myself by non-conductors, in
+transporting the fish from one place to another. Its stomach being
+very small, it ate little at a time, but fed often. It approached
+living fish, first sending them from afar a shock, the energy of which
+was proportionate to the size of the prey. The gymnotus seldom failed
+in its aim; one single stroke was almost always sufficient to overcome
+the resistance which the strata of water, more or less thick according
+to the distance, opposed to the electrical current. When very much
+pressed by hunger, it sometimes directed the shocks against the person
+who daily brought its food of boiled meat. Persons afflicted with
+rheumatism came to touch it in hopes of being cured. They took it at
+once by the neck and tail the shocks were in this case stronger than
+when touched with one hand only. It almost entirely lost its
+electrical power a short time before its death.") When they had been
+made to fast a long time, they killed small fishes put into the tub.
+They acted from a distance; that is to say, their electrical shock
+passed through a very thick stratum of water. We need not be surprised
+that what was observed in Sweden, on a single gymnotus only, we could
+not perceive in a great number of individuals in their native country.
+The electric action of animals being a vital action, and subject to
+their will, it does not depend solely on their state of health and
+vigour. A gymnotus that has been kept a long time in captivity,
+accustoms itself to the imprisonment to which it is reduced; it
+resumes by degrees the same habits in the tub, which it had in the
+rivers and marshes. An electrical eel was brought to me at Calabozo:
+it had been taken in a net, and consequently having no wound. It ate
+meat, and terribly frightened the little tortoises and frogs which,
+not aware of their danger, placed themselves on its back. The frogs
+did not receive the stroke till the moment when they touched the body
+of the gymnotus. When they recovered, they leaped out of the tub; and
+when replaced near the fish, they were frightened at the mere sight of
+it. We then observed nothing that indicated an action at a distance;
+but our gymnotus, recently taken, was not yet sufficiently tame to
+attack and devour frogs. On approaching the finger, or the metallic
+points, very close to the electric organs, no shock was felt. Perhaps
+the animal did not perceive the proximity of a foreign body; or, if it
+did, we must suppose that in the commencement of its captivity,
+timidity prevented it from darting forth its energetic strokes except
+when strongly irritated by an immediate contact. The gymnotus being
+immersed in water, I placed my hand, both armed and unarmed with
+metal, within a very small distance from the electric organs; yet the
+strata of water transmitted no shock, while M. Bonpland irritated the
+animal strongly by an immediate contact, and received some very
+violent shocks. Had we placed a very delicate electroscope in the
+contiguous strata of water, it might possibly have been influenced at
+the moment when the gymnotus seemed to direct its stroke elsewhere.
+Prepared frogs, placed immediately on the body of a torpedo,
+experience, according to Galvani, a strong contraction at every
+discharge of the fish.
+
+The electrical organ of the gymnoti acts only under the immediate
+influence of the brain and the heart. On cutting a very vigorous fish
+through the middle of the body, the fore part alone gave shocks. These
+are equally strong in whatever part of the body the fish is touched;
+it is most disposed, however, to emit them when the pectoral fin, the
+electrical organ, the lips, the eyes, or the gills, are pinched.
+Sometimes the animal struggles violently with a person holding it by
+the tail, without communicating the least shock. Nor did I feel any
+when I made a slight incision near the pectoral fin of the fish, and
+galvanized the wound by the contact of two pieces of zinc and silver.
+The gymnotus bent itself convulsively, and raised its head out of the
+water, as if terrified by a sensation altogether new; but I felt no
+vibration in the hands which held the two metals. The most violent
+muscular movements are not always accompanied by electric discharges.
+
+The action of the fish on the human organs is transmitted and
+intercepted by the same bodies that transmit and intercept the
+electrical current of a conductor charged by a Leyden jar, or Voltaic
+battery. Some anomalies, which we thought we observed, are easily
+explained, when we recollect that even metals (as is proved from their
+ignition when exposed to the action of the battery) present a slight
+obstacle to the passage of electricity; and that a bad conductor
+annihilates the effect, on our organs, of a feeble electric charge,
+whilst it transmits to us the effect of a very strong one. The
+repulsive force which zinc and silver exercise together being far
+superior to that of gold and silver, I have found that when a frog,
+prepared and armed with silver, is galvanized under water, the
+conducting arc of zinc produces contraction as soon as one of its
+extremities approaches the muscles within three lines distance; while
+an arc of gold does not excite the organs, when the stratum of water
+between the gold and the muscles is more than half a line thick. In
+the same manner, by employing a conducting arc composed of two pieces
+of zinc and silver soldered together endways; and resting, as before,
+one of the extremities of the metallic circuit on the femoral nerve,
+it is necessary, in order to produce contractions, to bring the other
+extremity of the conductor nearer and nearer to the muscles, in
+proportion as the irritability of the organs diminishes. Toward the
+end of the experiment the slightest stratum of water prevents the
+passage of the electrical current, and it is only by the immediate
+contact of the arc with the muscles, that the contractions take place.
+These effects are, however, dependent on three variable circumstances;
+the energy of the electromotive apparatus, the conductibility of the
+medium, and the irritability of the organs which receive the
+impressions: it is because experiments have not been sufficiently
+multiplied with a view to these three variable elements, that, in the
+action of electric eels and torpedos, accidental circumstances have
+been taken for absolute conditions, without which the electric shocks
+are not felt.
+
+In wounded gymnoti, which give feeble but very equal shocks, these
+shocks appeared to us constantly stronger on touching the body of the
+fish with a hand armed with metal, than with the naked hand. They are
+stronger also, when, instead of touching the fish with one hand,
+naked, or armed with metal, we press it at once with both hands,
+either naked or armed. These differences become sensible only when one
+has gymnoti enough at disposal to be able to choose the weakest; and
+when the extreme equality of the electric discharges admits of
+distinguishing between the sensations felt alternately by the hand
+naked or armed with a metal, by one or both hands naked, and by one or
+both hands armed with metal. It is also in the case only of small
+shocks, feeble and uniform, that they are more sensible on touching
+the gymnotus with one hand (without forming a chain) with zinc, than
+with copper or iron.
+
+Resinous substances, glass, very dry wood, horn, and even bones, which
+are generally believed to be good conductors, prevent the action of
+the gymnoti from being transmitted to man. I was surprised at not
+feeling the least shock on pressing wet sticks of sealing-wax against
+the organs of the fish, while the same animal gave me the most violent
+strokes, when excited by means of a metallic rod. M. Bonpland received
+shocks, when carrying a gymnotus on two cords of the fibres of the
+palm-tree, which appeared to us extremely dry. A strong discharge
+makes its way through very imperfect conductors. Perhaps also the
+obstacle which the conductor presents renders the discharge more
+painful. I touched the gymnotus with a wet pot of brown clay, without
+effect; yet I received violent shocks when I carried the gymnotus in
+the same pot, because the contact was greater.
+
+When two persons, insulated or otherwise, hold each other's hands, and
+only one of these persons touches the fish with the hand, either naked
+or armed with metal, the shock is most commonly felt by both at once.
+However, it sometimes happens that, in the most severe shocks, the
+person who comes into immediate contact with the fish alone feels
+them. When the gymnotus is exhausted, or in a very reduced state of
+excitability, and will no longer emit strokes on being irritated with
+one hand, the shocks are felt in a very vivid manner, on forming the
+chain, and employing both hands. Even then, however, the electric
+shock takes place only at the will of the animal. Two persons, one of
+whom holds the tail, and the other the head, cannot, by joining hands
+and forming a chain, force the gymnotus to dart his stroke.
+
+Though employing the most delicate electrometers in various ways,
+insulating them on a plate of glass, and receiving very strong shocks
+which passed through the electrometer, I could never discover any
+phenomenon of attraction or repulsion. The same observation was made
+by M. Fahlberg at Stockholm. That philosopher, however, has seen an
+electric spark, as Walsh and Ingenhousz had before him, in London, by
+placing the gymnotus in the air, and interrupting the conducting chain
+by two gold leaves pasted upon glass, and a line distant from each
+other. No person, on the contrary, has ever perceived a spark issue
+from the body of the fish itself. We irritated it for a long time
+during the night, at Calabozo, in perfect darkness, without observing
+any luminous appearance. Having placed four gymnoti, of unequal
+strength, in such a manner as to receive the shocks of the most
+vigorous fish by contact, that is to say, by touching only one of the
+other fishes, I did not observe that these last were agitated at the
+moment when the current passed their bodies. Perhaps the current did
+not penetrate below the humid surface of the skin. We will not,
+however, conclude from this, that the gymnoti are insensible to
+electricity; and that they cannot fight with each other at the bottom
+of the pools. Their nervous system must be subject to the same agents
+as the nerves of other animals. I have indeed seen, that, on laying
+open their nerves, they undergo muscular contractions at the mere
+contact of two opposite metals; and M. Fahlberg, of Stockholm, found
+that his gymnotus was convulsively agitated when placed in a copper
+vessel, and feeble discharges from a Leyden jar passed through its
+skin.
+
+After the experiments I had made on gymnoti, it became highly
+interesting to me, on my return to Europe, to ascertain with precision
+the various circumstances in which another electric fish, the torpedo
+of our seas, gives or does not give shocks. Though this fish had been
+examined by numerous men of science, I found all that had been
+published on its electrical effects extremely vague. It has been very
+arbitrarily supposed, that this fish acts like a Leyden jar, which may
+be discharged at will, by touching it with both hands; and this
+supposition appears to have led into error observers who have devoted
+themselves to researches of this kind. M. Gay-Lussac and myself,
+during our journey to Italy, made a great number of experiments on
+torpedos taken in the gulf of Naples. These experiments furnish many
+results somewhat different from those I collected on the gymnoti. It
+is probable that the cause of these anomalies is owing rather to the
+inequality of electric power in the two fishes, than to the different
+disposition of their organs.
+
+Though the power of the torpedo cannot be compared with that of the
+gymnotus, it is sufficient to cause very painful sensations. A person
+accustomed to electric shocks can with difficulty hold in his hands a
+torpedo of twelve or fourteen inches, and in possession of all its
+vigour. When the torpedo gives only very feeble strokes under water,
+they become more sensible if the animal be raised above the surface. I
+have often observed the same phenomenon in experimenting on frogs.
+
+The torpedo moves the pectoral fins convulsively every time it emits a
+stroke; and this stroke is more or less painful, according as the
+immediate contact takes place by a greater or less surface. We
+observed that the gymnotus gives the strongest shocks without making
+any movement with the eyes, head, or fins.* (* The anal fin of the
+gymnoti only has a sensible motion when these fishes are excited under
+the belly, where the electric organ is placed.) Is this difference
+caused by the position of the electric organ, which is not double in
+the gymnoti? or does the movement of the pectoral fins of the torpedo
+directly prove that the fish restores the electrical equilibrium by
+its own skin, discharges itself by its own body, and that we generally
+feel only the effect of a lateral shock?
+
+We cannot discharge at will either a torpedo or a gymnotus, as we
+discharge at will a Leyden jar or a Voltaic battery. A shock is not
+always felt, even on touching the electric fish with both hands. We
+must irritate it to make it give the shock. This action in the
+torpedos, as well as in the gymnoti, is a vital action; it depends on
+the will only of the animal, which perhaps does not always keep its
+electric organs charged, or does not always employ the action of its
+nerves to establish the chain between the positive and negative poles.
+It is certain that the torpedo gives a long series of shocks with
+astonishing celerity; whether it is that the plates or laminae of its
+organs are not wholly exhausted, or that the fish recharges them
+instantaneously.
+
+The electric stroke is felt, when the animal is disposed to give it,
+whether we touch with a single finger only one of the surfaces of the
+organs, or apply both hands to the two surfaces, the superior and
+inferior, at once. In either case it is altogether indifferent whether
+the person who touches the fish with one finger or both hands be
+insulated or not. All that has been said on the necessity of a
+communication with the damp ground to establish a circuit, is founded
+on inaccurate observations.
+
+M. Gay-Lussac made the important observation that when an insulated
+person touches the torpedo with one finger, it is indispensible that
+the contact be direct. The fish may with impunity be touched with a
+key, or any other metallic instrument; no shock is felt when a
+conducting or non-conducting body is interposed between the finger and
+the electrical organ of the torpedo. This circumstance proves a great
+difference between the torpedo and the gymnotus, the latter giving his
+strokes through an iron rod several feet long.
+
+When the torpedo is placed on a metallic plate of very little
+thickness, so that the plate touches the inferior surface of the
+organs, the hand that supports the plate never feels any shock, though
+another insulated person may excite the animal, and the convulsive
+movement of the pectoral fins may denote the strongest and most
+reiterated discharges.
+
+If, on the contrary, a person support the torpedo placed upon a
+metallic plate, with the left hand, as in the foregoing experiment,
+and the same person touch the superior surface of the electrical organ
+with the right hand, a strong shock is then felt in both arms. The
+sensation is the same when the fish is placed between two metallic
+plates, the edges of which do not touch, and the person applies both
+hands at once to these plates. The interposition of one metallic plate
+prevents the communication if that plate be touched with one hand
+only, while the interposition of two metallic plates does not prevent
+the shock when both hands are applied. In the latter case it cannot be
+doubted that the circulation of the fluid is established by the two
+arms.
+
+If, in this situation of the fish between two plates, there exist any
+immediate communication between the edges of these two plates, no
+shock takes place. The chain between the two surfaces of the electric
+organ is then formed by the plates, and the new communication,
+established by the contact of the two hands with the two plates,
+remains without effect. We carried the torpedo with impunity between
+two plates of metal, and felt the strokes it gave only at the instant
+when they ceased to touch each other at the edges.
+
+Nothing in the torpedo or in the gymnotus indicates that the animal
+modifies the electrical state of the bodies by which it is surrounded.
+The most delicate electrometer is no way affected in whatever manner
+it is employed, whether bringing it near the organs or insulating the
+fish, covering it with a metallic plate, and causing the plate to
+communicate by a conducting wire with the condenser of Volta. We were
+at great pains to vary the experiments by which we sought to render
+the electrical tension of the torpedo sensible; but they were
+constantly without effect, and perfectly confirmed what M. Bonpland
+and myself had observed respecting the gymnoti, during our abode in
+South America.
+
+Electrical fishes, when very vigorous, act with equal energy under
+water and in the air. This observation led us to examine the
+conducting property of water; and we found that, when several persons
+form the chain between the superior and inferior surface of the organs
+of the torpedo, the shock is felt only when these persons join hands.
+The action is not intercepted if two persons, who support the torpedo
+with their right hands, instead of taking one another by the left
+hand, plunge each a metallic point into a drop of water placed on an
+insulating substance. On substituting flame for the drop of water, the
+communication is interrupted, and is only re-established, as in the
+gymnotus, when the two points immediately touch each other in the
+interior of the flame.
+
+We are, doubtless, very far from having discovered all the secrets of
+the electrical action of fishes which is modified by the influence of
+the brain and the nerves; but the experiments we have just described
+are sufficient to prove that these fishes act by a concealed
+electricity, and by electromotive organs of a peculiar construction,
+which are recharged with extreme rapidity. Volta admits that the
+discharges of the opposite electricities in the torpedos and the
+gymnoti are made by their own skin, and that when we touch them with
+one hand only, or by means of a metallic point, we feel the effect of
+a lateral shock, the electrical current not being directed solely the
+shortest way. When a Leyden jar is placed on a wet woollen cloth
+(which is a bad conductor), and the jar is discharged in such a manner
+that the cloth makes part of the chain, prepared frogs, placed at
+different distances, indicate by their contractions that the current
+spreads itself over the whole cloth in a thousand different ways.
+According to this analogy, the most violent shock given by the
+gymnotus at a distance would be but a feeble part of the stroke which
+re-establishes the equilibrium in the interior of the fish.* (* The
+heterogeneous poles of the double electrical organs must exist in each
+organ. Mr. Todd has recently proved, by experiments made on torpedos
+at the Cape of Good Hope, that the animal continues to give violent
+shocks when one of these organs is extirpated. On the contrary, all
+electrical action is stopped (and this point, as elucidated by
+Galvani, is of the greatest importance) if injury be inflicted on the
+brain, or if the nerves which supply the plates of the electrical
+organs be divided. In the latter case, the nerves being cut, and the
+brain left untouched, the torpedo continues to live, and perform every
+muscular movement. A fish, exhausted by too numerous electrical
+discharges, suffered much more than another fish deprived, by dividing
+the nerves, of any communication between the brain and the
+electromotive apparatus. Philosophical Transactions 1816.) As the
+gymnotus directs its stroke wherever it pleases, it must also be
+admitted that the discharge is not made by the whole skin at once, but
+that the animal, excited perhaps by the motion of a fluid poured into
+one part of the cellular membrane, establishes at will the
+communication between its organs and some particular part of the skin.
+It may be conceived that a lateral stroke, out of the direct current,
+must become imperceptible under the two conditions of a very weak
+discharge, or a very great obstacle presented by the nature and length
+of the conductor. Notwithstanding these considerations, it appears to
+me very surprising that shocks of the torpedo, strong in appearance,
+are not propagated to the hand when a very thin plate of metal is
+interposed between it and the fish.
+
+Schilling declared that the gymnotus approached the magnet
+involuntarily. We tried in a thousand ways this supposed influence of
+the magnet on the electrical organs, without having ever observed any
+sensible effect. The fish no more approached the magnet, than a bar of
+iron not magnetic. Iron-filings, thrown on its back, remained
+motionless.
+
+The gymnoti, which are objects of curiosity and of the deepest
+interest to the philosophers of Europe, are at once dreaded and
+detested by the natives. They furnish, indeed, in their muscular
+flesh, pretty good aliment; but the electric organ fills the greater
+part of their body, and this organ is slimy, and disagreeable to the
+taste; it is accordingly separated with care from the rest of the eel.
+The presence of gymnoti is also considered as the principal cause of
+the want of fish in the ponds and pools of the Llanos. They, however,
+kill many more than they devour: and the Indians told us, that when
+young alligators and gymnoti are caught at the same time in very
+strong nets, the latter never show the slightest trace of a wound,
+because they disable the young alligators before they are attacked by
+them. All the inhabitants of the waters dread the society of the
+gymnoti. Lizards, tortoises, and frogs, seek pools where they are
+secure from the electric action. It became necessary to change the
+direction of a road near Uritucu, because the electric eels were so
+numerous in one river, that they every year killed a great number of
+mules, as they forded the water with their burdens.
+
+Though in the present state of our knowledge we may flatter ourselves
+with having thrown some light on the extraordinary effects of electric
+fishes, yet a vast number of physical and physiological researches
+still remain to be made. The brilliant results which chemistry has
+obtained by means of the Voltaic battery, have occupied all observers,
+and turned attention for some time from the examinations of the
+phenomena of vitality. Let us hope that these phenomena, the most
+awful and the most mysterious of all, will in their turn occupy the
+earnest attention of natural philosophers. This hope will be easily
+realized if they succeed in procuring anew living gymnoti in some one
+of the great capitals of Europe. The discoveries that will be made on
+the electromotive apparatus of these fish, much more energetic, and
+more easy of preservation, than the torpedos,* will extend to all the
+phenomena of muscular motion subject to volition. (* In order to
+investigate the phenomena of the living electromotive apparatus in its
+greatest simplicity, and not to mistake for general conditions
+circumstances which depend on the degree of energy of the electric
+organs, it is necessary to perform the experiments on those electrical
+fishes most easily tamed. If the gymnoti were not known, we might
+suppose, from the observations made on torpedos, that fishes cannot
+give their shocks from a distance through very thick strata of water,
+or through a bar of iron, without forming a circuit. Mr. Williamson
+has felt strong shocks when he held only one hand in the water, and
+this hand, without touching the gymnotus, was placed between it and
+the small fish towards which the stroke was directed from ten or
+fifteen inches distance. Philosophical Transactions volume 65 pages 99
+and 108. When the gymnotus was enfeebled by bad health, the lateral
+shock was imperceptible; and in order to feel the shock, it was
+necessary to form a chain, and touch the fish with both hands at once.
+Cavendish, in his ingenious experiments on an artificial torpedo, had
+well remarked these differences, depending on the greater or less
+energy of the charge. Philosophical Transactions 1776 page 212.) It
+will perhaps be found that, in most animals, every contraction of the
+muscular fibre is preceded by a discharge from the nerve into the
+muscle; and that the mere simple contact of heterogeneous substances
+is a source of movement and of life in all organized beings. Did an
+ingenious and lively people, the Arabians, guess from remote
+antiquity, that the same force which inflames the vault of Heaven in
+storms, is the living and invisible weapon of inhabitants of the
+waters? It is said, that the electric fish of the Nile bears a name in
+Egypt, that signifies thunder.* (* It appears, however, that a
+distinction is to be made between rahd, thunder, and rahadh, the
+electrical fish; and that this latter word means simply that which
+causes trembling.)
+
+We left the town of Calabozo on the 24th of March, highly satisfied
+with our stay, and the experiments we had made on an object so worthy
+of the attention of physiologists. I had besides obtained some good
+observations of the stars; and discovered with surprise, that the
+errors of maps amounted here also to a quarter of a degree of
+latitude. No person had taken an observation before me on this spot;
+and geographers, magnifying as usual the distance from the coast to
+the islands, have carried back beyond measure all the localities
+towards the south.
+
+As we advanced into the southern part of the Llanos, we found the
+ground more dusty, more destitute of herbage, and more cracked by the
+effect of long drought. The palm-trees disappeared by degrees. The
+thermometer kept, from eleven in the morning till sunset, at 34 or 35
+degrees. The calmer the air appeared at eight or ten feet high, the
+more we were enveloped in those whirlwinds of dust, caused by the
+little currents of air that sweep the ground. About four o'clock in
+the afternoon, we found a young Indian girl stretched upon the
+savannah. She was almost in a state of nudity, and appeared to be
+about twelve or thirteen years of age. Exhausted with fatigue and
+thirst, her eyes, nostrils, and mouth filled with dust, she breathed
+with a rattling in her throat, and was unable to answer our questions.
+A pitcher, overturned, and half filled with sand, was lying at her
+side. Happily one of our mules was laden with water; and we roused the
+girl from her lethargic state by bathing her face, and forcing her to
+drink a few drops of wine. She was at first alarmed on seeing herself
+surrounded by so many persons; but by degrees she took courage, and
+conversed with our guides. She judged, from the position of the sun,
+that she must have remained during several hours in that state of
+lethargy. We could not prevail on her to mount one of our beasts of
+burden, and she would not return to Uritucu. She had been in service
+at a neighbouring farm; and she had been discharged, because at the
+end of a long sickness she was less able to work than before. Our
+menaces and prayers were alike fruitless; insensible to suffering,
+like the rest of her race, she persisted in her resolution of going to
+one of the Indian Missions near the city of Calabozo. We removed the
+sand from her pitcher, and filled it with water. She resumed her way
+along the steppe, before we had remounted our horses, and was soon
+separated from us by a cloud of dust. During the night we forded the
+Rio Uritucu, which abounds with a breed of crocodiles remarkable for
+their ferocity. We were advised to prevent our dogs from going to
+drink in the rivers, for it often happens that the crocodiles of
+Uritucu come out of the water, and pursue dogs upon the shore. This
+intrepidity is so much the more striking, as at eight leagues
+distance, the crocodiles of the Rio Tisnao are extremely timid, and
+little dangerous. The manners of animals vary in the same species
+according to local circumstances difficult to be determined. We were
+shown a hut, or rather a kind of shed, in which our host of Calabozo,
+Don Miguel Cousin, had witnessed a very extraordinary scene. Sleeping
+with one of his friends on a bench or couch covered with leather, Don
+Miguel was awakened early in the morning by a violent shaking and a
+horrible noise. Clods of earth were thrown into the middle of the hut.
+Presently a young crocodile two or three feet long issued from under
+the bed, darted at a dog which lay on the threshold of the door, and,
+missing him in the impetuosity of his spring, ran towards the beach to
+gain the river. On examining the spot where the barbacoa, or couch,
+was placed, the cause of this strange adventure was easily discovered.
+The ground was disturbed to a considerable depth. It was dried mud,
+which had covered the crocodile in that state of lethargy, or
+summer-sleep, in which many of the species lie during the absence of
+the rains in the Llanos. The noise of men and horses, perhaps the
+smell of the dog, had aroused the crocodile. The hut being built at
+the edge of the pool, and inundated during part of the year, the
+crocodile had no doubt entered, at the time of the inundation of the
+savannahs, by the same opening at which it was seen to go out. The
+Indians often find enormous boas, which they call uji, or
+water-serpents,* in the same lethargic state. (* Culebra de agua,
+named by the common people traga-venado, the swallower of stags. The
+word uji belongs to the Tamanac language.) To reanimate them, they
+must be irritated, or wetted with water. Boas are killed, and immersed
+in the streams, to obtain, by means of putrefaction, the tendinous
+parts of the dorsal muscles, of which excellent guitar-strings are
+made at Calabozo, preferable to those furnished by the intestines of
+the alouate monkeys.
+
+The drought and heat of the Llanos act like cold upon animals and
+plants. Beyond the tropics the trees lose their leaves in a very dry
+air. Reptiles, particularly crocodiles and boas, having very indolent
+habits, leave with reluctance the basins in which they have found
+water at the period of great inundations. In proportion as the pools
+become dry, these animals penetrate into the mud, to seek that degree
+of humidity which gives flexibility to their skin and integuments. In
+this state of repose they are seized with stupefaction; but possibly
+they preserve a communication with the external air; and, however
+little that communication may be, it possibly suffices to keep up the
+respiration of an animal of the saurian family, provided with enormous
+pulmonary sacs, exerting no muscular motion, and in which almost all
+the vital functions are suspended. It is probable that the mean
+temperature of the dried mud, exposed to the solar rays, is more than
+40 degrees. When the north of Egypt, where the coolest month does not
+fall below 13.4 degrees, was inhabited by crocodiles, they were often
+found torpid with cold. They were subject to a winter-sleep, like the
+European frog, lizard, sand-martin, and marmot. If the hibernal
+lethargy be observed, both in cold-blooded and in hot-blooded animals,
+we shall be less surprised to learn, that these two classes furnish
+alike examples of a summer-sleep. In the same manner as the crocodiles
+of South America, the tanrecs, or Madagascar hedgehogs, in the midst
+of the torrid zone, pass three months of the year in lethargy.
+
+On the 25th of March we traversed the smoothest part of the steppes of
+Caracas, the Mesa de Pavones. It is entirely destitute of the corypha
+and moriche palm-trees. As far as the eye can reach, not a single
+object fifteen inches high can be discovered. The air was clear, and
+the sky of a very deep blue; but the horizon reflected a livid and
+yellowish light, caused no doubt by the quantity of sand suspended in
+the atmosphere. We met some large herds of cattle, and with them
+flocks of birds of a black colour with an olive shade. They are of the
+genus Crotophaga,* and follow the cattle. (* The Spanish colonists
+call the Crotophaga ani, zamurito (little carrion vulture--Vultur aura
+minuta), or garapatero, the eater of garaparas, insects of the Acarus
+family.) We had often seen them perched on the backs of cows, seeking
+for gadflies and other insects. Like many birds of these desert
+places, they fear so little the approach of man, that children often
+catch them in their hands. In the valleys of Aragua, where they are
+very common, we have seen them perch upon the hammocks on which we
+were reposing, in open day.
+
+We discover, between Calabozo, Uritucu, and the Mesa de Pavones,
+wherever there are excavations of some feet deep, the geological
+constitution of the Llanos. A formation of red sandstone (ancient
+conglomerate) covers an extent of several thousand square leagues. We
+shall find it again in the vast plains of the Amazon, on the eastern
+boundary of the province of Jaen de Bracamoros. This prodigious
+extension of red sandstone in the low grounds stretching along the
+east of the Andes, is one of the most striking phenomena I observed
+during my examination of rocks in the equinoctial regions.
+
+The red sandstone of the Llanos of Caracas lies in a concave position,
+between the primitive mountains of the shore and of Parime. On the
+north it is backed by the transition-slates,* (* At Malpaso and
+Piedras Azules.) and on the south it rests immediately on the granites
+of the Orinoco. We observed in it rounded fragments of quartz
+(kieselschiefer), and Lydian stone, cemented by an olive-brown
+ferruginous clay. The cement is sometimes of so bright a red that the
+people of the country take it for cinnabar. We met a Capuchin monk at
+Calabozo, who was in vain attempting to extract mercury from this red
+sandstone. In the Mesa de Paja this rock contains strata of another
+quartzose sandstone, very fine-grained; more to the south it contains
+masses of brown iron, and fragments of petrified trees of the
+monocotyledonous family, but we did not see in it any shells. The red
+sandstone, called by the Llaneros, the stone of the reefs (piedra de
+arrecifes), is everywhere covered with a stratum of clay. This clay,
+dried and hardened in the sun, splits into separate prismatic pieces
+with five or six sides. Does it belong to the trap-formation of
+Parapara? It becomes thicker, and mixed with sand, as we approach the
+Rio Apure; for near Calabozo it is one toise thick, near the mission
+of Guayaval five toises, which may lead to the belief that the strata
+of red sandstone dips towards the south. We gathered in the Mesa de
+Pavones little nodules of blue iron-ore disseminated in the clay.
+
+A dense whitish-gray limestone, with a smooth fracture, somewhat
+analogous to that of Caripe, and consequently to that of Jura, lies on
+the red sandstone between Tisnao and Calabozo.* (* Does this formation
+of secondary limestone of the Llanos contain galena? It has been found
+in strata of black marl, at Barbacoa, between Truxillo and
+Barquesimeto, north-west of the Llanos.) In several other places, for
+instance in the Mesa de San Diego, and between Ortiz and the Mesa de
+Paja,* (* Also near Cachipe and San Joacquim, in the Llanos of
+Barcelona.) we find above the limestone lamellar gypsum alternating
+with strata of marl. Considerable quantities of this gypsum are sent
+to the city of Caracas,* which is situated amidst primitive mountains.
+(* This trade is carried on at Parapara. A load of eight arrobas sells
+at Caracas for twenty-four piastres.)
+
+This gypsum generally forms only small beds, and is mixed with a great
+deal of fibrous gypsum. Is it of the same formation as that of Guire,
+on the coast of Paria, which contains sulphur? or do the masses of
+this latter substance, found in the valley of Buen Pastor and on the
+banks of the Orinoco, belong, with the argillaceous gypsum of the
+Llanos, to a secondary formation much more recent.
+
+These questions are very interesting in the study of the relative
+antiquity of rocks, which is the principal basis of geology. I know
+not of any salt-deposits in the Llanos. Horned cattle prosper here
+without those famous bareros, or muriatiferous lands, which abound in
+the Pampas of Buenos Ayres.* (* Known in North America under the name
+of salt-licks.)
+
+After having wandered for a long time, and without any traces of a
+road, in the desert savannahs of the Mesa de Pavones, we were
+agreeably surprised when we came to a solitary farm, the Hato de Alta
+Gracia, surrounded with gardens and basins of limpid water. Hedges of
+bead-trees encircled groups of icacoes laden with fruit. Farther on we
+passed the night near the small village of San Geronymo del Guayaval,
+founded by Capuchin missionaries. It is situated near the banks of the
+Rio Guarico, which falls into the Apure. I visited the missionary, who
+had no other habitation than his church, not having yet built a house.
+He was a young man, and he received us in the most obliging manner,
+giving us all the information we desired. His village, or to use the
+word established among the monks, his Mission, was not easy to govern.
+The founder, who had not hesitated to establish for his own profit a
+pulperia, in other words, to sell bananas and guarapo in the church
+itself, had shown himself to be not very nice in the choice of the new
+colonists. Many marauders of the Llanos had settled at Guayaval,
+because the inhabitants of a Mission are exempt from the authority of
+secular law. Here, as in Australia, it cannot be expected that good
+colonists will be formed before the second or third generation.
+
+We passed the Guarico, and encamped in the savannahs south of
+Guayaval. Enormous bats, no doubt of the tribe of Phyllostomas,
+hovered as usual over our hammocks during a great part of the night.
+Every moment they seemed to be about to fasten on our faces. Early in
+the morning we pursued our way over low grounds, often inundated. In
+the season of rains, a boat may be navigated, as on a lake, between
+the Guarico and the Apure. We arrived on the 27th of March at the
+Villa de San Fernando, the capital of the Mission of the Capuchins in
+the province of Varinas. This was the termination of our journey over
+the Llanos; for we passed the three months of April, May, and June on
+the rivers.
+
+
+CHAPTER 2.18.
+
+SAN FERNANDO DE APURE.
+INTERTWININGS AND BIFURCATIONS OF THE RIVERS APURE AND ARAUCA.
+NAVIGATION ON THE RIO APURE.
+
+Till the second half of the eighteenth century the names of the great
+rivers Apure, Arauca, and Meta were scarcely known in Europe:
+certainly less than they had been in the two preceding centuries, when
+the valiant Felipe de Urre and the conquerors of Tocuyo traversed the
+Llanos, to seek, beyond the Apure, the great legendary city of El
+Dorado, and the rich country of the Omeguas, the Timbuctoo of the New
+Continent. Such daring expeditions could not be carried out without
+all the apparatus of war; and the weapons, which had been destined for
+the defence of the new colonists, were employed without intermission
+against the unhappy natives. When more peaceful times succeeded to
+those of violence and public calamity, two powerful Indian tribes, the
+Cabres and the Caribs of the Orinoco, made themselves masters of the
+country which the Conquistadores had ceased to ravage. None but poor
+monks were then permitted to advance to the south of the steppes.
+Beyond the Uritucu an unknown world opened to the Spanish colonists;
+and the descendants of those intrepid warriors who had extended their
+conquests from Peru to the coasts of New Grenada and the mouth of the
+Amazon, knew not the roads that lead from Coro to the Rio Meta. The
+shore of Venezuela remained a separate country; and the slow conquests
+of the Jesuit missionaries were successful only by skirting the banks
+of the Orinoco. These fathers had already penetrated beyond the great
+cataracts of Atures and Maypures, when the Andalusian Capuchins had
+scarcely reached the plains of Calabozo, from the coast and the
+valleys of Aragua. It would be difficult to explain these contrasts by
+the system according to which the different monastic orders are
+governed; for the aspect of the country contributes powerfully to the
+more or less rapid progress of the Missions. They extend but slowly
+into the interior of the land, over mountains, or in steppes, wherever
+they do not follow the course of a particular river. It will scarcely
+be believed, that the Villa de Fernando de Apure, only fifty leagues
+distant in a direct line from that part of the coast of Caracas which
+has been longest inhabited, was founded at no earlier a date than
+1789. We were shown a parchment, full of fine paintings, containing
+the privileges of this little town. The parchment was sent from Madrid
+at the solicitation of the monks, whilst yet only a few huts of reeds
+were to be seen around a great cross raised in the centre of the
+hamlet. The missionaries and the secular governments being alike
+interested in exaggerating in Europe what they have done to augment
+the culture and population of the provinces beyond the sea, it often
+happens that names of towns and villages are placed on the list of new
+conquests, long before their foundation.
+
+The situation of San Fernando, on a large navigable river, near the
+mouth of another river which traverses the whole province of Varinas,
+is extremely advantageous for trade. Every production of that
+province, hides, cacao, cotton, and the indigo of Mijagual, which is
+of the first quality, passes through this town towards the mouths of
+the Orinoco. During the season of rains large vessels go from
+Angostura as far as San Fernando de Apure, and by the Rio Santo
+Domingo as far as Torunos, the port of the town of Varinas. At that
+period the inundations of the rivers, which form a labyrinth of
+branches between the Apure, the Arauca, the Capanaparo, and the
+Sinaruco, cover a country of nearly four hundred square leagues. At
+this point, the Orinoco, turned aside from its course, not by
+neighbouring mountains, but by the rising of counterslopes, runs
+eastward instead of following its previous direction in the line of
+the meridian. Considering the surface of the globe as a polyhedron,
+formed of planes variously inclined, we may conceive by the mere
+inspection of the maps, that the intersection of these slopes, rising
+towards the north, the west, and south,* between San Fernando de
+Apure, Caycara, and the mouth of the Meta, must cause a considerable
+depression. (* The risings towards the north and west are connected
+with two lines of ridges, the mountains of Villa de Cura and of
+Merida. The third slope, running from north to south, is that of the
+land-strait between the Andes and the chain of Parime. It determines
+the general inclination of the Orinoco, from the mouth of the Guaviare
+to that of the Apure.) The savannahs in this basin are covered with
+twelve or fourteen feet of water, and present, at the period of rains,
+the aspect of a great lake. The farms and villages which seem as if
+situated on shoals, scarcely rise two or three feet above the surface
+of the water. Everything here calls to mind the inundations of Lower
+Egypt, and the lake of Xarayes, heretofore so celebrated among
+geographers, though it exists only during some months of the year. The
+swellings of the rivers Apure, Meta, and Orinoco, are also periodical.
+In the rainy season, the horses that wander in the savannah, and have
+not time to reach the rising grounds of the Llanos, perish by
+hundreds. The mares are seen, followed by their colts,* swimming
+during a part of the day to feed upon the grass, the tops of which
+alone wave above the waters. (The colts are drowned everywhere in
+large numbers, because they are sooner tired of swimming, and strive
+to follow the mares in places where the latter alone can touch the
+ground.) In this state they are pursued by the crocodiles, and it is
+by no means uncommon to find the prints of the teeth of these
+carnivorous reptiles on their thighs. The carcases of horses, mules,
+and cows, attract an innumerable quantity of vultures. The zamuros are
+the ibisis of this country, and they render the same service to the
+inhabitants of the Llanos as the Vultur percnopterus to the
+inhabitants of Egypt.
+
+We cannot reflect on the effects of these inundations without admiring
+the prodigious pliability of the organization of the animals which man
+has subjected to his sway. In Greenland the dog eats the refuse of the
+fisheries; and when fish are wanting, feeds on seaweed. The ass and
+the horse, originally natives of the cold and barren plains of Upper
+Asia, follow man to the New World, return to the wild state, and lead
+a restless and weary life in the burning climates of the tropics.
+Pressed alternately by excess of drought and of humidity, they
+sometimes seek a pool in the midst of a bare and dusty plain, to
+quench their thirst; and at other times flee from water, and the
+overflowing rivers, as menaced by an enemy that threatens them on all
+sides. Tormented during the day by gadflies and mosquitos, the horses,
+mules, and cows find themselves attacked at night by enormous bats,
+which fasten on their backs, and cause wounds that become dangerous,
+because they are filled with acaridae and other hurtful insects. In
+the time of great drought the mules gnaw even the thorny cactus* in
+order to imbibe its cooling juice, and draw it forth as from a
+vegetable fountain. (* The asses are particularly adroit in extracting
+the moisture contained in the Cactus melocatus. They push aside the
+thorns with their hoofs; but sometimes lame themselves in performing
+this feat.) During the great inundations these same animals lead an
+amphibious life, surrounded by crocodiles, water-serpents, and
+manatees. Yet, such are the immutable laws of nature, that their races
+are preserved in the struggle with the elements, and amid so many
+sufferings and dangers. When the waters retire, and the rivers return
+again into their beds, the savannah is overspread with a beautiful
+scented grass; and the animals of Europe and Upper Asia seem to enjoy,
+as in their native climes, the renewed vegetation of spring.
+
+During the time of great floods, the inhabitants of these countries,
+to avoid the force of the currents, and the danger arising from the
+trunks of trees which these currents bring down, instead of ascending
+the beds of rivers in their boats, cross the savannahs. To go from San
+Fernando to the villages of San Juan de Payara, San Raphael de
+Atamaica, or San Francisco de Capanaparo, they direct their course due
+south, as if they were crossing a single river of twenty leagues
+broad. The junctions of the Guarico, the Apure, the Cabullare, and the
+Arauca with the Orinoco, form, at a hundred and sixty leagues from the
+coast of Guiana, a kind of interior Delta, of which hydrography
+furnishes few examples in the Old World. According to the height of
+the mercury in the barometer, the waters of the Apure have only a fall
+of thirty-four toises from San Fernando to the sea. The fall from the
+mouths of the Osage and the Missouri to the bar of the Mississippi is
+not more considerable. The savannahs of Lower Louisiana everywhere
+remind us of the savannahs of the Lower Orinoco.
+
+During our stay of three days in the little town of San Fernando, we
+lodged with the Capuchin missionary, who lived much at his ease. We
+were recommended to him by the bishop of Caracas, and he showed us the
+most obliging attention. He consulted me on the works that had been
+undertaken to prevent the flood from undermining the shore on which
+the town was built. The flowing of the Portuguesa into the Apure gives
+the latter an impulse towards south-east; and, instead of procuring a
+freer course for the river, attempts were made to confine it by dykes
+and piers. It was easy to predict that these would be rapidly
+destroyed by the swell of the waters, the shore having been weakened
+by taking away the earth from behind the dyke to employ it in these
+hydraulic constructions.
+
+San Fernando is celebrated for the excessive heat which prevails there
+the greater part of the year; and before I begin the recital of our
+long navigation on the rivers, I shall relate some facts calculated to
+throw light on the meteorology of the tropics. We went, provided with
+thermometers, to the flat shores covered with white sand which border
+the river Apure. At two in the afternoon I found the sand, wherever it
+was exposed to the sun, at 52.5 degrees. The instrument, raised
+eighteen inches above the sand, marked 42.8 degrees, and at six feet
+high 38.7 degrees. The temperature of the air under the shade of a
+ceiba was 36.2 degrees. These observations were made during a dead
+calm. As soon as the wind began to blow, the temperature of the air
+rose 3 degrees higher, yet we were not enveloped by a wind of sand,
+but the strata of air had been in contact with a soil more strongly
+heated, or through which whirlwinds of sand had passed. This western
+part of the Llanos is the hottest, because it receives air that has
+already crossed the rest of the barren steppe. The same difference has
+been observed between the eastern and western parts of the deserts of
+Africa, where the trade-winds blow.
+
+The heat augments sensibly in the Llanos during the rainy season,
+particularly in the month of July, when the sky is cloudy, and
+reflects the radiant heat toward the earth. During this season the
+breeze entirely ceases; and, according to good thermometrical
+observations made by M. Pozo, the thermometer rises in the shade to 39
+and 39.5 degrees, though kept at the distance of more than fifteen
+feet from the ground. As we approached the banks of the Portuguesa,
+the Apure, and the Apurito, the air became cooler from the evaporation
+of so considerable a mass of water. This effect is more especially
+perceptible at sunset. During the day the shores of the rivers,
+covered with white sand, reflect the heat in an insupportable degree,
+even more than the yellowish brown clayey grounds of Calabozo and
+Tisnao.
+
+On the 28th of March I was on the shore at sunrise to measure the
+breadth of the Apure, which is two hundred and six toises. The thunder
+rolled in all directions around. It was the first storm and the first
+rain of the season. The river was swelled by the easterly wind; but it
+soon became calm, and then some great cetacea, much resembling the
+porpoises of our seas, began to play in long files on the surface of
+the water. The slow and indolent crocodiles seem to dread the
+neighbourhood of these animals, so noisy and impetuous in their
+evolutions, for we saw them dive whenever they approached. It is a
+very extraordinary phenomenon to find cetacea at such a distance from
+the coast. The Spaniards of the Missions designate them, as they do
+the porpoises of the ocean, by the name of toninas. The Tamanacs call
+them orinucna. They are three or four feet long; and bending their
+back, and pressing with their tail on the inferior strata of the
+water, they expose to view a part of the back and of the dorsal fin. I
+did not succeed in obtaining any, though I often engaged Indians to
+shoot at them with their arrows. Father Gili asserts that the Gumanos
+eat their flesh. Are these cetacea peculiar to the great rivers of
+South America, like the manatee, which, according to Cuvier, is also a
+fresh water cetaceous animal? or must we admit that they go up from
+the sea against the current, as the beluga sometimes does in the
+rivers of Asia? What would lead me to doubt this last supposition is,
+that we saw toninas above the great cataracts of the Orinoco, in the
+Rio Atabapo. Did they penetrate into the centre of equinoctial America
+from the mouth of the Amazon, by the communication of that river with
+the Rio Negro, the Cassiquiare, and the Orinoco? They are found here
+at all seasons, and nothing seems to denote that they make periodical
+migrations like salmon.
+
+While the thunder rolled around us, the sky displayed only scattered
+clouds, that advanced slowly toward the zenith, and in an opposite
+direction. The hygrometer of Deluc was at 53 degrees, the centigrade
+thermometer 23.7 degrees, and Saussure's hygrometer 87.5 degrees. The
+electrometer gave no sign of electricity. As the storm gathered, the
+blue of the sky changed at first to deep azure and then to grey. The
+vesicular vapour became visible, and the thermometer rose three
+degrees, as is almost always the case, within the tropics, from a
+cloudy sky which reflects the radiant heat of the soil. A heavy rain
+fell. Being sufficiently habituated to the climate not to fear the
+effect of tropical rains, we remained on the shore to observe the
+electrometer. I held it more than twenty minutes in my hand, six feet
+above the ground, and observed that in general the pith-balls
+separated only a few seconds before the lightning was seen. The
+separation was four lines. The electric charge remained the same
+during several minutes; and having time to determine the nature of the
+electricity, by approaching a stick of sealing-wax, I saw here what I
+had often observed on the ridge of the Andes during a storm, that the
+electricity of the atmosphere was first positive, then nil, and then
+negative. These oscillations from positive to negative were often
+repeated. Yet the electrometer constantly denoted, a little before the
+lightning, only E., or positive E., and never negative E. Towards the
+end of the storm the west wind blew very strongly. The clouds
+dispersed, and the thermometer sunk to 22 degrees on account of the
+evaporation from the soil, and the freer radiation towards the sky.
+
+I have entered into these details on the electric charge of the
+atmosphere because travellers in general confine themselves to the
+description of the impressions produced on a European newly arrived by
+the solemn spectacle of a tropical storm. In a country where the year
+is divided into great seasons of drought and wet, or, as the Indians
+say in their expressive language, of sun* (* In the Maypure dialect
+camoti, properly the heat [of the sun]. The Tamanacs call the season
+of drought uamu, the time of grasshoppers.) and rain* (* In the
+Tamanac language canepo. The year is designated, among several
+nations, by the name of one of the two seasons. The Maypures say, so
+many suns, (or rather so many heats;) the Tamanacs, so many rains.),
+it is highly interesting to follow the progress of meteorological
+phenomena in the transition from one season to another. We had already
+observed, in the valleys of Aragua from the 18th and 19th of February,
+clouds forming at the commencement of the night. In the beginning of
+the month of March the accumulation of the vesicular vapours, visible
+to the eye, and with them signs of atmospheric electricity, augmented
+daily. We saw flashes of heat-lightning to the south; and the
+electrometer of Volta constantly displayed, at sunset, positive
+electricity. The pith balls, unexcited during the day, separated to
+the width of three or four lines at the commencement of the night,
+which is triple what I generally observed in Europe, with the same
+instrument, in calm weather. Upon the whole, from the 26th of May, the
+electrical equilibrium of the atmosphere seemed disturbed. During
+whole hours the electricity was nil, then it became very strong, and
+soon after was again imperceptible. The hygrometer of Deluc continued
+to indicate great dryness (from 33 to 35 degrees), and yet the
+atmosphere appeared no longer the same. Amidst these perpetual
+variations of the electric state of the air, the trees, divested of
+their foliage, already began to unfold new leaves, and seemed to feel
+the approach of spring.
+
+The variations which we have just described are not peculiar to one
+year. Everything in the equinoctial zone has a wonderful uniformity of
+succession, because the active powers of nature limit and balance each
+other, according to laws that are easily recognized. I shall here note
+the progress of atmospherical phenomena in the islands to the east of
+the Cordilleras of Merida and of New Grenada, in the Llanos of
+Venezuela and the Rio Meta, from four to ten degrees of north
+latitude, wherever the rains are constant from May to October, and
+comprehending consequently the periods of the greatest heats, which
+occur in July and August.* (* The maximum of the heat is not felt on
+the coast, at Cumana, at La Guayra, and in the neighbouring island of
+Margareta, before the month of September; and the rains, if the name
+can be given to a few drops that fall at intervals, are observed only
+in the months of October and November.)
+
+Nothing can equal the clearness of the atmosphere from the month of
+December to that of February. The sky is then constantly without
+clouds; and if one should appear, it is a phenomenon that engages the
+whole attention of the inhabitants. A breeze from the east, and from
+east-north-east, blows with violence. As it brings with it air always
+of the same temperature, the vapours cannot become visible by cooling.
+
+About the end of February and the beginning of March, the blue of the
+sky is less intense, the hygrometer indicates by degrees greater
+humidity, the stars are sometimes veiled by a slight stratum of
+vapour, and their light is no longer steady and planetary; they are
+seen twinkling from time to time when at 20 degrees above the horizon.
+The breeze at this period becomes less strong, less regular, and is
+often interrupted by dead calms. The clouds accumulate towards
+south-south-east, appearing like distant mountains, with outlines
+strongly marked. From time to time they detach themselves from the
+horizon, and traverse the vault of the sky with a rapidity which
+little corresponds with the feeble wind prevailing in the lower strata
+of the air. At the end of March, the southern region of the atmosphere
+is illumined by small electric explosions. They are like
+phosphorescent gleams, circumscribed by vapour. The breeze then shifts
+from time to time, and for several hours together, to the west and
+south-west. This is a certain sign of the approach of the rainy
+season, which begins at the Orinoco about the end of April. The blue
+sky disappears, and a grey tint spreads uniformly over it. At the same
+time the heat of the atmosphere progressively increases; and soon the
+heavens are no longer obscured by clouds, but by condensed vapours.
+The plaintive cry of the howling apes begins to be heard before
+sunrise. The atmospheric electricity, which, during the season of
+drought, from December to March, had been constantly, in the day-time,
+from 1.7 to 2 lines, becomes extremely variable from the month of
+March. It appears nil during whole days; and then for some hours the
+pith-balls diverge three or four lines. The atmosphere, which is
+generally, in the torrid as well as in the temperate zone, in a state
+of positive electricity, passes alternately, for eight or ten minutes,
+to the negative state. The season of rains is that of storms; and yet
+a great number of experiments made during three years, prove to me
+that it is precisely in this season of storms we find the smallest
+degree of electric tension in the lower regions of the atmosphere. Are
+storms the effect of this unequal charge of the different
+superincumbent strata of air? What prevents the electricity from
+descending towards the earth, in air which becomes more humid after
+the month of March? The electricity at this period, instead of being
+diffused throughout the whole atmosphere, appears accumulated on the
+exterior envelope, at the surface of the clouds. According to M.
+Gay-Lussac it is the formation of the cloud itself that carries the
+fluid toward its surface. The storm rises in the plains two hours
+after the sun has passed the meridian; consequently a short time after
+the moment of the maximum of diurnal heat within the tropics. It is
+extremely rare in the islands to hear thunder during the night, or in
+the morning. Storms at night are peculiar to certain valleys of
+rivers, having a peculiar climate.
+
+What then are the causes of this rupture of the equilibrium in the
+electric tension of the air? of this continual condensation of the
+vapours into water? of this interruption of the breezes? of this
+commencement and duration of the rainy seasons? I doubt whether
+electricity has any influence on the formation of vapours. It is
+rather the formation of these vapours that augments and modifies the
+electrical tension. North and south of the equator, storms or great
+explosions take place at the same time in the temperate and in the
+equinoctial zone. Is there an action propagated through the great
+aerial ocean from the temperate zone towards the tropics? How can it
+be conceived, that in that zone where the sun rises constantly to so
+great a height above the horizon, its passage through the zenith can
+have so powerful an influence on the meteorological variations? I am
+of opinion that no local cause determines the commencement of the
+rains within the tropics; and that a more intimate knowledge of the
+higher currents of air will elucidate these problems, so complicated
+in appearance. We can observe only what passes in the lower strata of
+the atmosphere. The Andes are scarcely inhabited beyond the height of
+two thousand toises; and at that height the proximity of the soil, and
+the masses of mountains, which form the shoals of the aerial ocean,
+have a sensible influence on the ambient air. What we observe on the
+table-land of Antisana is not what we should find at the same height
+in a balloon, hovering over the Llanos or the surface of the ocean.
+
+We have just seen that the season of rains and storms in the northern
+equinoctial zone coincides with the passage of the sun through the
+zenith of the place,* (* These passages take place, in the fifth and
+tenth degrees of north latitude between the 3rd and the 16th of April,
+and between the 27th of August and the 8th of September.) with the
+cessation of the north-east breezes, and with the frequency of calms
+and bendavales, which are stormy winds from south-east and south-west,
+accompanied by a cloudy sky. I believe that, in reflecting on the
+general laws of the equilibrium of the gaseous masses constituting our
+atmosphere, we may find, in the interruption of the current that blows
+from an homonymous pole, in the want of the renewal of air in the
+torrid zone, and in the continued action of an ascending humid
+current, a very simple cause of the coincidence of these phenomena.
+While the north-easterly breeze blows with all its violence north of
+the equator, it prevents the atmosphere which covers the equinoctial
+lands and seas from saturating itself with moisture. The hot and moist
+air of the torrid zone rises aloft, and flows off again towards the
+poles; while inferior polar currents, bringing drier and colder
+strata, are every instant taking the place of the columns of ascending
+air. By this constant action of two opposite currents, the humidity,
+far from being accumulated in the equatorial region, is carried
+towards the cold and temperate regions. During this season of breezes,
+which is that when the sun is in the southern signs, the sky in the
+northern equinoctial zone is constantly serene. The vesicular vapours
+are not condensed, because the air, unceasingly renewed, is far from
+the point of saturation. In proportion as the sun, entering the
+northern signs, rises towards the zenith, the breeze from the
+north-east moderates, and by degrees entirely ceases. The difference
+of temperature between the tropics and the temperate northern zone is
+then the least possible. It is the summer of the boreal pole; and, if
+the mean temperature of the winter, between 42 and 52 degrees of north
+latitude, be from 20 to 26 degrees of the centigrade thermometer less
+than the equatorial heat, the difference in summer is scarcely from 4
+to 6 degrees. The sun being in the zenith, and the breeze having
+ceased, the causes which produce humidity, and accumulate it in the
+northern equinoctial zone, become at once more active. The column of
+air reposing on this zone, is saturated with vapours, because it is no
+longer renewed by the polar current. Clouds form in this air saturated
+and cooled by the combined effects of radiation and the dilatation of
+the ascending air. This air augments its capacity for heat in
+proportion as it rarefies. With the formation and collection of the
+vesicular vapours, electricity accumulates in the higher regions of
+the atmosphere. The precipitation of the vapours is continual during
+the day; but it generally ceases at night, and frequently even before
+sunset. The showers are regularly more violent, and accompanied with
+electric explosions, a short time after the maximum of the diurnal
+heat. This state of things remains unchanged, till the sun enters into
+the southern signs. This is the commencement of cold in the northern
+temperate zone. The current from the north-pole is then
+re-established, because the difference between the heat of the
+equinoctial and temperate regions augments daily. The north-east
+breeze blows with violence, the air of the tropics is renewed, and can
+no longer attain the degree of saturation. The rains consequently
+cease, the vesicular vapour is dissolved, and the sky resumes its
+clearness and its azure tint. Electrical explosions are no longer
+heard, doubtless because electricity no longer comes in contact with
+the groups of vesicular vapours in the high regions of the air, I had
+almost said the coating of clouds, on which the fluid can accumulate.
+
+We have here considered the cessation of the breezes as the principal
+cause of the equatorial rains. These rains in each hemisphere last
+only as long as the sun has its declination in that hemisphere. It is
+necessary to observe, that the absence of the breeze is not always
+succeeded by a dead calm; but that the calm is often interrupted,
+particularly along the western coast of America, by bendavales, or
+south-west and south-east winds. This phenomenon seems to demonstrate
+that the columns of humid air which rise in the northern equatorial
+zone, sometimes flow off toward the south pole. In fact, the countries
+situated in the torrid zone, both north and south of the equator,
+furnish, during their summer, while the sun is passing through their
+zenith, the maximum of difference of temperature with the air of the
+opposite pole. The southern temperate zone has its winter, while it
+rains on the north of the equator; and while a mean heat prevails from
+5 to 6 degrees greater than in the time of drought, when the sun is
+lower.* (* From the equator to 10 degrees of north latitude the mean
+temperatures of the summer and winter months scarcely differ 2 or 3
+degrees; but at the limits of the torrid zone, toward the tropic of
+Cancer, the difference amounts to 8 or 9 degrees.) The continuation of
+the rains, while the bendavales blow, proves that the currents from
+the remoter pole do not act in the northern equinoctial zone like the
+currents of the nearer pole, on account of the greater humidity of the
+southern polar current. The air, wafted by this current, comes from a
+hemisphere consisting almost entirely of water. It traverses all the
+southern equatorial zone to reach the parallel of 8 degrees north
+latitude; and is consequently less dry, less cold, less adapted to act
+as a counter-current to renew the equinoctial air and prevent its
+saturation, than the northern polar current, or the breeze from the
+north-east.* (* In the two temperate zones the air loses its
+transparency every time that the wind blows from the opposite pole,
+that is to say, from the pole that has not the same denomination as
+the hemisphere in which the wind blows.) We may suppose that the
+bendavales are impetuous winds which, on some coasts, for instance on
+that of Guatimala, (because they are not the effect of a regular and
+progressive descent of the air of the tropics towards the south pole,
+but they alternate with calms), are accompanied by electrical
+explosions, and are in fact squalls, that indicate a reflux, an abrupt
+and instantaneous rupture, of equilibrium in the aerial ocean.
+
+We have here discussed one of the most important phenomena of the
+meteorology of the tropics, considered in its most general view. In
+the same manner as the limits of the trade-winds do not form circles
+parallel with the equator, the action of the polar currents is
+variously felt in different meridians. The chains of mountains and the
+coasts in the same hemisphere have often opposite seasons. There are
+several examples of these anomalies; but, in order to discover the
+laws of nature, we must know, before we examine into the causes of
+local perturbations, the average state of the atmosphere, and the
+constant type of its variations.
+
+The aspect of the sky, the progress of the electricity, and the shower
+of the 28th of March, announced the commencement of the rainy season;
+we were still advised, however, to go from San Fernando de Apure by
+San Francisco de Capanaparo, the Rio Sinaruco, and the Hato de San
+Antonio, to the village of the Ottomacs, recently founded near the
+banks of the Meta, and to embark on the Orinoco a little above
+Carichana. This way by land lies across an unhealthy and feverish
+country. An old farmer named Francisco Sanchez obligingly offered to
+conduct us. His dress denoted the great simplicity of manners
+prevailing in those distant countries. He had acquired a fortune of
+more than 100,000 piastres, and yet he mounted on horseback with his
+feet bare, and wearing large silver spurs. We knew by the experience
+of several weeks the dull uniformity of the vegetation of the Llanos,
+and preferred the longer road, which leads by the Rio Apure to the
+Orinoco. We chose one of those very large canoes called lanchas by the
+Spaniards. A pilot and four Indians were sufficient to manage it. They
+constructed, near the stern, in the space of a few hours, a cabin
+covered with palm-leaves, sufficiently spacious to contain a table and
+benches. These were made of ox-hides, strained tight, and nailed to
+frames of brazil-wood. I mention these minute circumstances, to prove
+that our accommodations on the Rio Apure were far different from those
+to which we were afterwards reduced in the narrow boats of the
+Orinoco. We loaded the canoe with provision for a month. Fowls, eggs,
+plantains, cassava, and cacao, are found in abundance at San Fernando.
+The good Capuchin, Fray Jose Maria de Malaga, gave us sherry wine,
+oranges, and tamarinds, to make cooling beverages. We could easily
+foresee that a roof constructed of palm-tree leaves would become
+excessively hot on a large river, where we were almost always exposed
+to the perpendicular rays of the sun. The Indians relied less on the
+provision we had purchased, than on their hooks and nets. We took also
+some fire-arms, which we found in general use as far as the cataracts;
+but farther south the great humidity of the air prevents the
+missionaries from using them. The Rio Apure abounds in fish, manatees,
+and turtles, the eggs of which afford an aliment more nutritious than
+agreeable to the taste. Its banks are inhabited by an innumerable
+quantity of birds, among which the pauxi and the guacharaca, which may
+be called the turkeys and pheasants of those countries, are found to
+be the most useful. Their flesh appeared to be harder and less white
+than that of the gallinaceous tribe in Europe, because they use much
+more muscular exercise. We did not forget to add to our provision,
+fishing-tackle, fire-arms, and a few casks of brandy, to serve as a
+medium of barter with the Indians of the Orinoco.
+
+We departed from San Fernando on the 30th of March, at four in the
+afternoon. The weather was extremely hot; the thermometer rising in
+the shade to 34 degrees, though the breeze blew very strongly from the
+south-east. Owing to this contrary wind we could not set our sails. We
+were accompanied, in the whole of this voyage on the Apure, the
+Orinoco, and the Rio Negro, by the brother-in-law of the governor of
+the province of Varinas, Don Nicolas Soto, who had recently arrived
+from Cadiz. Desirous of visiting countries so calculated to excite the
+curiosity of a European, he did not hesitate to confine himself with
+us during seventy-four days in a narrow boat infested with mosquitos.
+His amiable disposition and gay temper often helped to make us forget
+the sufferings of a voyage which was not wholly exempt from danger. We
+passed the mouth of the Apurito, and coasted the island of the same
+name, formed by the Apure and the Guarico. This island is in fact only
+a very low spot of ground, bordered by two great rivers, both of
+which, at a little distance from each other, fall into the Orinoco,
+after having formed a junction below San Fernando by the first
+bifurcation of the Apure. The Isla del Apurito is twenty-two leagues
+in length, and two or three leagues in breadth. It is divided by the
+Cano de la Tigrera and the Cano del Manati into three parts, the two
+extremes of which bear the names of Isla de Blanco and Isla de los
+Garzitas. The right bank of the Apure, below the Apurito, is somewhat
+better cultivated than the left bank, where the Yaruros, or Japuin
+Indians, have constructed a few huts with reeds and stalks of
+palm-leaves. These people, who live by hunting and fishing, are very
+skilful in killing jaguars. It is they who principally carry the
+skins, known in Europe by the name of tiger-skins, to the Spanish
+villages. Some of these Indians have been baptized, but they never
+visit the Christian churches. They are considered as savages because
+they choose to remain independent. Other tribes of Yaruros live under
+the rule of the missionaries, in the village of Achaguas, situated
+south of the Rio Payara. The individuals of this nation, whom I had an
+opportunity of seeing at the Orinoco, have a stern expression of
+countenance; and some features in their physiognomy, erroneously
+called Tartarian, belong to branches of the Mongol race, the eye very
+long, the cheekbones high, but the nose prominent throughout its whole
+length. They are taller, browner, and less thick-set than the Chayma
+Indians. The missionaries praise the intellectual character of the
+Yaruros, who were formerly a powerful and numerous nation on the banks
+of the Orinoco, especially in the environs of Cuycara, below the mouth
+of the Guarico. We passed the night at Diamante, a small
+sugar-plantation formed opposite the island of the same name.
+
+During the whole of my voyage from San Fernando to San Carlos del Rio
+Negro, and thence to the town of Angostura, I noted down day by day,
+either in the boat or where we disembarked at night, all that appeared
+to me worthy of observation. Violent rains, and the prodigious
+quantity of mosquitos with which the air is filled on the banks of the
+Orinoco and the Cassiquiare, necessarily occasioned some
+interruptions; but I supplied the omission by notes taken a few days
+after. I here subjoin some extracts from my journal. Whatever is
+written while the objects we describe are before our eyes bears a
+character of truth and individuality which gives attraction to things
+the least important.
+
+On the 31st March a contrary wind obliged us to remain on shore till
+noon. We saw a part of some cane-fields laid waste by the effect of a
+conflagration which had spread from a neighbouring forest. The
+wandering Indians everywhere set fire to the forest where they have
+encamped at night; and during the season of drought, vast provinces
+would be the prey of these conflagrations if the extreme hardness of
+the wood did not prevent the trees from being entirely consumed. We
+found trunks of desmanthus and mahogany which were scarcely charred
+two inches deep.
+
+Having passed the Diamante we entered a land inhabited only by tigers,
+crocodiles, and chiguires; the latter are a large species of the genus
+Cavia of Linnaeus. We saw flocks of birds, crowded so closely together
+as to appear against the sky like a dark cloud which every instant
+changed its form. The river widens by degrees. One of its banks is
+generally barren and sandy from the effect of inundations; the other
+is higher, and covered with lofty trees. In some parts the river is
+bordered by forests on each side, and forms a straight canal a hundred
+and fifty toises broad. The manner in which the trees are disposed is
+very remarkable. We first find bushes of sauso,* (* Hermesia
+castaneifolia. This is a new genus, approaching the alchornea of
+Swartz.) forming a kind of hedge four feet high, and appearing as if
+they had been clipped by the hand of man. A copse of cedar,
+brazilletto, and lignum-vitae, rises behind this hedge. Palm-trees are
+rare; we saw only a few scattered trunks of the thorny piritu and
+corozo. The large quadrupeds of those regions, the jaguars, tapirs,
+and peccaries, have made openings in the hedge of sauso which we have
+just described. Through these the wild animals pass when they come to
+drink at the river. As they fear but little the approach of a boat, we
+had the pleasure of viewing them as they paced slowly along the shore
+till they disappeared in the forest, which they entered by one of the
+narrow passes left at intervals between the bushes. These scenes,
+which were often repeated, had ever for me a peculiar attraction. The
+pleasure they excite is not owing solely to the interest which the
+naturalist takes in the objects of his study, it is connected with a
+feeling common to all men who have been brought up in the habits of
+civilization. You find yourself in a new world, in the midst of
+untamed and savage nature. Now the jaguar--the beautiful panther of
+America--appears upon the shore; and now the hocco,* (* Ceyx alector,
+the peacock-pheasant; C. pauxi, the cashew-bird.) with its black
+plumage and tufted head, moves slowly along the sausos. Animals of the
+most different classes succeed each other. "Esse como en el Paradiso,"
+"It is just as it was in Paradise," said our pilot, an old Indian of
+the Missions. Everything, indeed, in these regions recalls to mind the
+state of the primitive world with its innocence and felicity. But in
+carefully observing the manners of animals among themselves, we see
+that they mutually avoid and fear each other. The golden age has
+ceased; and in this Paradise of the American forests, as well as
+everywhere else, sad and long experience has taught all beings that
+benignity is seldom found in alliance with strength.
+
+When the shore is of considerable breadth, the hedge of sauso remains
+at a distance from the river. In the intermediate space we see
+crocodiles, sometimes to the number of eight or ten, stretched on the
+sand. Motionless, with their jaws wide open, they repose by each
+other, without displaying any of those marks of affection observed in
+other animals living in society. The troop separates as soon as they
+quit the shore. It is, however, probably composed of one male only,
+and many females; for as M. Descourtils, who has so much studied the
+crocodiles of St. Domingo, observed to me, the males are rare, because
+they kill one another in fighting during the season of their loves.
+These monstrous creatures are so numerous, that throughout the whole
+course of the river we had almost at every instant five or six in
+view. Yet at this period the swelling of the Rio Apure was scarcely
+perceived; and consequently hundreds of crocodiles were still buried
+in the mud of the savannahs. About four in the afternoon we stopped to
+measure a dead crocodile which had been cast ashore. It was only
+sixteen feet eight inches long; some days after M. Bonpland found
+another, a male, twenty-two feet three inches long. In every zone, in
+America as in Egypt, this animal attains the same size. The species so
+abundant in the Apure, the Orinoco,* (* It is the arua of the Tamanac
+Indians, the amana of the Maypure Indians, the Crocodilus acutus of
+Cuvier.) and the Rio de la Magdalena, is not a cayman, but a real
+crocodile, analogous to that of the Nile, having feet dentated at the
+external edges. When it is recollected that the male enters the age of
+puberty only at ten years, and that its length is then eight feet, we
+may presume that the crocodile measured by M. Bonpland was at least
+twenty-eight years old. The Indians told us, that at San Fernando
+scarcely a year passes, without two or three grown-up persons,
+particularly women who fetch water from the river, being drowned by
+these carnivorous reptiles. They related to us the history of a young
+girl of Uritucu, who by singular intrepidity and presence of mind,
+saved herself from the jaws of a crocodile. When she felt herself
+seized, she sought the eyes of the animal, and plunged her fingers
+into them with such violence, that the pain forced the crocodile to
+let her go, after having bitten off the lower part of her left arm.
+The girl, notwithstanding the enormous quantity of blood she lost,
+reached the shore, swimming with the hand that still remained to her.
+In those desert countries, where man is ever wrestling with nature,
+discourse daily turns on the best means that may be employed to escape
+from a tiger, a boa, or a crocodile; every one prepares himself in
+some sort for the dangers that may await him. "I knew," said the young
+girl of Uritucu coolly, "that the cayman lets go his hold, if you push
+your fingers into his eyes." Long after my return to Europe, I learned
+that in the interior of Africa the negroes know and practise the same
+means of defence. Who does not recollect, with lively interest, Isaac,
+the guide of the unfortunate Mungo Park, who was seized twice by a
+crocodile, and twice escaped from the jaws of the monster, having
+succeeded in thrusting his fingers into the creature's eyes while
+under water. The African Isaac, and the young American girl, owed
+their safety to the same presence of mind, and the same combination of
+ideas.
+
+The movements of the crocodile of the Apure are sudden and rapid when
+it attacks any object; but it moves with the slowness of a salamander,
+when not excited by rage or hunger. The animal in running makes a
+rustling noise, which seems to proceed from the rubbing of the scales
+of its skin one against another. In this movement it bends its back,
+and appears higher on its legs than when at rest. We often heard this
+rattling of the scales very near us on the shore; but it is not true,
+as the Indians pretend, that, like the armadillo, the old crocodiles
+"can erect their scales, and every part of their armour." The motion
+of these animals is no doubt generally in a straight line, or rather
+like that of an arrow, supposing it to change its direction at certain
+distances. However, notwithstanding the little apparatus of false
+ribs, which connects the vertebrae of the neck, and seems to impede
+the lateral movement, crocodiles can turn easily when they please. I
+often saw young ones biting their tails; and other observers have seen
+the same action in crocodiles at their full growth. If their movements
+almost always appear to be straight forward, it is because, like our
+small lizards, they move by starts. Crocodiles are excellent swimmers;
+they go with facility against the most rapid current. It appeared to
+me, however, that in descending the river, they had some difficulty in
+turning quickly about. A large dog, which had accompanied us in our
+journey from Caracas to the Rio Negro, was one day pursued in swimming
+by an enormous crocodile. The latter had nearly reached its prey, when
+the dog escaped by turning round suddenly and swimming against the
+current. The crocodile performed the same movement, but much more
+slowly than the dog, which succeeded in gaining the shore.
+
+The crocodiles of the Apure find abundant food in the chiguires
+(thick-nosed tapirs),* which live fifty or sixty together in troops on
+the banks of the river. (* Cavia capybara, Linn. The word chiguire
+belongs to the language of the Palenkas and the Cumanagotos. The
+Spaniards call this animal guardatinaja; the Caribs, capigua; the
+Tamanacs, cappiva; and the Maypures, chiato. According to Azara, it is
+known at Buenos Ayres by the Indian names of capiygua and capiguara.
+These various denominations show a striking analogy between the
+languages of the Orinoco and those of the Rio de la Plata.) These
+animals, as large as our pigs, have no weapons of defence; they swim
+somewhat better than they run: yet they become the prey of the
+crocodiles in the water, and of the tigers on land. It is difficult to
+conceive, how, being thus persecuted by two powerful enemies, they
+become so numerous; but they breed with the same rapidity as the
+little cavies or guinea-pigs, which come to us from Brazil.
+
+We stopped below the mouth of the Cano de la Tigrera, in a sinuosity
+called la Vuelta del Joval, to measure the velocity of the water at
+its surface. It was not more than 3.2 feet* in a second, which gives
+2.56 feet for the mean velocity. (* In order to measure the velocity
+of the surface of a river, I generally measured on the beach a base of
+250 feet, and observed with the chronometer the time that a floating
+body, abandoned to the current, required to reach this distance.) The
+height of the barometer indicated barely a slope of seventeen inches
+in a mile of nine hundred and fifty toises. The velocity is the
+simultaneous effect of the slope of the ground, and the accumulation
+of the waters by the swelling of the upper parts of the river. We were
+again surrounded by chiguires, which swim like dogs, raising their
+heads and necks above the water. We saw with surprise a large
+crocodile on the opposite shore, motionless, and sleeping in the midst
+of these nibbling animals. It awoke at the approach of our canoe, and
+went into the water slowly, without frightening the chiguires. Our
+Indians accounted for this indifference by the stupidity of the
+animals, but it is more probable that the chiguires know by long
+experience, that the crocodile of the Apure and the Orinoco does not
+attack upon land, unless he finds the object he would seize
+immediately in his way, at the instant when he throws himself into the
+water.
+
+Near the Joval nature assumes an awful and extremely wild aspect. We
+there saw the largest jaguar we had ever met with. The natives
+themselves were astonished at its prodigious length, which surpassed
+that of any Bengal tiger I had ever seen in the museums of Europe. The
+animal lay stretched beneath the shade of a large zamang.* (* A
+species of mimosa.) It had just killed a chiguire, but had not yet
+touched its prey, on which it kept one of its paws. The zamuro
+vultures were assembled in great numbers to devour the remains of the
+jaguar's repast. They presented the most curious spectacle, by a
+singular mixture of boldness and timidity. They advanced within the
+distance of two feet from the animal, but at the least movement he
+made they drew back. In order to observe more nearly the manners of
+these creatures, we went into the little skiff that accompanied our
+canoe. Tigers very rarely attack boats by swimming to them; and never
+but when their ferocity is heightened by a long privation of food. The
+noise of our oars led the animal to rise slowly, and hide itself
+behind the sauso bushes that bordered the shore. The vultures tried to
+profit by this moment of absence to devour the chiguire; but the
+tiger, notwithstanding the proximity of our boat, leaped into the
+midst of them, and in a fit of rage, expressed by his gait and the
+movement of his tail, carried off his prey to the forest. The Indians
+regretted that they were not provided with their lances, in order to
+go on shore and attack the tiger. They are accustomed to this weapon,
+and were right in not trusting to our fire-arms. In so excessively
+damp an atmosphere muskets often miss fire.
+
+Continuing to descend the river, we met with the great herd of
+chiguires which the tiger had put to flight, and from which he had
+selected his prey. These animals saw us land very unconcernedly; some
+of them were seated, and gazed upon us, moving the upper lip like
+rabbits. They seemed not to be afraid of man, but the sight of our dog
+put them to flight. Their hind legs being longer than their fore legs,
+their pace is a slight gallop, but with so little swiftness that we
+succeeded in catching two of them. The chiguire, which swims with the
+greatest agility, utters a short moan in running, as if its
+respiration were impeded. It is the largest of the family of rodentia
+or gnawing animals. It defends itself only at the last extremity, when
+it is surrounded and wounded. Having great strength in its grinding
+teeth,* particularly the hinder ones, which are pretty long, it can
+tear the paw of a tiger, or the leg of a horse, with its bite. (* We
+counted eighteen on each side. On the hind feet, at the upper end of
+the metatarsus, there is a callosity three inches long and three
+quarters of an inch broad, destitute of hair. The animal, when seated,
+rests upon this part. No tail is visible externally; but on putting
+aside the hair we discover a tubercle, a mass of naked and wrinkled
+flesh, of a conical figure, and half an inch long.) Its flesh has a
+musky smell somewhat disagreeable; yet hams are made of it in this
+country, a circumstance which almost justifies the name of water-hog,
+given to the chiguire by some of the older naturalists. The missionary
+monks do not hesitate to eat these hams during Lent. According to
+their zoological classification they place the armadillo, the
+thick-nosed tapir, and the manatee, near the tortoises; the first,
+because it is covered with a hard armour like a sort of shell; and the
+others because they are amphibious. The chiguires are found in such
+numbers on the banks of the rivers Santo Domingo, Apure, and Arauca,
+in the marshes and in the inundated savannahs* of the Llanos, that the
+pasturages suffer from them. (* Near Uritucu, in the Cano del Ravanal,
+we saw a flock of eighty or one hundred of these animals.) They browze
+the grass which fattens the horses best, and which bears the name of
+chiguirero, or chiguire-grass. They feed also upon fish; and we saw
+with surprise, that, when scared by the approach of a boat, the animal
+in diving remains eight or ten minutes under water.
+
+We passed the night as usual, in the open air, though in a plantation,
+the proprietor of which employed himself in hunting tigers. He wore
+scarcely any clothing, and was of a dark brown complexion like a
+Zambo. This did not prevent his classing himself amongst the Whites.
+He called his wife and his daughter, who were as naked as himself,
+Dona Isabella and Dona Manuela. Without having ever quitted the banks
+of the Apure, he took a lively interest in the news of
+Madrid--enquiring eagerly respecting those never-ending wars, and
+everything down yonder (todas las cosas de alla). He knew, he said,
+that the king was soon to come and visit the grandees of the country
+of Caracas, but he added with some pleasantry, as the people of the
+court can eat only wheaten bread, they will never pass beyond the town
+of Victoria, and we shall not see them here. I had brought with me a
+chiguire, which I had intended to have roasted; but our host assured
+us, that such Indian game was not food fit for nos otros caballeros
+blancos, (white gentlemen like ourselves and him). Accordingly he
+offered us some venison, which he had killed the day before with an
+arrow, for he had neither powder nor fire-arms.
+
+We supposed that a small wood of plantain-trees concealed from us the
+hut of the farm; but this man, so proud of his nobility and the colour
+of his skin, had not taken the trouble of constructing even an ajoupa,
+or hut of palm-leaves. He invited us to have our hammocks hung near
+his own, between two trees; and he assured us, with an air of
+complacency, that, if we came up the river in the rainy season, we
+should find him beneath a roof (baxo techo). We soon had reason to
+complain of a system of philosophy which is indulgent to indolence,
+and renders a man indifferent to the conveniences of life. A furious
+wind arose after midnight, lightnings flashed over the horizon,
+thunder rolled, and we were wet to the skin. During this storm a
+whimsical incident served to amuse us for a moment. Dona Isabella's
+cat had perched upon the tamarind-tree, at the foot of which we lay.
+It fell into the hammock of one of our companions, who, being hurt by
+the claws of the cat, and suddenly aroused from a profound sleep,
+imagined he was attacked by some wild beast of the forest. We ran to
+him on hearing his cries, and had some trouble to convince him of his
+error. While it rained in torrents on our hammocks and on our
+instruments which we had brought ashore, Don Ignacio congratulated us
+on our good fortune in not sleeping on the strand, but finding
+ourselves in his domain, among whites and persons of respectability
+(entre gente blanca y de trato). Wet as we were, we could not easily
+persuade ourselves of the advantages of our situation, and we listened
+with some impatience to the long narrative our host gave us of his
+pretended expedition to the Rio Meta, of the valour he had displayed
+in a sanguinary combat with the Guahibo Indians, and "the services
+that he had rendered to God and his king, in carrying away Indian
+children (los Indiecitos) from their parents, to distribute them in
+the Missions." We were struck with the singularity of finding in that
+vast solitude a man believing himself to be of European race and
+knowing no other shelter than the shade of a tree, and yet having all
+the vain pretensions, hereditary prejudices, and errors of
+long-standing civilization!
+
+On the 1st of April, at sunrise, we quitted Senor Don Ignacio and
+Senora Dona Isabella his wife. The weather was cooler, for the
+thermometer (which generally kept up in the daytime to 30 or 35
+degrees) had sunk to 24 degrees. The temperature of the river was
+little changed: it continued constantly at 26 or 27 degrees. The
+current carried with it an enormous number of trunks of trees. It
+might be imagined that on ground entirely smooth, and where the eye
+cannot distinguish the least hill, the river would have formed by the
+force of its current a channel in a straight line; but a glance at the
+map, which I traced by the compass, will prove the contrary. The two
+banks, worn by the waters, do not furnish an equal resistance; and
+almost imperceptible inequalities of the level suffice to produce
+great sinuosities. Yet below the Joval, where the bed of the river
+enlarges a little, it forms a channel that appears perfectly straight,
+and is shaded on each side by very tall trees. This part of the river
+is called Cano Rico. I found it to be one hundred and thirty-six
+toises broad. We passed a low island, inhabited by thousands of
+flamingos, rose-coloured spoonbills, herons, and moorhens, which
+displayed plumage of the most various colours. These birds were so
+close together that they seemed to be unable to stir. The island they
+frequent is called Isla de Aves, or Bird Island. Lower down we passed
+the point where the Rio Arichuna, an arm of the Apure, branches off to
+the Cabulare, carrying away a considerable body of its waters. We
+stopped, on the right bank, at a little Indian mission, inhabited by
+the tribe of the Guamos, called the village of Santa Barbara de
+Arichuna.
+
+The Guamos* are a race of Indians very difficult to fix on a settled
+spot. (* Father Gili observes that their Indian name is Uamu and Pau,
+and that they originally dwelt on the Upper Apure.) They have great
+similarity of manners with the Achaguas, the Guajibos,* (* Their
+Indian name is Guahiva.) and the Ottomacs, partaking their disregard
+of cleanliness, their spirit of vengeance, and their taste for
+wandering; but their language differs essentially. The greater part of
+these four tribes live by fishing and hunting, in plains often
+inundated, situated between the Apure, the Meta, and the Guaviare. The
+nature of these regions seems to invite the natives to a wandering
+life. On entering the mountains of the Cataracts of the Orinoco, we
+shall soon find, among the Piraoas, the Macos, and the Maquiritaras,
+milder manners, a love of agriculture, and great cleanliness in the
+interior of their huts. On mountain ridges, in the midst of
+impenetrable forests, man is compelled to fix himself; and cultivate a
+small spot of land. This cultivation requires little care; while, in a
+country where there are no other roads than rivers, the life of the
+hunter is laborious and difficult. The Guamos of the mission of Santa
+Barbara could not furnish us with the provision we wanted. They
+cultivate only a little cassava. They appeared hospitable; and when we
+entered their huts, they offered us dried fish, and water cooled in
+porous vessels.
+
+Beyond the Vuelta del Cochino Roto, in a spot where the river has
+scooped itself a new bed, we passed the night on a bare and very
+extensive strand. The forest being impenetrable, we had the greatest
+difficulty to find dry wood to light fires, near which the Indians
+believe themselves in safety from the nocturnal attacks of the tiger.
+Our own experience seems to bear testimony in favour of this opinion;
+but Azara asserts that, in his time, a tiger in Paraguay carried off a
+man who was seated near a fire lighted in the savannah.
+
+The night was calm and serene, and there was a beautiful moonlight.
+The crocodiles, stretched along the shore, placed themselves in such a
+manner as to be able to see the fire. We thought we observed that its
+blaze attracted them, as it attracts fishes, crayfish, and other
+inhabitants of the water. The Indians showed us the tracks of three
+tigers in the sand, two of which were very young. A female had no
+doubt conducted her little ones to drink at the river. Finding no tree
+on the strand, we stuck our oars in the ground, and to these we
+fastened our hammocks. Everything passed tranquilly till eleven at
+night; and then a noise so terrific arose in the neighbouring forest,
+that it was almost impossible to close our eyes. Amid the cries of so
+many wild beasts howling at once, the Indians discriminated such only
+as were at intervals heard separately. These were the little soft
+cries of the sapajous, the moans of the alouate apes, the howlings of
+the jaguar and couguar, the peccary, and the sloth, and the cries of
+the curassao, the parraka, and other gallinaceous birds. When the
+jaguars approached the skirt of the forest, our dog, which till then
+had never ceased barking, began to howl and seek for shelter beneath
+our hammocks. Sometimes, after a long silence, the cry of the tiger
+came from the tops of the trees; and then it was followed by the sharp
+and long whistling of the monkeys, which appeared to flee from the
+danger that threatened them. We heard the same noises repeated, during
+the course of whole months, whenever the forest approached the bed of
+the river. The security evinced by the Indians inspires confidence in
+the minds of travellers, who readily persuade themselves that the
+tigers are afraid of fire, and that they do not attack a man lying in
+his hammock. These attacks are in fact extremely rare; and, during a
+long abode in South America, I remember only one example, of a
+llanero, who was found mutilated in his hammock opposite the island of
+Achaguas.
+
+When the natives are interrogated on the causes of the tremendous
+noise made by the beasts of the forest at certain hours of the night,
+the answer is, "They are keeping the feast of the full moon."
+
+I believe this agitation is most frequently the effect of some
+conflict that has arisen in the depths of the forest. The jaguars, for
+instance, pursue the peccaries and the tapirs, which, having no
+defence but in their numbers, flee in close troops, and break down the
+bushes they find in their way. Terrified at this struggle, the timid
+and mistrustful monkeys answer, from the tops of the trees, the cries
+of the large animals. They awaken the birds that live in society, and
+by degrees the whole assembly is in commotion. It is not always in a
+fine moonlight, but more particularly at the time of a storm and
+violent showers, that this tumult takes place among the wild beasts.
+"May Heaven grant them a quiet night and repose, and us also!" said
+the monk who accompanied us to the Rio Negro, when, sinking with
+fatigue, he assisted in arranging our accommodations for the night. It
+was indeed strange, to find no silence in the solitude of woods. In
+the inns of Spain we dread the sound of guitars from the next
+apartment; on the Orinoco, where the traveller's resting-place is the
+open beach, or beneath the shelter of a solitary tree, his slumbers
+are disturbed by a serenade from the forest.
+
+We set sail before sunrise, on the 2nd of April. The morning was
+beautiful and cool, according to the feelings of those who are
+accustomed to the heat of these climates. The thermometer rose only to
+28 degrees in the air, but the dry and white sand of the beach,
+notwithstanding its radiation towards a cloudless sky, retained a
+temperature of 36 degrees. The porpoises (toninas) ploughed the river
+in long files. The shore was covered with fishing-birds. Some of these
+perched on the floating wood as it passed down the river, and
+surprised the fish that preferred the middle of the stream. Our canoe
+was aground several times during the morning. These shocks are
+sufficiently violent to split a light bark. We struck on the points of
+several large trees, which remain for years in an oblique position,
+sunk in the mud. These trees descend from Sarare, at the period of
+great inundations, and they so fill the bed of the river, that canoes
+in going up find it difficult sometimes to make their way over the
+shoals, or wherever there are eddies. We reached a spot near the
+island of Carizales, where we saw trunks of the locust-tree, of an
+enormous size, above the surface of the water. They were covered with
+a species of plotus, nearly resembling the anhinga, or white bellied
+darter. These birds perch in files, like pheasants and parrakas, and
+they remain for hours entirely motionless, with their beaks raised
+toward the sky.
+
+Below the island of Carizales we observed a diminution of the waters
+of the river, at which we were the more surprised, as, after the
+bifurcation at la Boca de Arichuna, there is no branch, no natural
+drain, which takes away water from the Apure. The loss is solely the
+effect of evaporation, and of filtration on a sandy and wet shore.
+Some idea of the magnitude of these effects may be formed, from the
+fact that we found the heat of the dry sands, at different hours of
+the day, from 36 to 52 degrees, and that of sands covered with three
+or four inches of water 32 degrees. The beds of rivers are heated as
+far as the depth to which the solar rays can penetrate without
+undergoing too great an extinction in their passage through the
+superincumbent strata of water. Besides, filtration extends in a
+lateral direction far beyond the bed of the river. The shore, which
+appears dry to us, imbibes water as far up as to the level of the
+surface of the river. We saw water gush out at the distance of fifty
+toises from the shore, every time that the Indians struck their oars
+into the ground. Now these sands, wet below, but dry above, and
+exposed to the solar rays, act like sponges, and lose the infiltrated
+water every instant by evaporation. The vapour that is emitted,
+traverses the upper stratum of sand strongly heated, and becomes
+sensible to the eye when the air cools towards evening. As the beach
+dries, it draws from the river new portions of water; and it may be
+easily conceived that this continual alternation of vaporization and
+lateral absorption must cause an immense loss, difficult to submit to
+exact calculation. The increase of these losses would be in proportion
+to the length of the course of the rivers, if from their source to
+their mouth they were equally surrounded by a flat shore; but these
+shores being formed by deposits from the water, and the water having
+less velocity in proportion as it is more remote from its source,
+throwing down more sediment in the lower than in the upper part of its
+course, many rivers in hot climates undergo a diminution in the
+quantity of their water, as they approach their outlets. Mr. Barrow
+observed these curious effects of sands in the southern part of
+Africa, on the banks of the Orange River. They have also become the
+subject of a very important discussion, in the various hypotheses that
+have been formed respecting the course of the Niger.* (* Geographers
+supposed, for a long period, that the Niger was entirely absorbed by
+the sands, and evaporated by the heat of the tropical sun, as no
+embouchure could be found on the western coast of Africa to meet the
+requirements of so enormous a river. It was discovered, however, by
+the Landers, in 1830, that it does really flow into the Atlantic; yet
+the cause mentioned above is so powerful, that of all the numerous
+branches into which it separates at its mouth, only one (the Nun
+River) is navigable even for light ships, and for half the year even
+those are unable to enter.)
+
+Near the Vuelta de Basilio, where we landed to collect plants, we saw
+on the top of a tree two beautiful little monkeys, black as jet, of
+the size of the sai, with prehensile tails. Their physiognomy and
+their movements sufficiently showed that they were neither the quato
+(Simia beelzebub) nor the chamek, nor any of the Ateles. Our Indians
+themselves had never seen any that resembled them. Monkeys, especially
+those living in troops, make long emigrations at certain periods, and
+consequently it happens that at the beginning of the rainy seasons the
+natives discover round their huts different kinds which they have not
+before observed. On this same bank our guides showed us a nest of
+young iguanas only four inches long. It was difficult to distinguish
+them from common lizards. There was no distinguishing mark yet formed
+but the dewlap below the throat. The dorsal spines, the large erect
+scales, all those appendages that render the iguana so remarkable when
+it attains its full growth, were scarcely traceable.
+
+The flesh of this animal of the saurian family appeared to us to have
+an agreeable taste in every country where the climate is very dry; we
+even found it so at periods when we were not in want of other food. It
+is extremely white, and next to the flesh of the armadillo, one of the
+best kinds of food to be found in the huts of the natives.
+
+It rained toward evening, and before the rain fell, swallows, exactly
+resembling our own, skimmed over the surface of the water. We saw also
+a flock of paroquets pursued by little goshawks without crests. The
+piercing cries of these paroquets contrasted singularly with the
+whistling of the birds of prey. We passed the night in the open air,
+upon the beach, near the island of Carizales. There were several
+Indian huts in the neighbourhood, surrounded with plantations. Our
+pilot assured us beforehand that we should not hear the cries of the
+jaguar, which, when not extremely pressed by hunger, withdraws from
+places where he does not reign unmolested. "Men put him out of humour"
+(los hombres lo enfadan), say the people in the Missions. A pleasant
+and simple expression, that marks a well-observed fact.
+
+Since our departure from San Fernando we had not met a single boat on
+this fine river. Everything denoted the most profound solitude. On the
+morning of the 3rd of April our Indians caught with a hook the fish
+known in the country by the name of caribe,* (* Caribe in the Spanish
+language signifies cannibal.) or caribito, because no other fish has
+such a thirst for blood. It attacks bathers and swimmers, from whom it
+often bites away considerable pieces of flesh. The Indians dread
+extremely these caribes; and several of them showed us the scars of
+deep wounds in the calf of the leg and in the thigh, made by these
+little animals. They swim at the bottom of rivers; but if a few drops
+of blood be shed on the water, they rise by thousands to the surface,
+so that if a person be only slightly bitten, it is difficult for him
+to get out of the water without receiving a severer wound. When we
+reflect on the numbers of these fish, the largest and most voracious
+of which are only four or five inches long, on the triangular form of
+their sharp and cutting teeth, and on the amplitude of their
+retractile mouths, we need not be surprised at the fear which the
+caribe excites in the inhabitants of the banks of the Apure and the
+Orinoco. In places where the river was very limpid, where not a fish
+appeared, we threw into the water little morsels of raw flesh, and in
+a few minutes a perfect cloud of caribes had come to dispute their
+prey. The belly of this fish has a cutting edge, indented like a saw,
+a characteristic which may be also traced in the serra-salmes, the
+myletes, and the pristigastres. The presence of a second adipous
+dorsal fin, and the form of the teeth, covered by lips distant from
+each other, and largest in the lower jaw, place the caribe among the
+serra-salmes. Its mouth is much wider than that of the myletes of
+Cuvier. Its body, toward the back, is ash-coloured with a tint of
+green, but the belly, the gill-covers, and the pectoral, anal, and
+ventral fins, are of a fine orange hue. Three species are known in the
+Orinoco, and are distinguished by their size. The intermediate appears
+to be identical with the medium species of the piraya, or piranha, of
+Marcgrav.* (* Salmo rhombeus, Linn.) The caribito has a very agreeable
+flavour. As no one dares to bathe where it is found, it may be
+considered as one of the greatest scourges of those climates, in which
+the sting of the mosquitos and the general irritation of the skin
+render the use of baths so necessary.
+
+We stopped at noon in a desert spot called Algodonal. I left my
+companions while they drew the boat ashore and were occupied in
+preparing our dinner. I went along the beach to get a near view of a
+group of crocodiles sleeping in the sun, and lying in such a manner as
+to have their tails, which were furnished with broad plates, resting
+on one another. Some little herons,* white as snow, walked along their
+backs, and even upon their heads, as if passing over trunks of trees.
+(* Garzon chico. It is believed, in Upper Egypt, that herons have an
+affection for crocodiles, because they take advantage in fishing of
+the terror that monstrous animal causes among the fishes, which he
+drives from the bottom to the surface of the water; but on the banks
+of the Nile, the heron keeps prudently at some distance from the
+crocodile.) The crocodiles were of a greenish grey, half covered with
+dried mud; from their colour and immobility they might have been taken
+for statues of bronze. This excursion had nearly proved fatal to me. I
+had kept my eyes constantly turned towards the river; but, whilst
+picking up some spangles of mica agglomerated together in the sand, I
+discovered the recent footsteps of a tiger, easily distinguishable
+from their form and size. The animal had gone towards the forest, and
+turning my eyes on that side, I found myself within eighty paces of a
+jaguar that was lying under the thick foliage of a ceiba. No tiger had
+ever appeared to me so large.
+
+There are accidents in life against which we may seek in vain to
+fortify our reason. I was extremely alarmed, yet sufficiently master
+of myself and of my motions to enable me to follow the advice which
+the Indians had so often given us as to how we ought to act in such
+cases. I continued to walk on without running, avoided moving my arms,
+and I thought I observed that the jaguar's attention was fixed on a
+herd of capybaras which was crossing the river. I then began to
+return, making a large circuit toward the edge of the water. As the
+distance increased, I thought I might accelerate my pace. How often
+was I tempted to look back in order to assure myself that I was not
+pursued! Happily I yielded very tardily to this desire. The jaguar had
+remained motionless. These enormous cats with spotted robes are so
+well fed in countries abounding in capybaras, pecaries, and deer, that
+they rarely attack men. I arrived at the boat out of breath, and
+related my adventure to the Indians. They appeared very little
+interested by my story; yet, after having loaded our guns, they
+accompanied us to the ceiba beneath which the jaguar had lain. He was
+there no longer, and it would have been imprudent to have pursued him
+into the forest, where we must have dispersed, or advanced in single
+file, amidst the intertwining lianas.
+
+In the evening we passed the mouth of the Cano del Manati, thus named
+on account of the immense quantity of manatees caught there every
+year. This herbivorous animal of the cetaceous family, is called by
+the Indians apcia and avia,* and it attains here generally ten or
+twelve feet in length. (* The first of these words belongs to the
+Tamanac language, and the second to the Ottomac. Father Gili proves,
+in opposition to Oviedo, that manati (fish with hands) is not Spanish,
+but belongs to the languages of Hayti (St. Domingo) and the Maypures.
+I believe also that, according to the genius of the Spanish tongue,
+the animal would have been called manudo or manon, but not manati.) It
+usually weighs from five hundred to eight hundred pounds, but it is
+asserted that one has been taken of eight thousand pounds weight. The
+manatee abounds in the Orinoco below the cataracts, in the Rio Meta,
+and in the Apure, between the two islands of Carizales and Conserva.
+We found no vestiges of nails on the external surface or the edges of
+the fins, which are quite smooth; but little rudiments of nails appear
+at the third phalanx, when the skin of the fins is taken off. We
+dissected one of these animals, which was nine feet long, at
+Carichana, a Mission of the Orinoco. The upper lip was four inches
+longer than the lower one. It was covered with a very fine skin, and
+served as a proboscis. The inside of the mouth, which has a sensible
+warmth in an animal newly killed, presented a very singular
+conformation. The tongue was almost motionless; but in front of the
+tongue there was a fleshy excrescence in each jaw, and a cavity lined
+with a very hard skin, into which the excrescence fitted. The manatee
+eats such quantities of grass, that we have found its stomach, which
+is divided into several cavities, and its intestines, (one hundred and
+eight feet long,) filled with it. On opening the animal at the back,
+we were struck with the magnitude, form, and situation of its lungs.
+They have very large cells, and resemble immense swimming-bladders.
+They are three feet long. Filled with air, they have a bulk of more
+than a thousand cubic inches. I was surprised to see that, possessing
+such considerable receptacles for air, the manatee comes so often to
+the surface of the water to breathe. Its flesh is very savoury,
+though, from what prejudice I know not, it is considered unwholesome
+and apt to produce fever. It appeared to me to resemble pork rather
+than beef. It is most esteemed by the Guamos and the Ottomacs; and
+these two nations are particularly expert in catching the manatee. Its
+flesh, when salted and dried in the sun, can be preserved a whole
+year; and, as the clergy regard this mammiferous animal as a fish, it
+is much sought during Lent. The vital principal is singularly strong
+in the manatee; it is tied after being harpooned, but is not killed
+till it has been taken into the canoe. This is effected, when the
+animal is very large, in the middle of the river, by filling the canoe
+two-thirds with water, sliding it under the animal, and then baling
+out the water by means of a calabash. This fishery is most easy after
+great inundations, when the manatee has passed from the great rivers
+into the lakes and surrounding marshes, and the waters diminish
+rapidly. At the period when the Jesuits governed the Missions of the
+Lower Orinoco, they assembled every year at Cabruta, below the mouth
+of the Apure, to have a grand fishing for manatees, with the Indians
+of their Missions, at the foot of the mountain now called El
+Capuchino. The fat of the animal, known by the name of manatee-butter
+(manteca de manati,) is used for lamps in the churches; and is also
+employed in preparing food. It has not the fetid smell of whale-oil,
+or that of the other cetaceous animals which spout water. The hide of
+the manati, which is more than an inch and a half thick, is cut into
+slips, and serves, like thongs of ox-leather, to supply the place of
+cordage in the Llanos. When immersed in water, it has the defect of
+undergoing a slight degree of putrefaction. Whips are made of it in
+the Spanish colonies. Hence the words latigo and manati are
+synonymous. These whips of manatee-leather are a cruel instrument of
+punishment for the unhappy slaves, and even for the Indians of the
+Missions, though, according to the laws, the latter ought to be
+treated like freemen.
+
+We passed the night opposite the island of Conserva. In skirting the
+forest we were surprised by the sight of an enormous trunk of a tree
+seventy feet high, and thickly set with branching thorns. It is called
+by the natives barba de tigre. It was perhaps a tree of the
+berberideous family.* (* We found, on the banks of the Apure, Ammania
+apurensis, Cordia cordifolia, C. grandiflora, Mollugo sperguloides,
+Myosotis lithospermoides, Spermacocce diffusa, Coronilla occidentalis,
+Bignonia apurensis, Pisonia pubescens, Ruellia viscosa, some new
+species of Jussieua, and a new genus of the composite family,
+approximating to Rolandra, the Trichospira menthoides of M. Kunth.)
+The Indians had kindled fires at the edge of the water. We again
+perceived that their light attracted the crocodiles, and even the
+porpoises (toninas), the noise of which interrupted our sleep, till
+the fire was extinguished. A female jaguar approached our station
+whilst taking her young one to drink at the river. The Indians
+succeeded in chasing her away, but we heard for a long time the cries
+of the little jaguar, which mewed like a young cat. Soon after, our
+great dog was bitten, or, as the Indians say, stung, at the point of
+the nose, by some enormous bats that hovered around our hammocks.
+These bats had long tails, like the Molosses: I believe, however, that
+they were Phyllostomes, the tongue of which, furnished with papillae,
+is an organ of suction, and is capable of being considerably
+elongated. The dog's wound was very small and round; and though he
+uttered a plaintive cry when he felt himself bitten, it was not from
+pain, but because he was frightened at the sight of the bats, which
+came out from beneath our hammocks. These accidents are much more rare
+than is believed even in the country itself. In the course of several
+years, notwithstanding we slept so often in the open air, in climates
+where vampire-bats,* (* Verspertilio spectrum.) and other analogous
+species are so common, we were never wounded. Besides, the puncture is
+no-way dangerous, and in general causes so little pain, that it often
+does not awaken the person till after the bat has withdrawn.
+
+The 4th of April was the last day we passed on the Rio Apure. The
+vegetation of its banks became more and more uniform. During several
+days, and particularly since we had left the Mission of Arichuna, we
+had suffered cruelly from the stings of insects, which covered our
+faces and hands. They were not mosquitos, which have the appearance of
+little flies, or of the genus Simulium, but zancudos, which are really
+gnats, though very different from our European species.* (* M.
+Latreille has discovered that the mosquitos of South Carolina are of
+the genus Simulium (Atractocera meigen.) These insects appear only
+after sunset. Their proboscis is so long that, when they fix on the
+lower surface of a hammock, they pierce through it and the thickest
+garments with their sting.
+
+We had intended to pass the night at the Vuelta del Palmito, but the
+number of jaguars at that part of the Apure is so great, that our
+Indians found two hidden behind the trunk of a locust-tree, at the
+moment when they were going to sling our hammocks. We were advised to
+re-embark, and take our station in the island of Apurito, near its
+junction with the Orinoco. That portion of the island belongs to the
+province of Caracas, while the right banks of the Apure and the
+Orinoco form a part, the one of the province of Varinas, the other of
+Spanish Guiana. We found no trees to which we could suspend our
+hammocks, and were obliged to sleep on ox-hides spread on the ground.
+The boats were too narrow and too full of zancudos to permit us to
+pass the night in them.
+
+In the place where we had landed our instruments, the banks being
+steep, we saw new proofs of the indolence of the gallinaceous birds of
+the tropics. The curassaos and cashew-birds* have the habit of going
+down several times a day to the river to allay their thirst. (* The
+latter (Crax pauxi) is less common than the former.) They drink a
+great deal, and at short intervals. A vast number of these birds had
+joined, near our station, a flock of parraka pheasants. They had great
+difficulty in climbing up the steep banks; they attempted it several
+times without using their wings. We drove them before us, as if we had
+been driving sheep. The zamuro vultures raise themselves from the
+ground with great reluctance.
+
+We were singularly struck at the small quantity of water which the Rio
+Apure furnishes at this season to the Orinoco. The Apure, which,
+according to my measurements, was still one hundred and thirty-six
+toises broad at the Cano Rico, was only sixty or eighty at its mouth.*
+(* Not quite so broad as the Seine at the Pont Royal, opposite the
+palace of the Tuileries, and a little more than half the width of the
+Thames at Westminster Bridge.) Its depth here was only three or four
+toises. It loses, no doubt, a part of its waters by the Rio Arichuna
+and the Cano del Manati, two branches of the Apure that flow into the
+Payara and the Guarico; but its greatest loss appears to be caused by
+filtrations on the beach, of which we have before spoken. The velocity
+of the Apure near its mouth was only 3.2 feet per second; so that I
+could easily have calculated the whole quantity of the water if I had
+taken, by a series of proximate soundings, the whole dimensions of the
+transverse section.
+
+We touched several times on shoals before we entered the Orinoco. The
+ground gained from the water is immense towards the confluence of the
+two rivers. We were obliged to be towed along by the bank. What a
+contrast between this state of the river immediately before the
+entrance of the rainy season, when all the effects of dryness of the
+air and of evaporation have attained their maximum, and that autumnal
+state when the Apure, like an arm of the sea, covers the savannahs as
+far as the eye can reach! We discerned towards the south the lonely
+hills of Coruato; while to the east the granite rocks of Curiquima,
+the Sugar Loaf of Caycara, and the mountains of the Tyrant* (Cerros
+del Tirano) began to rise on the horizon. (* This name alludes, no
+doubt, to the expedition of Antonio Sedeno. The port of Caycara,
+opposite Cabruta, still bears the name of that Conquistador.) It was
+not without emotion that we beheld for the first time, after long
+expectation, the waters of the Orinoco, at a point so distant from the
+coast.
+
+
+CHAPTER 2.19.
+
+JUNCTION OF THE APURE AND THE ORINOCO.
+MOUNTAINS OF ENCARAMADA.
+URUANA.
+BARAGUAN.
+CARICHANA.
+MOUTH OF THE META.
+ISLAND OF PANUMANA.
+
+On leaving the Rio Apure we found ourselves in a country presenting a
+totally different aspect. An immense plain of water stretched before
+us like a lake, as far as we could see. White-topped waves rose to the
+height of several feet, from the conflict of the breeze and the
+current. The air resounded no longer with the piercing cries of
+herons, flamingos, and spoonbills, crossing in long files from one
+shore to the other. Our eyes sought in vain those waterfowls, the
+habits of which vary in each tribe. All nature appeared less animated.
+Scarcely could we discover in the hollows of the waves a few large
+crocodiles, cutting obliquely, by the help of their long tails, the
+surface of the agitated waters. The horizon was bounded by a zone of
+forests, which nowhere reached so far as the bed of the river. A vast
+beach, constantly parched by the heat of the sun, desert and bare as
+the shores of the sea, resembled at a distance, from the effect of the
+mirage, pools of stagnant water. These sandy shores, far from fixing
+the limits of the river, render them uncertain, by enlarging or
+contracting them alternately, according to the variable action of the
+solar rays.
+
+In these scattered features of the landscape, in this character of
+solitude and of greatness, we recognize the course of the Orinoco, one
+of the most majestic rivers of the New World. The water, like the
+land, displays everywhere a characteristic and peculiar aspect. The
+bed of the Orinoco resembles not the bed of the Meta, the Guaviare,
+the Rio Negro, or the Amazon. These differences do not depend
+altogether on the breadth or the velocity of the current; they are
+connected with a multitude of impressions which it is easier to
+perceive upon the spot than to define with precision. Thus, the mere
+form of the waves, the tint of the waters, the aspect of the sky and
+the clouds, would lead an experienced navigator to guess whether he
+were in the Atlantic, in the Mediterranean, or in the equinoctial part
+of the Pacific.
+
+The wind blew fresh from east-north-east. Its direction was favourable
+for sailing up the Orinoco, towards the Mission of Encaramada; but our
+canoes were so ill calculated to resist the shocks of the waves, that,
+from the violence of the motion, those who suffered habitually at sea
+were equally incommoded on the river. The short, broken waves are
+caused by the conflict of the waters at the junction of the two
+rivers. This conflict is very violent, but far from being so dangerous
+as Father Gumilla describes. We passed the Punta Curiquima, which is
+an isolated mass of quartzose granite, a small promontory composed of
+rounded blocks. There, on the right bank of the Orinoco, Father
+Rotella founded, in the time of the Jesuits, a Mission of the Palenka
+and Viriviri or Guire Indians. But during inundations, the rock
+Curiquima and the village at its foot were entirely surrounded by
+water; and this serious inconvenience, together with the sufferings of
+the missionaries and Indians from the innumerable quantity of
+mosquitos and niguas,* led them to forsake this humid spot. (* The
+chego (Pulex penetrans) which penetrates under the nails of the toe in
+men and monkeys, and there deposits its eggs.) It is now entirely
+deserted, while opposite to it, on the right bank of the river, the
+little mountains of Coruato are the retreat of wandering Indians,
+expelled either from the Missions, or from tribes that are not subject
+to the government of the monks.
+
+Struck with the extreme breadth of the Orinoco, between the mouth of
+the Apure and the rock Curiquima, I ascertained it by means of a base
+measured twice on the western beach. The bed of the Orinoco, at low
+water, was 1906 toises broad; but this breadth increases to 5517
+toises, when, in the rainy season, the rock Curiquima, and the farm of
+Capuchino near the hill of Pocopocori, become islands. The swelling of
+the Orinoco is augmented by the impulse of the waters of the Apure,
+which, far from forming, like other rivers, an acute angle with the
+upper part of that into which it flows, meets it at right angles.
+
+We first proceeded south-west, as far as the shore inhabited by the
+Guaricoto Indians on the left bank of the Orinoco, and then we
+advanced straight toward the south. The river is so broad that the
+mountains of Encaramada appear to rise from the water, as if seen
+above the horizon of the sea. They form a continued chain from east to
+west. These mountains are composed of enormous blocks of granite,
+cleft and piled one upon another. Their division into blocks is the
+effect of decomposition. What contributes above all to embellish the
+scene at Encaramada is the luxuriance of vegetation that covers the
+sides of the rocks, leaving bare only their rounded summits. They look
+like ancient ruins rising in the midst of a forest. The mountain
+immediately at the back of the Mission, the Tepupano* of the Tamanac
+Indians is terminated by three enormous granitic cylinders, two of
+which are inclined, while the third, though worn at its base, and more
+than eighty feet high, has preserved a vertical position. (*
+Tepu-pano, place of stones, in which we recognize tepu stone, rock, as
+in tepu-iri, mountain. We here perceive that Lesgian Oigour-Tartar
+root tep, stone (found in America among the Americans, in teptl; among
+the Caribs, in tebou; among the Tamanacs, in tepuiri); a striking
+analogy between the languages of Caucasus and Upper Asia and those of
+the banks of the Orinoco.) This rock, which calls to mind the form of
+the Schnarcher in the Hartz mountains, or that of the Organs of
+Actopan in Mexico,* composed formerly a part of the rounded summit of
+the mountain. (* In Captain Tuckey's Voyage on the river Congo, we
+find represented a granitic rock, Taddi Enzazi, which bears a striking
+resemblance to the mountain of Encaramada.) In every climate,
+unstratified granite separates by decomposition into blocks of
+prismatic, cylindric, or columnar figures.
+
+Opposite the shore of the Guaricotos, we drew near another heap of
+rocks, which is very low, and three or four toises long. It rises in
+the midst of the plain, and has less resemblance to a tumulus than to
+those masses of granitic stone, which in North Holland and Germany
+bear the name of hunenbette, beds (or tombs) of heroes. The shore, at
+this part of the Orinoco, is no longer of pure and quartzose sand; but
+is composed of clay and spangles of mica, deposited in very thin
+strata, and generally at an inclination of forty or fifty degrees. It
+looks like decomposed mica-slate. This change in the geological
+configuration of the shore extends far beyond the mouth of the Apure.
+We had begun to observe it in this latter river as far off as
+Algodonal and the Cano del Manati. The spangles of mica come, no
+doubt, from the granite mountains of Curiquima and Encaramada; since
+further north-east we find only quartzose sand, sandstone, compact
+limestone, and gypsum. Alluvial earth carried successively from south
+to north need not surprise us in the Orinoco; but to what shall we
+attribute the same phenomenon in the bed of the Apure, seven leagues
+west of its mouth? In the present state of things, notwithstanding the
+swellings of the Orinoco, the waters of the Apure never retrograde so
+far; and, to explain this phenomenon, we are forced to admit that the
+micaceous strata were deposited at a time when the whole of the very
+low country lying between Caycara, Algodonal, and the mountains of
+Encaramada, formed the basin of an inland lake.
+
+We stopped some time at the port of Encaramada, which is a sort of
+embarcadero, a place where boats assemble. A rock of forty or fifty
+feet high forms the shore. It is composed of blocks of granite, heaped
+one upon another, as at the Schneeberg in Franconia, and in almost all
+the granitic mountains of Europe. Some of these detached masses have a
+spheroidal form; they are not balls with concentric layers, but merely
+rounded blocks, nuclei separated from their envelopes by the effect of
+decomposition. This granite is of a greyish lead-colour, often black,
+as if covered with oxide of manganese; but this colour does not
+penetrate one fifth of a line into the rock, which is of a reddish
+white colour within, coarse-grained, and destitute of hornblende.
+
+The Indian names of the Mission of San Luis del Encaramada, are Guaja
+and Caramana.* (* All the Missions of South America have names
+composed of two words, the first of which is necessarily the name of a
+saint, the patron of the church, and the second an Indian name, that
+of the nation, or the spot where the establishment is placed. Thus we
+say, San Jose de Maypures, Santa Cruz de Cachipo, San Juan Nepomuceno
+de los Atures, etc. These compound names appear only in official
+documents; the Inhabitants adopt but one of the two names, and
+generally, provided it be sonorous, the Indian. As the names of saints
+are several times repeated in neighbouring places, great confusion in
+geography arises from these repetitions. The names of San Juan, San
+Diego, and San Pedro, are scattered in our maps as if by chance. It is
+pretended that the Mission of Guaja affords a very rare example of the
+composition of two Spanish words. The word Encaramada means things
+raised one upon another, from encaramar, to raise up. It is derived
+from the figure of Tepupano and the neighbouring rocks: perhaps it is
+only an Indian word caramana, in which, as in manati, a Spanish
+signification was believed to be discovered.) This small village was
+founded in 1749 by Father Gili, the Jesuit, author of the Storia dell'
+Orinoco, published at Rome. This missionary, learned in the Indian
+tongues, lived in these solitudes during eighteen years, till the
+expulsion of the Jesuits. To form a precise idea of the savage state
+of these countries it must be recollected that Father Gili speaks of
+Carichana,* which is forty leagues from Encaramada, as of a spot far
+distant; and that he never advanced so far as the first cataract in
+the river of which he ventured to undertake the description. (* Saggio
+di Storia Americana volume 1 page 122.)
+
+In the port of Encaramada we met with some Caribs of Panapana. A
+cacique was going up the Orinoco in his canoe, to join in the famous
+fishing of turtles' eggs. His canoe was rounded toward the bottom like
+a bongo, and followed by a smaller boat called a curiara. He was
+seated beneath a sort of tent, constructed, like the sail, of
+palm-leaves. His cold and silent gravity, the respect with which he
+was treated by his attendants, everything denoted him to be a person
+of importance. He was equipped, however, in the same manner as his
+Indians. They were all equally naked, armed with bows and arrows, and
+painted with onoto, which is the colouring fecula of the Bixa
+orellana. The chief, the domestics, the furniture, the boat, and the
+sail, were all painted red. These Caribs are men of an almost athletic
+stature; they appeared to us much taller than any Indians we had
+hitherto seen. Their smooth and thick hair, cut short on the forehead
+like that of choristers, their eyebrows painted black, their look at
+once gloomy and animated, gave a singular expression to their
+countenances. Having till then seen only the skulls of some Caribs of
+the West India Islands preserved in the collections of Europe, we were
+surprised to find that these Indians, who were of pure race, had
+foreheads much more rounded than they are described. The women, who
+were very tall, and disgusting from their want of cleanliness, carried
+their infants on their backs. The thighs and legs of the infants were
+bound at certain distances by broad strips of cotton cloth, and the
+flesh, strongly compressed beneath the ligatures, was swelled in the
+interstices. It is generally to be observed, that the Caribs are as
+attentive to their exterior and their ornaments, as it is possible for
+men to be, who are naked and painted red. They attach great importance
+to certain configurations of the body; and a mother would be accused
+of culpable indifference toward her children, if she did not employ
+artificial means to shape the calf of the leg after the fashion of the
+country. As none of our Indians of Apure understood the Caribbee
+language, we could obtain no information from the cacique of Panama
+respecting the encampments that are made at this season in several
+islands of the Orinoco for collecting turtles' eggs.
+
+Near Encaramada a very long island divides the river into two
+branches. We passed the night in a rocky creek, opposite the mouth of
+the Rio Cabullare, which is formed by the Payara and the Atamaica, and
+is sometimes considered as one of the branches of the Apure, because
+it communicates with that river by the Rio Arichuna. The evening was
+beautiful. The moon illumined the tops of the granite rocks. The heat
+was so uniformly distributed, that, notwithstanding the humidity of
+the air, no twinkling of the stars was observable, even at four or
+five degrees above the horizon. The light of the planets was
+singularly dimmed; and if, on account of the smallness of the apparent
+diameter of Jupiter, I had not suspected some error in the
+observation, I should say, that here, for the first time, we thought
+we distinguished the disk of Jupiter with the naked eye. Towards
+midnight, the north-east wind became extremely violent. It brought no
+clouds, but the vault of the sky was covered more and more with
+vapours. Strong gusts were felt, and made us fear for the safety of
+our canoe. During this whole day we had seen very few crocodiles, but
+all of an extraordinary size, from twenty to twenty-four feet. The
+Indians assured us that the young crocodiles prefer the marshes, and
+the rivers that are less broad, and less deep. They crowd together
+particularly in the Canos, and we may say of them, what Abdallatif
+says of the crocodiles of the Nile,* "that they swarm like worms in
+the shallow waters of the river, and in the shelter of uninhabited
+islands." (* Description de l'Egypte translated by De Sacy.)
+
+On the 6th of April, whilst continuing to ascend the Orinoco, first
+southward and then to south-west, we perceived the southern side of
+the Serrania, or chain of the mountains of Encaramada. The part
+nearest the river is only one hundred and forty or one hundred and
+sixty toises high; but from its abrupt declivities, its situation in
+the midst of a savannah, and its rocky summits, cut into shapeless
+prisms, the Serrania appears singularly elevated. Its greatest breadth
+is only three leagues. According to information given me by the
+Indians of the Pareka nation, it is considerably wider toward the
+east. The summits of Encaramada form the northernmost link of a group
+of mountains which border the right bank of the Orinoco, between the
+latitudes of 5 degrees and 7 degrees 30 minutes from the mouth of the
+Rio Zama to that of the Cabullare. The different links into which this
+group is divided are separated by little grassy plains. They do not
+preserve a direction perfectly parallel to each other; for the most
+northern stretch from west to east, and the most southern from
+north-west to south-east. This change of direction sufficiently
+explains the increase of breadth observed in the Cordillera of Parime
+towards the east, between the sources of the Orinoco and of the Rio
+Paruspa. On penetrating beyond the great cataracts of Atures and of
+Maypures, we shall see seven principal links, those of Encaramada or
+Sacuina, of Chaviripa, of Baraguan, of Carichana, of Uniama, of
+Calitamini, and of Sipapo, successively appear. This sketch may serve
+to give a general idea of the geological configuration of the ground.
+We recognize everywhere on the globe a tendency toward regular forms,
+in those mountains that appear the most irregularly grouped. Every
+link appears, in a transverse section, like a distinct summit, to
+those who navigate the Orinoco; but this division is merely in
+appearance. The regularity in the direction and separation of the
+links seems to diminish in proportion as we advance towards the east.
+The mountains of Encaramada join those of Mato, which give birth to
+the Rio Asiveru or Cuchivero; those of Chaviripe are prolonged by the
+granite chain of the Corosal, of Amoco, and of Murcielago, towards the
+sources of the Erevato and the Ventuari.
+
+It was across these mountains, which are inhabited by Indians of
+gentle character, employed in agriculture,* (* The Mapoyes, Parecas,
+Javaranas, and Curacicanas, who possess fine plantations (conucos) in
+the savannahs by which these forests are bounded.) that, at the time
+of the expedition for settling boundaries, General Iturriaga took some
+horned cattle for the supply of the new town of San Fernando de
+Atabapo. The inhabitants of Encaramada then showed the Spanish
+soldiers the way by the Rio Manapiari,* which falls into the Ventuari.
+(* Between Encaramada and the Rio Manapiare, Don Miguel Sanchez, chief
+of this little expedition, crossed the Rio Guainaima, which flows into
+the Cuchivero. Sanchez died, from the fatigue of this journey, on the
+borders of the Ventuari.) By descending these two rivers, the Orinoco
+and the Atabapo may be reached without passing the great cataracts,
+which present almost insurmountable obstacles to the conveyance of
+cattle. The spirit of enterprise which had so eminently distinguished
+the Castilians at the period of the discovery of America, was again
+roused for a time in the middle of the eighteenth century, when
+Ferdinand VI was desirous of knowing the true limits of his vast
+possessions; and in the forests of Guiana, that land of fiction and
+fabulous tradition, the wily Indians revived the chimerical idea of
+the wealth of El Dorado, which had so much occupied the imagination of
+the first conquerors.
+
+Amidst the mountains of Encaramada, which, like most coarse-grained
+granite rocks, are destitute of metallic veins, we cannot help
+inquiring whence came those grains of gold which Juan Martinez* (* The
+companion of Diego Ordaz.) and Raleigh profess to have seen in such
+abundance in the hands of the Indians of the Orinoco. From what I
+observed in that part of America, I am led to think that gold, like
+tin,* is sometimes disseminated in an almost imperceptible manner in
+the very mass of granite rocks, without our being able to perceive
+that there is a ramification and an intertwining of small veins. (*
+Thus tin is found in granite of recent formation, at Geyer; in
+hyalomicte or graisen, at Zinnwald; and in syenitic porphyry, at
+Altenberg, in Saxony, as well as near Naila, in the Fichtelgebirge. I
+have also seen, in the Upper Palatinate, micaceous iron, and black
+earthy cobalt, far from any kind of vein, disseminated in a granite
+destitute of mica, as magnetic iron-sand is in volcanic rocks.) Not
+long ago the Indians of Encaramada found in the Quebrada del Tigre* (*
+The Tiger-ravine.) a piece of native gold two lines in diameter. It
+was rounded, and appeared to have been washed along by the waters.
+This discovery excited the attention of the missionaries much more
+than of the natives; it was followed by no other of the same kind.
+
+I cannot quit this first link of the mountains of Encaramada without
+recalling to mind a fact that was not unknown to Father Gili, and
+which was often mentioned to me during our abode in the Missions of
+the Orinoco. The natives of those countries have retained the belief
+that, "at the time of the great waters, when their fathers were forced
+to have recourse to boats, to escape the general inundation, the waves
+of the sea beat against the rocks of Encaramada." This belief is not
+confined to one nation singly, the Tamanacs; it makes part of a system
+of historical tradition, of which we find scattered notions among the
+Maypures of the great cataracts; among the Indians of the Rio Erevato,
+which runs into the Caura; and among almost all the tribes of the
+Upper Orinoco. When the Tamanacs are asked how the human race survived
+this great deluge, the age of water, of the Mexicans, they say, a man
+and a woman saved themselves on a high mountain, called Tamanacu,
+situated on the banks of the Asiveru; and casting behind them, over
+their heads, the fruits of the mauritia palm-tree, they saw the seeds
+contained in those fruits produce men and women, who repeopled the
+earth. Thus we find in all its simplicity, among nations now in a
+savage state, a tradition which the Greeks embellished with all the
+charms of imagination! A few leagues from Encaramada, a rock, called
+Tepu-mereme, or the painted rock, rises in the midst of the savannah.
+Upon it are traced representations of animals, and symbolic figures
+resembling those we saw in going down the Orinoco, at a small distance
+below Encaramada, near the town Caycara. Similar rocks in Africa are
+called by travellers fetish stones. I shall not make use of this term,
+because fetishism does not prevail among the natives of the Orinoco;
+and the figures of stars, of the sun, of tigers, and of crocodiles,
+which we found traced upon the rocks in spots now uninhabited,
+appeared to me in no way to denote the objects of worship of those
+nations. Between the banks of the Cassiquiare and the Orinoco, between
+Encaramada, the Capuchino, and Caycara, these hieroglyphic figures are
+often seen at great heights, on rocky cliffs which could be accessible
+only by constructing very lofty scaffolds. When the natives are asked
+how those figures could have been sculptured, they answer with a
+smile, as if relating a fact of which only a white man could be
+ignorant, that "at the period of the great waters, their fathers went
+to that height in boats."
+
+These ancient traditions of the human race, which we find dispersed
+over the whole surface of the globe, like the relics of a vast
+shipwreck, are highly interesting in the philosophical study of our
+own species. Like certain families of the vegetable kingdom, which,
+notwithstanding the diversity of climates and the influence of
+heights, retain the impression of a common type, the traditions of
+nations respecting the origin of the world, display everywhere the
+same physiognomy, and preserve features of resemblance that fill us
+with astonishment. How many different tongues, belonging to branches
+that appear totally distinct, transmit to us the same facts! The
+traditions concerning races that have been destroyed, and the renewal
+of nature, scarcely vary in reality, though every nation gives them a
+local colouring. In the great continents, as in the smallest islands
+of the Pacific Ocean, it is always on the loftiest and nearest
+mountain that the remains of the human race have been saved; and this
+event appears the more recent, in proportion as the nations are
+uncultivated, and as the knowledge they have of their own existence
+has no very remote date. After having studied with attention the
+Mexican monuments anterior to the discovery of the New World; after
+having penetrated into the forests of the Orinoco, and observed the
+diminutive size of the European establishments, their solitude, and
+the state of the tribes that have remained independent; we cannot
+allow ourselves to attribute the analogies just cited to the influence
+exercised by the missionaries, and by Christianity, on the national
+traditions. Nor is it more probable, that the discovery of sea-shells
+on the summit of mountains gave birth, among the nations of the
+Orinoco, to the tradition of some great inundation which extinguished
+for a time the germs of organic life on our globe. The country that
+extends from the right bank of the Orinoco to the Cassiquiare and the
+Rio Negro, is a country of primitive rocks. I saw there one small
+formation of sandstone or conglomerate; but no secondary limestone,
+and no trace of petrifactions.
+
+A fresh north-east breeze carried us full-sail towards the Boca de la
+Tortuga. We landed, at eleven in the morning, on an island which the
+Indians of the Missions of Uruana considered as their property, and
+which lies in the middle of the river. This island is celebrated for
+the turtle fishery, or, as they say here, the cosecha, the harvest [of
+eggs,] that takes place annually. We here found an assemblage of
+Indians, encamped under huts made of palm-leaves. This encampment
+contained more than three hundred persons. Accustomed, since we had
+left San Fernando de Apure, to see only desert shores, we were
+singularly struck by the bustle that prevailed here. We found, besides
+the Guamos and the Ottomacs of Uruana, who are both considered as
+savage races, Caribs and other Indians of the Lower Orinoco. Every
+tribe was separately encamped, and was distinguished by the pigments
+with which their skins were painted. Some white men were seen amidst
+this tumultuous assemblage, chiefly pulperos, or little traders of
+Angostura, who had come up the river to purchase turtle oil from the
+natives. The missionary of Uruana, a native of Alcala, came to meet
+us, and he was extremely astonished at seeing us. After having admired
+our instruments, he gave us an exaggerated picture of the sufferings
+to which we should be necessarily exposed in ascending the Orinoco
+beyond the cataracts. The object of our journey appeared to him very
+mysterious. "How is it possible to believe," said he, "that you have
+left your country, to come and be devoured by mosquitos on this river,
+and to measure lands that are not your own?" We were happily furnished
+with recommendations from the Superior of the Franciscan Missions, and
+the brother-in-law of the governor of Varinas, who accompanied us,
+soon dissipated the doubts to which our dress, our accent, and our
+arrival in this sandy island, had given rise among the Whites. The
+missionary invited us to partake a frugal repast of fish and
+plantains. He told us that he had come to encamp with the Indians
+during the time of the harvest of eggs, "to celebrate mass every
+morning in the open air, to procure the oil necessary for the
+church-lamps, and especially to govern this mixed republic (republica
+de Indios y Castellanos) in which every one wished to profit singly by
+what God had granted to all."
+
+We made the tour of the island, accompanied by the missionary and by a
+pulpero, who boasted of having, for ten successive years, visited the
+camp of the Indians, and attended the turtle-fishery. We were on a
+plain of sand perfectly smooth; and were told that, as far as we could
+see along the beach, turtles' eggs were concealed under a layer of
+earth. The missionary carried a long pole in his hand. He showed us,
+that by means of this pole, the extent of the stratum of eggs could be
+determined as accurately as the miner determines the limits of a bed
+of marl, of bog iron-ore, or of coal. On thrusting the rod
+perpendicularly into the ground, the sudden want of resistance shows
+that the cavity or layer of loose earth containing the eggs, has been
+reached. We saw that the stratum is generally spread with so much
+uniformity, that the pole finds it everywhere in a radius of ten
+toises around any given spot. Here they talk continually of square
+perches of eggs; it is like a mining-country, divided into lots, and
+worked with the greatest regularity. The stratum of eggs, however, is
+far from covering the whole island: they are not found wherever the
+ground rises abruptly, because the turtle cannot mount heights. I
+related to my guides the emphatic description of Father Gumilla, who
+asserts, that the shores of the Orinoco contain fewer grains of sand
+than the river contains turtles; and that these animals would prevent
+vessels from advancing, if men and tigers did not annually destroy so
+great a number.* (* "It would be as difficult to count the grains of
+sand on the shores of the Orinoco, as to count the immense number of
+tortoises which inhabit its margins and waters. Were it not for the
+vast consumption of tortoises and their eggs, the river Orinoco,
+despite its great magnitude, would be unnavigable, for vessels would
+be impeded by the enormous multitude of the tortoises." Gumilla,
+Orinoco Illustrata volume 1 pages 331 to 336.) "Son cuentos de
+frailes," "they are monkish legends," said the pulpero of Angostura,
+in a low voice; for the only travellers in this country being the
+missionaries, they here call monks' stories, what we call travellers'
+tales, in Europe.
+
+The Indians assured us that, in going up the Orinoco from its mouth to
+its junction with the Apure, not one island or one beach is to be
+found, where eggs can be collected in abundance. The great turtle
+(arrau* (* This word belongs to the Maypure language, and must not be
+confounded with arua, which means a crocodile, among the Tamanacs,
+neighbours of the Maypures. The Ottomacs call the turtle of Uruana,
+achea; the Tamanacs, peje.)) dreads places inhabited by men, or much
+frequented by boats. It is a timid and mistrustful animal, raising
+only its head above the water, and hiding itself at the least noise.
+The shores where almost all the turtles of the Orinoco appear to
+assemble annually, are situated between the junction of the Orinoco
+with the Apure, and the great cataracts; that is to say, between
+Cabruta and the Mission of Atures. There are found the three famous
+fisheries; those of Encaramada, or Boca del Cabullare; of Cucuruparu,
+or Boca de la Tortuga; and of Pararuma, a little below Carichana. It
+seems that the arrau does not pass beyond the cataracts; and we were
+assured, that only the turtles called terekay, (in Spanish terecayas,)
+are found above Atures and Maypures.
+
+The arrau, called by the Spaniards of the Missions simply tortuga, is
+an animal whose existence is of great importance to the nations on the
+Lower Orinoco. It is a large freshwater tortoise, with palmate and
+membraneous feet; the head very flat, with two fleshy and
+acutely-pointed appendages under the chin; five claws to the fore
+feet, and four to the hind feet, which are furrowed underneath. The
+upper shell has five central, eight lateral, and twenty-four marginal
+plates. The colour is darkish grey above, and orange beneath. The feet
+are yellow, and very long. There is a deep furrow between the eyes.
+The claws are very strong and crooked. The anus is placed at the
+distance of one-fifth from the extremity of the tail. The full-grown
+animal weighs from forty to fifty pounds. Its eggs are much larger
+than those of pigeons, and less elongated than the eggs of the
+terekay. They are covered with a calcareous crust, and, it is said,
+they have sufficient firmness for the children of the Ottomac Indians,
+who are great players at ball, to throw them into the air from one to
+another. If the arrau inhabited the bed of the river above the
+cataracts, the Indians of the Upper Orinoco would not travel so far to
+procure the flesh and the eggs of this tortoise. Yet, formerly, whole
+tribes from the Atabapo and the Cassiquiare have been known to pass
+the cataracts, in order to take part in the fishery at Uruana.
+
+The terekay is less than the arrau. It is in general only fourteen
+inches in diameter. The number of plates in the upper shell is the
+same, but they are somewhat differently arranged. I counted three in
+the centre of the disk, and five hexagonal on each side. The margins
+contain twenty-four, all quadrangular, and much curved. The upper
+shell is of a black colour inclining to green; the feet and claws are
+like those of the arrau. The whole animal is of an olive-green, but it
+has two spots of red mixed with yellow on the top of the head. The
+throat is also yellow, and furnished with a prickly appendage. The
+terekays do not assemble in numerous societies like the arraus, to lay
+their eggs in common, and deposit them upon the same shore. The eggs
+of the terekay have an agreeable taste, and are much sought after by
+the inhabitants of Spanish Guiana. They are found in the Upper
+Orinoco, as well as below the cataracts, and even in the Apure, the
+Uritucu, the Guarico, and the small rivers that traverse the Llanos of
+Caracas. The form of the feet and head, the appendages of the chin and
+throat, and the position of the anus, seem to indicate that the arrau,
+and probably the terekay also, belong to a new subdivision of the
+tortoises, that may be separated from the emydes. The period at which
+the large arrau tortoise lays its eggs coincides with the period of
+the lowest waters. The Orinoco beginning to increase from the vernal
+equinox, the lowest flats are found uncovered from the end of January
+till the 20th or 25th of March. The arrau tortoises collect in troops
+in the month of January, then issue from the water, and warm
+themselves in the sun, reposing on the sands. The Indians believe that
+great heat is indispensable to the health of the animal, and that its
+exposure to the sun favours the laying of the eggs. The arraus are
+found on the beach a great part of the day during the whole month of
+February. At the beginning of March the straggling troops assemble,
+and swim towards the small number of islands on which they habitually
+deposit their eggs. It is probable that the same tortoise returns
+every year to the same locality. At this period, a few days before
+they lay their eggs, thousands of these animals may be seen ranged in
+long files, on the borders of the islands of Cucuruparu, Uruana, and
+Pararuma, stretching out their necks and holding their heads above
+water, to see whether they have anything to dread. The Indians, who
+are anxious that the bands when assembled should not separate, that
+the tortoises should not disperse, and that the laying of the eggs
+should be performed tranquilly, place sentinels at certain distances
+along the shore. The people who pass in boats are told to keep in the
+middle of the river, and not frighten the tortoises by cries. The
+laying of the eggs takes place always during the night, and it begins
+soon after sunset. With its hind feet, which are very long, and
+furnished with crooked claws, the animal digs a hole of three feet in
+diameter and two in depth. These tortoises feel so pressing a desire
+to lay their eggs, that some of them descend into holes that have been
+dug by others, but which are not yet covered with earth. There they
+deposit a new layer of eggs on that which has been recently laid. In
+this tumultuous movement an immense number of eggs are broken. The
+missionary showed us, by removing the sand in several places, that
+this loss probably amounts to a fifth of the whole quantity. The yolk
+of the broken eggs contributes, in drying, to cement the sand; and we
+found very large concretions of grains of quartz and broken shells.
+The number of animals working on the beach during the night is so
+considerable, that day surprises many of them before the laying of
+their eggs is terminated. They are then urged on by the double
+necessity of depositing their eggs, and closing the holes they have
+dug, that they may not be perceived by the jaguars. The tortoises that
+thus remain too late are insensible to their own danger. They work in
+the presence of the Indians, who visit the beach at a very early hour,
+and who call them mad tortoises. Notwithstanding the rapidity of their
+movements, they are then easily caught with the hand.
+
+The three encampments formed by the Indians, in the places indicated
+above, begin about the end of March or commencement of April. The
+gathering of the eggs is conducted in a uniform manner, and with that
+regularity which characterises all monastic institutions. Before the
+arrival of the missionaries on the banks of the river, the Indians
+profited much less from a production which nature has supplied in such
+abundance. Every tribe searched the beach in its own way; and an
+immense number of eggs were uselessly broken, because they were not
+dug up with precaution, and more eggs were uncovered than could be
+carried away. It was like a mine worked by unskilful hands. The
+Jesuits have the merit of having reduced this operation to regularity;
+and though the Franciscan monks, who succeeded the Jesuits in the
+Missions of the Orinoco, boast of having followed the example of their
+predecessors, they unhappily do not effect all that prudence requires.
+The Jesuits did not suffer the whole beach to be searched; they left a
+part untouched, from the fear of seeing the breed of tortoises, if not
+destroyed, at least considerably diminished. The whole beach is now
+dug up without reserve; and accordingly it seems to be perceived that
+the gathering is less productive from year to year.
+
+When the camp is formed, the missionary of Uruana names his
+lieutenant, or commissary, who divides the ground where the eggs are
+found into different portions, according to the number of the Indian
+tribes who take part in the gathering. They are all Indians of
+Missions, as naked and rude as the Indians of the woods; though they
+are called reducidos and neofitos, because they go to church at the
+sound of the bell, and have learned to kneel down during the
+consecration of the host.
+
+The lieutenant (commissionado del Padre) begins his operations by
+sounding. He examines by means of a long wooden pole or a cane of
+bamboo, how far the stratum of eggs extends. This stratum, according
+to our measurements, extended to the distance of one hundred and
+twenty feet from the shore. Its average depth is three feet. The
+commissionado places marks to indicate the point where each tribe
+should stop in its labours. We were surprised to hear this harvest of
+eggs estimated like the produce of a well-cultivated field. An area
+accurately measured of one hundred and twenty feet long, and thirty
+feet wide, has been known to yield one hundred jars of oil, valued at
+about forty pounds sterling. The Indians remove the earth with their
+hands; they place the eggs they have collected in small baskets, carry
+them to their encampment, and throw them into long troughs of wood
+filled with water. In these troughs the eggs, broken and stirred with
+shovels, remain exposed to the sun till the oily part, which swims on
+the surface, has time to inspissate. As fast as this collects on the
+surface of the water, it is taken off and boiled over a quick fire.
+This animal oil, called tortoise butter (manteca de tortugas* (* The
+Tamanac Indians give it the name of carapa; the Maypures call it
+timi.)) keeps the better, it is said, in proportion as it has
+undergone a strong ebullition. When well prepared, it is limpid,
+inodorous, and scarcely yellow. The missionaries compare it to the
+best olive oil, and it is used not merely for burning in lamps, but
+for cooking. It is not easy, however, to procure oil of turtles' eggs
+quite pure. It has generally a putrid smell, owing to the mixture of
+eggs in which the young are already formed.
+
+I acquired some general statistical notions on the spot, by consulting
+the missionary of Uruana, his lieutenant, and the traders of
+Angostura. The shore of Uruana furnishes one thousand botijas, or jars
+of oil, annually. The price of each jar at Angostura varies from two
+piastres to two and a half. We may admit that the total produce of the
+three shores, where the cosecha, or gathering of eggs, is annually
+made, is five thousand botijas. Now as two hundred eggs yield oil
+enough to fill a bottle (limeta), it requires five thousand eggs for a
+jar or botija of oil. Estimating at one hundred, or one hundred and
+sixteen, the number of eggs that one tortoise produces, and reckoning
+that one third of these is broken at the time of laying, particularly
+by the mad tortoises, we may presume that, to obtain annually five
+thousand jars of oil, three hundred and thirty thousand arrau
+tortoises, the weight of which amounts to one hundred and sixty-five
+thousand quintals, must lay thirty-three millions of eggs on the three
+shores where this harvest is gathered. The results of these
+calculations are much below the truth. Many tortoises lay only sixty
+or seventy eggs; and a great number of these animals are devoured by
+jaguars at the moment they emerge from the water. The Indians bring
+away a great number of eggs to eat them dried in the sun; and they
+break a considerable number through carelessness during the gathering.
+The number of eggs that are hatched before the people can dig them up
+is so prodigious, that near the encampment of Uruana I saw the whole
+shore of the Orinoco swarming with little tortoises an inch in
+diameter, escaping with difficulty from the pursuit of the Indian
+children. If to these considerations be added, that all the arraus do
+not assemble on the three shores of the encampments; and that there
+are many which lay their eggs in solitude, and some weeks later,*
+between the mouth of the Orinoco and the confluence of the Apure; we
+must admit that the number of turtles which annually deposit their
+eggs on the banks of the Lower Orinoco, is near a million. (* The
+arraus, which lay their eggs before the beginning of March, (for in
+the same species the more or less frequent basking in the sun, the
+food, and the peculiar organization of each individual, occasion
+differences,) come out of the water with the terekays, which lay in
+January and February. Father Gumilla believes them to be arraus that
+were not able to lay their eggs the preceding year. It is difficult to
+find the eggs of the terekays, because these animals, far from
+collecting in thousands on the same beach, deposit their eggs as they
+are scattered about.) This number is very great for so large an
+animal. In general large animals multiply less considerably than the
+smaller ones.
+
+The labour of collecting the eggs, and preparing the oil, occupies
+three weeks. It is at this period only that the missionaries have any
+communication with the coast and the civilized neighbouring countries.
+The Franciscan monks who live south of the cataracts, come to the
+harvest of eggs less to procure oil, than to see, as they say, white
+faces; and to learn whether the king inhabits the Escurial or San
+Ildefonso, whether convents are still suppressed in France, and above
+all, whether the Turks continue to keep quiet. On these subjects, (the
+only ones interesting to a monk of the Orinoco), the small traders of
+Angostura, who visit the encampments, can give, unfortunately, no very
+exact information. But in these distant countries no doubt is ever
+entertained of the news brought by a white man from the capital. The
+profit of the traders in oil amounts to seventy or eighty per cent;
+for the Indians sell it them at the price of a piastre a jar or
+botija, and the expense of carriage is not more than two-fifths of a
+piastre per jar. The Indians bring away also a considerable quantity
+of eggs dried in the sun, or slightly boiled. Our rowers had baskets
+or little bags of cotton-cloth filled with these eggs. Their taste is
+not disagreeable, when well preserved. We were shown large shells of
+turtles, which had been destroyed by the jaguars. These animals follow
+the arraus towards those places on the beach where the eggs are laid.
+They surprise the arraus on the sand; and, in order to devour them at
+their ease, turn them in such a manner that the under shell is
+uppermost. In this situation the turtles cannot rise; and as the
+jaguar turns many more than he can eat in one night, the Indians often
+avail themselves of his cunning and avidity.
+
+When we reflect on the difficulty experienced by the naturalist in
+getting out the body of the turtle without separating the upper and
+under shells, we cannot sufficiently wonder at the suppleness of the
+tiger's paw, which is able to remove the double armour of the arrau,
+as if the adhering parts of the muscles had been cut by a surgical
+instrument. The jaguar pursues the turtle into the water when it is
+not very deep. It even digs up the eggs; and together with the
+crocodile, the heron, and the galinazo vulture, is the most cruel
+enemy of the little turtles recently hatched. The island of Pararuma
+had been so much infested with crocodiles the preceding year, during
+the egg-harvest, that the Indians in one night caught eighteen, of
+twelve or fifteen feet long, by means of curved pieces of iron, baited
+with the flesh of the manatee. Besides the beasts of the forests we
+have just named, the wild Indians also very much diminish the quantity
+of the oil. Warned by the first slight rains, which they call
+turtle-rains (peje canepori* (* In the Tamanac language, from peje, a
+tortoise, and canepo, rain.)), they hasten to the banks of the
+Orinoco, and kill the turtles with poisoned arrows, whilst, with
+upraised heads and paws extended, the animals are warming themselves
+in the sun.
+
+Though the little turtles (tortuguillos) may have burst the shells of
+their eggs during the day, they are never seen to come out of the
+ground but at night. The Indians assert that the young animal fears
+the heat of the sun. They tried also to show us, that when the
+tortuguillo is carried in a bag to a distance from the shore, and
+placed in such a manner that its tail is turned to the river, it takes
+without hesitation the shortest way to the water. I confess, that this
+experiment, of which Father Gumilla speaks, does not always succeed
+equally well: yet in general it does appear that at great distances
+from the shore, and even in an island, these little animals feel with
+extreme delicacy in what direction the most humid air prevails.
+
+Reflecting on the almost uninterrupted layer of eggs that extends
+along the beach, and on the thousands of little turtles that seek the
+water as soon as they are hatched, it is difficult to admit that the
+many turtles which have made their nests in the same spot, can
+distinguish their own young, and lead them, like the crocodiles, to
+the lakes in the vicinity of the Orinoco. It is certain, however, that
+the animal passes the first years of its life in pools where the water
+is shallow, and does not return to the bed of the great river till it
+is full-grown. How then do the tortuguillos find these pools? Are they
+led thither by female turtles, which adopt the young as by chance? The
+crocodiles, less numerous, deposit their eggs in separate holes; and,
+in this family of saurians, the female returns about the time when the
+incubation is terminated, calls her young, which answer to her voice,
+and often assists them to get out of the ground. The arrau tortoise,
+no doubt, like the crocodile, knows the spot where she has made her
+nest; but, not daring to return to the beach on which the Indians have
+formed their encampment, how can she distinguish her own young from
+those which do not belong to her? On the other hand, the Ottomac
+Indians declare that, at the period of inundation, they have met with
+female turtles followed by a great number of young ones. These were
+perhaps arraus whose eggs had been deposited on a desert beach to
+which they could return. Males are extremely rare among these animals.
+Scarcely is one male found among several hundred females. The cause of
+this disparity cannot be the same as with the crocodiles, which fight
+in the coupling season.
+
+Our pilot had anchored at the Playa de huevos, to purchase some
+provisions, our store having begun to run short. We found there fresh
+meat, Angostura rice, and even biscuit made of wheat-flour. Our
+Indians filled the boat with little live turtles, and eggs dried in
+the sun, for their own use. Having taken leave of the missionary of
+Uruana, who had treated us with great kindness, we set sail about four
+in the afternoon. The wind was fresh, and blew in squalls. Since we
+had entered the mountainous part of the country, we had discovered
+that our canoe carried sail very badly; but the master was desirous of
+showing the Indians who were assembled on the beach, that, by going
+close to the wind, he could reach, at one single tack, the middle of
+the river. At the very moment when he was boasting of his dexterity,
+and the boldness of his manoeuvre, the force of the wind upon the sail
+became so great that we were on the point of going down. One side of
+the boat was under water, which rushed in with such violence that it
+was soon up to our knees. It washed over a little table at which I was
+writing at the stern of the boat. I had some difficulty to save my
+journal, and in an instant we saw our books, papers, and dried plants,
+all afloat. M. Bonpland was lying asleep in the middle of the canoe.
+Awakened by the entrance of the water and the cries of the Indians, he
+understood the danger of our situation, whilst he maintained that
+coolness which he always displayed in the most difficult
+circumstances. The lee-side righting itself from time to time during
+the squall, he did not consider the boat as lost. He thought that,
+were we even forced to abandon it, we might save ourselves by
+swimming, since there was no crocodile in sight. Amidst this
+uncertainty the cordage of the sail suddenly gave way. The same gust
+of wind, that had thrown us on our beam, served also to right us. We
+laboured to bale the water out of the boat with calabashes, the sail
+was again set, and in less than half an hour we were in a state to
+proceed. The wind now abated a little. Squalls alternating with dead
+calms are common in that part of the Orinoco which is bordered by
+mountains. They are very dangerous for boats deeply laden, and without
+decks. We had escaped as if by miracle. To the reproaches that were
+heaped on our pilot for having kept too near the wind, he replied with
+the phlegmatic coolness peculiar to the Indians, observing "that the
+whites would find sun enough on those banks to dry their papers." We
+lost only one book--the first volume of the Genera Plantarum of
+Schreber--which had fallen overboard. At nightfall we landed on a
+barren island in the middle of the river, near the Mission of Uruana.
+We supped in a clear moonlight, seating ourselves on some large
+turtle-shells that were found scattered about the beach. What
+satisfaction we felt on finding ourselves thus comfortably landed! We
+figured to ourselves the situation of a man who had been saved alone
+from shipwreck, wandering on these desert shores, meeting at every
+step with other rivers which fall into the Orinoco, and which it is
+dangerous to pass by swimming, on account of the multitude of
+crocodiles and caribe fishes. We pictured to ourselves such a man,
+alive to the most tender affections of the soul, ignorant of the fate
+of his companions, and thinking more of them than of himself. If we
+love to indulge such melancholy meditations, it is because, when just
+escaped from danger, we seem to feel as it were the necessity of
+strong emotions. Our minds were full of what we had just witnessed.
+There are periods in life when, without being discouraged, the future
+appears more uncertain. It was only three days since we had entered
+the Orinoco, and there yet remained three months for us to navigate
+rivers encumbered with rocks, and in boats smaller than that in which
+we had so nearly perished.
+
+The night was intensely hot. We lay upon skins spread on the ground,
+there being no trees to which we could fasten our hammocks. The
+torments of the mosquitos increased every day; and we were surprised
+to find that on this spot our fires did not prevent the approach of
+the jaguars. They swam across the arm of the river that separated us
+from the mainland. Towards morning we heard their cries very near.
+They had come to the island where we passed the night. The Indians
+told us that, during the collecting of the turtles' eggs, tigers are
+always more frequent in those regions, and display at that period the
+greatest intrepidity.
+
+On the following day, the 7th, we passed, on our right, the mouth of
+the great Rio Arauca, celebrated for the immense number of birds that
+frequent it; and, on our left, the Mission of Uruana, commonly called
+La Concepcion de Urbana. This small village, which contains five
+hundred souls, was founded by the Jesuits, about the year 1748, by the
+union of the Ottomac and Cavere Indians. It lies at the foot of a
+mountain composed of detached blocks of granite, which, I believe,
+bears the name of Saraguaca. Masses of rock, separated one from the
+other by the effect of decomposition, form caverns, in which we find
+indubitable proofs of the ancient civilization of the natives.
+Hieroglyphic figures, and even characters in regular lines, are seen
+sculptured on their sides; though I doubt whether they bear any
+analogy to alphabetic writing. We visited the Mission of Uruana on our
+return from the Rio Negro, and saw with our own eyes those heaps of
+earth which the Ottomacs eat, and which have become the subject of
+such lively discussion in Europe.* (* This earth is a greasy kind of
+clay, which, in seasons of scarcity, the natives use to assuage the
+cravings of hunger; it having been proved by their experience as well
+as by physiological researches, that want of food can be more easily
+borne by filling the cavity of the stomach with some substance, even
+although it may be in itself very nearly or totally innutritious. The
+Indian hunters of North America, for the same purpose, tie boards
+tightly across the abdomen; and most savage races are found to have
+recourse to expedients that answer the same end.)
+
+On measuring the breadth of the Orinoco between the islands called
+Isla de Uruana and Isla de la Manteca, we found it, during the high
+waters, 2674 toises, which make nearly four nautical miles. This is
+eight times the breadth of the Nile at Manfalout and Syout, yet we
+were at the distance of a hundred and ninety-four leagues from the
+mouth of the Orinoco.
+
+The temperature of the water at its surface was 27.8 degrees of the
+centigrade thermometer, near Uruana. That of the river Zaire, or
+Congo, in Africa, at an equal distance from the equator, was found by
+Captain Tuckey, in the months of July and August, to be only from 23.9
+to 25.6 degrees.
+
+The western bank of the Orinoco remains low farther than the mouth of
+the Meta; while from the Mission of Uruana the mountains approach the
+eastern bank more and more. As the strength of the current increases
+in proportion as the river grows narrower, the progress of our boat
+became much slower. We continued to ascend the Orinoco under sail, but
+the high and woody grounds deprived us of the wind. At other times the
+narrow passes between the mountains by which we sailed, sent us
+violent gusts, but of short duration. The number of crocodiles
+increased below the junction of the Rio Arauca, particularly opposite
+the great lake of Capanaparo, which communicates with the Orinoco, as
+the Laguna de Cabullarito communicates at the same time with the
+Orinoco and the Rio Arauca. The Indians told us that the crocodiles
+came from the inlands, where they had been buried in the dried mud of
+the savannahs. As soon as the first showers arouse them from their
+lethargy, they crowd together in troops, and hasten toward the river,
+there to disperse again. Here, in the equinoctial zone, it is the
+increase of humidity that recalls them to life; while in Georgia and
+Florida, in the temperate zone, it is the augmentation of heat that
+rouses these animals from a state of nervous and muscular debility,
+during which the active powers of respiration are suspended or
+singularly diminished. The season of great drought, improperly called
+the summer of the torrid zone, corresponds with the winter of the
+temperate zone; and it is a curious physiological phenomenon to
+observe the alligators of North America plunged into a winter-sleep by
+excess of cold, at the same period when the crocodiles of the Llanos
+begin their siesta or summer-sleep. If it were probable that these
+animals of the same family had heretofore inhabited the same northern
+country, we might suppose that, in advancing towards the equator, they
+feel the want of repose after having exercised their muscles for seven
+or eight months, and that they retain under a new sky the habits which
+appear to be essentially linked with their organization.
+
+Having passed the mouths of the channels communicating with the lake
+of Capanaparo, we entered a part of the Orinoco, where the bed of the
+river is narrowed by the mountains of Baraguan. It is a kind of
+strait, reaching nearly to the confluence of the Rio Suapure. From
+these granite mountains the natives heretofore gave the name of
+Baraguan to that part of the Orinoco comprised between the mouths of
+the Arauca and the Atabapo. Among savage nations great rivers bear
+different denominations in the different portions of their course. The
+Passage of Baraguan presents a picturesque scene. The granite rocks
+are perpendicular. They form a range of mountains lying north-west and
+south-east; and the river cutting this dyke nearly at a right angle,
+the summits of the mountains appear like separate peaks. Their
+elevation in general does not surpass one hundred and twenty toises;
+but their situation in the midst of a small plain, their steep
+declivities, and their flanks destitute of vegetation, give them a
+majestic character. They are composed of enormous masses of granite of
+a parallelopipedal figure, but rounded at the edges, and heaped one
+upon another. The blocks are often eighty feet long, and twenty or
+thirty broad. They would seem to have been piled up by some external
+force, if the proximity of a rock identical in its composition, not
+separated into blocks but filled with veins, did not prove that the
+parallelopipedal form is owing solely to the action of the atmosphere.
+These veins, two or three inches thick, are distinguished by a
+fine-grained quartz-granite crossing a coarse-grained granite almost
+porphyritic, and abounding in fine crystals of red feldspar. I sought
+in vain, in the Cordillera of Baraguan, for hornblende, and those
+steatitic masses that characterise several granites of the Higher Alps
+in Switzerland.
+
+We landed in the middle of the strait of Baraguan to measure its
+breadth. The rocks project so much towards the river that I measured
+with difficulty a base of eighty toises. I found the river eight
+hundred and eighty-nine toises broad. In order to conceive how this
+passage bears the name of a strait, we must recollect that the breadth
+of the river from Uruana to the junction of the Meta is in general
+from 1500 to 2500 toises. In this place, which is extremely hot and
+barren, I measured two granite summits, much rounded: one was only a
+hundred and ten, and the other eighty-five, toises. There are higher
+summits in the interior of the group, but in general these mountains,
+of so wild an aspect, have not the elevation that is assigned to them
+by the missionaries.
+
+We looked in vain for plants in the clefts of the rocks, which are as
+steep as walls, and furnish some traces of stratification. We found
+only an old trunk of aubletia* (* Aubletia tiburba.), with large
+apple-shaped fruit, and a new species of the family of the apocyneae.*
+(* Allamanda salicifolia.) All the stones were covered with an
+innumerable quantity of iguanas and geckos with spreading and
+membranous fingers. These lizards, motionless, with heads raised, and
+mouths open, seemed to suck in the heated air. The thermometer placed
+against the rock rose to 50.2 degrees. The soil appeared to undulate,
+from the effect of mirage, without a breath of wind being felt. The
+sun was near the zenith, and its dazzling light, reflected from the
+surface of the river, contrasted with the reddish vapours that
+enveloped every surrounding object. How vivid is the impression
+produced by the calm of nature, at noon, in these burning climates!
+The beasts of the forests retire to the thickets; the birds hide
+themselves beneath the foliage of the trees, or in the crevices of the
+rocks. Yet, amidst this apparent silence, when we lend an attentive
+ear to the most feeble sounds transmitted through the air, we hear a
+dull vibration, a continual murmur, a hum of insects, filling, if we
+may use the expression, all the lower strata of the air. Nothing is
+better fitted to make man feel the extent and power of organic life.
+Myriads of insects creep upon the soil, and flutter round the plants
+parched by the heat of the sun. A confused noise issues from every
+bush, from the decayed trunks of trees, from the clefts of the rocks,
+and from the ground undermined by lizards, millepedes, and cecilias.
+These are so many voices proclaiming to us that all nature breathes;
+and that, under a thousand different forms, life is diffused
+throughout the cracked and dusty soil, as well as in the bosom of the
+waters, and in the air that circulates around us.
+
+The sensations which I here recall to mind are not unknown to those
+who, without having advanced to the equator, have visited Italy,
+Spain, or Egypt. That contrast of motion and silence, that aspect of
+nature at once calm and animated, strikes the imagination of the
+traveller when he enters the basin of the Mediterranean, within the
+zone of olives, dwarf palms, and date-trees.
+
+We passed the night on the eastern bank of the Orinoco, at the foot of
+a granitic hill. Near this desert spot was formerly seated the Mission
+of San Regis. We could have wished to find a spring in the Baraguan,
+for the water of the river had a smell of musk, and a sweetish taste
+extremely disagreeable. In the Orinoco, as well as in the Apure, we
+are struck with the difference observable in the various parts of the
+river near the most barren shore. The water is sometimes very
+drinkable, and sometimes seems to be loaded with a slimy matter. "It
+is the bark (meaning the coriaceous covering) of the putrefied cayman
+that is the cause," say the natives. "The more aged the cayman, the
+more bitter is his bark." I have no doubt that the carcasses of these
+large reptiles, those of the manatees, which weigh five hundred
+pounds, and the presence of the porpoises (toninas) with their
+mucilaginous skin, may contaminate the water, especially in the
+creeks, where the river has little velocity. Yet the spots where we
+found the most fetid water, were not always those where dead animals
+were accumulated on the beach. When, in such burning climates, where
+we are constantly tormented by thirst, we are reduced to drink the
+water of a river at the temperature of 27 or 28 degrees, we cannot
+help wishing at least that water so hot, and so loaded with sand,
+should be free from smell.
+
+On the 8th of April we passed the mouths of the Suapure or Sivapuri,
+and the Caripo, on the east, and the outlet of the Sinaruco on the
+west. This last river is, next to the Rio Arauca, the most
+considerable between the Apure and the Meta. The Suapure, full of
+little cascades, is celebrated among the Indians for the quantity of
+wild honey obtained from the forests in its neighbourhood. The
+melipones there suspend their enormous hives to the branches of trees.
+Father Gili, in 1766, made an excursion on the Suapure, and on the
+Turiva, which falls into it. He there found tribes of the nation of
+Areverians. We passed the night a little below the island Macapina.
+
+Early on the following morning we arrived at the beach of Pararuma,
+where we found an encampment of Indians similar to that we had seen at
+the Boca de la Tortuga. They had assembled to search the sands, for
+collecting the turtles' eggs, and extracting the oil; but they had
+unfortunately made a mistake of several days. The young turtles had
+come out of their shells before the Indians had formed their camp; and
+consequently the crocodiles and the garzes, a species of large white
+herons, availed themselves of the delay. These animals, alike fond of
+the flesh of the young turtles, devour an innumerable quantity. They
+fish during the night, for the tortuguillos do not come out of the
+earth to gain the neighbouring river till after the evening twilight.
+The zamuro vultures are too indolent to hunt after sunset. They stalk
+along the shores in the daytime, and alight in the midst of the Indian
+encampment to steal provisions; but they often find no other means of
+satisfying their voracity than by attacking young crocodiles of seven
+or eight inches long, either on land or in water of little depth. It
+is curious to see the address with which these little animals defend
+themselves for a time against the vultures. As soon as they perceive
+the enemy, they raise themselves on their fore paws, bend their backs,
+and lift up their heads, opening their wide jaws. They turn
+continually, though slowly, toward their assailant to show him their
+teeth, which, even when the animal has but recently issued from the
+egg, are very long and sharp. Often while the attention of a young
+crocodile is wholly engaged by one of the zamuros, another seizes the
+favourable opportunity for an unforeseen attack. He pounces on the
+crocodile, grasps him by the neck, and bears him off to the higher
+regions of the air. We had an opportunity of observing this manoeuvre
+during several mornings, at Mompex, on the banks of the Magdalena,
+where we had collected more than forty very young crocodiles, in a
+spacious court surrounded by a wall.
+
+We found among the Indians assembled at Pararuma some white men, who
+had come from Angostura to purchase the tortoise-butter. After having
+wearied us for a long time with their complaints of the bad harvest,
+and the mischief done by the tigers among the turtles, at the time of
+laying their eggs, they conducted us beneath an ajoupa, that rose in
+the centre of the Indian camp. We here found the missionary-monks of
+Carichana and the Cataracts seated on the ground, playing at cards,
+and smoking tobacco in long pipes. Their ample blue garments, their
+shaven heads, and their long beards, might have led us to mistake them
+for natives of the East. These poor priests received us in the kindest
+manner, giving us every information necessary for the continuation of
+our voyage. They had suffered from tertian fever for some months; and
+their pale and emaciated aspect easily convinced us that the countries
+we were about to visit were not without danger to the health of
+travellers.
+
+The Indian pilot, who had brought us from San Fernando de Apure as far
+as the shore of Pararuma, was unacquainted with the passage of the
+rapids* (* Little cascades, chorros raudalitos.) of the Orinoco, and
+would not undertake to conduct our bark any farther. We were obliged
+to conform to his will. Happily for us, the missionary of Carichana
+consented to sell us a fine canoe at a very moderate price: and Father
+Bernardo Zea, missionary of the Atures and Maypures near the great
+cataracts, offered, though still unwell, to accompany us as far as the
+frontiers of Brazil. The number of natives who can assist in guiding
+boats through the Raudales is so inconsiderable that, but for the
+presence of the monk, we should have risked spending whole weeks in
+these humid and unhealthy regions. On the banks of the Orinoco, the
+forests of the Rio Negro are considered as delicious spots. The air is
+indeed cooler and more healthful. The river is free from crocodiles;
+one may bathe without apprehension, and by night as well as by day
+there is less torment from the sting of insects than on the Orinoco.
+Father Zea hoped to reestablish his health by visiting the Missions of
+Rio Negro. He talked of those places with that enthusiasm which is
+felt in all the colonies of South America for everything far off.
+
+The assemblage of Indians at Pararuma again excited in us that
+interest, which everywhere attaches man in a cultivated state to the
+study of man in a savage condition, and the successive development of
+his intellectual faculties. How difficult to recognize in this infancy
+of society, in this assemblage of dull, silent, inanimate Indians, the
+primitive character of our species! Human nature does not here
+manifest those features of artless simplicity, of which poets in every
+language have drawn such enchanting pictures. The savage of the
+Orinoco appeared to us to be as hideous as the savage of the
+Mississippi, described by that philosophical traveller Volney, who so
+well knew how to paint man in different climates. We are eager to
+persuade ourselves that these natives, crouching before the fire, or
+seated on large turtle-shells, their bodies covered with earth and
+grease, their eyes stupidly fixed for whole hours on the beverage they
+are preparing, far from being the primitive type of our species, are a
+degenerate race, the feeble remains of nations who, after having been
+long dispersed in the forests, are replunged into barbarism.
+
+Red paint being in some sort the only clothing of the Indians, two
+kinds may be distinguished among them, according as they are more or
+less affluent. The common decoration of the Caribs, the Ottomacs, and
+the Jaruros, is onoto,* (* Properly anoto. This word belongs to the
+Tamanac Indians. The Maypures call it majepa. The Spanish missionaries
+say onotarse, to rub the skin with anato.) called by the Spaniards
+achote, and by the planters of Cayenne, rocou. It is the colouring
+matter extracted from the pulp of the Bixa orellana.* (* The word
+bixa, adopted by botanists, is derived from the ancient language of
+Haiti (the island of St. Domingo). Rocou, the term commonly used by
+the French, is derived from the Brazilian word, urucu.) The Indian
+women prepare the anato by throwing the seeds of the plant into a tub
+filled with water. They beat this water for an hour, and then leave it
+to deposit the colouring fecula, which is of an intense brick-red.
+After having separated the water, they take out the fecula, dry it
+between their hands, knead it with oil of turtles' eggs, and form it
+into round cakes of three or four ounces weight. When turtle oil is
+wanting, some tribes mix with the anato the fat of the crocodile.
+
+Another pigment, much more valuable, is extracted from a plant of the
+family of the bignoniae, which M. Bonpland has made known by the name
+of Bignonia chica. It climbs up and clings to the tallest trees by the
+aid of tendrils. Its bilabiate flowers are an inch long, of a fine
+violet colour, and disposed by twos or threes. The bipinnate leaves
+become reddish in drying. The fruit is a pod, filled with winged
+seeds, and is two feet long. This plant grows spontaneously, and in
+great abundance, near Maypures; and in going up the Orinoco, beyond
+the mouth of the Guaviare, from Santa Barbara to the lofty mountain of
+Duida, particularly near Esmeralda. We also found it on the banks of
+the Cassiquiare. The red pigment of chica is not obtained from the
+fruit, like the onoto, but from the leaves macerated in water. The
+colouring matter separates in the form of a light powder. It is
+collected, without being mixed with turtle-oil, into little lumps
+eight or nine inches long, and from two to three high, rounded at the
+edges. These lumps, when heated, emit an agreeable smell of benzoin.
+When the chica is subjected to distillation, it yields no sensible
+traces of ammonia. It is not, like indigo, a substance combined with
+azote. It dissolves slightly in sulphuric and muriatic acids, and even
+in alkalis. Ground with oil, the chica furnishes a red colour that has
+a tint of lake. Applied to wool, it might be confounded with
+madder-red. There is no doubt but that the chica, unknown in Europe
+before our travels, may be employed usefully in the arts. The nations
+on the Orinoco, by whom this pigment is best prepared, are the
+Salivas, the Guipunaves,* (* Or Guaypunaves; they call themselves
+Uipunavi.) the Caveres, and the Piraoas. The processes of infusion and
+maceration are in general very common among all the nations on the
+Orinoco. Thus the Maypures carry on a trade of barter with the little
+loaves of puruma, which is a vegetable fecula, dried in the manner of
+indigo, and yielding a very permanent yellow colour. The chemistry of
+the savage is reduced to the preparation of pigments, that of poisons,
+and the dulcification of the amylaceous roots, which the aroides and
+the euphorbiaceous plants afford.
+
+Most of the missionaries of the Upper and Lower Orinoco permit the
+Indians of their Missions to paint their skins. It is painful to add,
+that some of them speculate on this barbarous practice of the natives.
+In their huts, pompously called conventos,* (* In the Missions, the
+priest's house bears the name of the convent.) I have often seen
+stores of chica, which they sold as high as four francs the cake. To
+form a just idea of the extravagance of the decoration of these naked
+Indians, I must observe, that a man of large stature gains with
+difficulty enough by the labour of a fortnight, to procure in exchange
+the chica necessary to paint himself red. Thus as we say, in temperate
+climates, of a poor man, "he has not enough to clothe himself," you
+hear the Indians of the Orinoco say, "that man is so poor, that he has
+not enough to paint half his body." The little trade in chica is
+carried on chiefly with the tribes of the Lower Orinoco, whose country
+does not produce the plant which furnishes this much-valued substance.
+The Caribs and the Ottomacs paint only the head and the hair with
+chica, but the Salives possess this pigment in sufficient abundance to
+cover their whole bodies. When the missionaries send on their own
+account small cargoes of cacao, tobacco, and chiquichiqui* (* Ropes
+made with the petioles of a palm-tree with pinnate leaves.) from the
+Rio Negro to Angostura, they always add some cakes of chica, as being
+articles of merchandise in great request.
+
+The custom of painting is not equally ancient among all the tribes of
+the Orinoco. It has increased since the time when the powerful nation
+of the Caribs made frequent incursions into those countries. The
+victors and the vanquished were alike naked; and to please the
+conqueror it was necessary to paint like him, and to assume his
+colour. The influence of the Caribs has now ceased, and they remain
+circumscribed between the rivers Carony, Cuyuni, and Paraguamuzi; but
+the Caribbean fashion of painting the whole body is still preserved.
+The custom has survived the conquest.
+
+Does the use of the anato and chica derive its origin from the desire
+of pleasing, and the taste for ornament, so common among the most
+savage nations? or must we suppose it to be founded on the
+observation, that these colouring and oily matters with which the skin
+is plastered, preserve it from the sting of the mosquitos? I have
+often heard this question discussed in Europe; but in the Missions of
+the Orinoco, and wherever, within the tropics, the air is filled with
+venomous insects, the inquiry would appear absurd. The Carib and the
+Salive, who are painted red, are not less cruelly tormented by the
+mosquitos and the zancudos, than the Indians whose bodies are
+plastered with no colour. The sting of the insect causes no swelling
+in either; and scarcely ever produces those little pustules which
+occasion such smarting and itching to Europeans recently arrived. But
+the native and the White suffer equally from the sting, till the
+insect has withdrawn its sucker from the skin. After a thousand
+useless essays, M. Bonpland and myself tried the expedient of rubbing
+our hands and arms with the fat of the crocodile, and the oil of
+turtle-eggs, but we never felt the least relief, and were stung as
+before. I know that the Laplanders boast of oil and fat as the most
+useful preservatives; but the insects of Scandinavia are not of the
+same species as those of the Orinoco. The smoke of tobacco drives away
+our gnats, while it is employed in vain against the zancudos. If the
+application of fat and astringent* substances preserved the
+inhabitants of these countries from the torment of insects, as Father
+Gumilla alleges, why has not the custom of painting the skin become
+general on these shores? (* The pulp of the anato, and even the chica,
+are astringent and slightly purgative.) Why do so many naked natives
+paint only the face, though living in the neighbourhood of those who
+paint the whole body?* (* The Caribs, the Salives, the Tamanacs, and
+the Maypures.)
+
+We are struck with the observation, that the Indians of the Orinoco,
+like the natives of North America, prefer the substances that yield a
+red colour to every other. Is this predilection founded on the
+facility with which the savage procures ochreous earths, or the
+colouring fecula of anato and of chica? I doubt this much. Indigo
+grows wild in a great part of equinoctial America. This plant, like so
+many other leguminous plants, would have furnished the natives
+abundantly with pigments to colour themselves blue like the ancient
+Britons.* (* The half-clad nations of the temperate zone often paint
+their skin of the same colour as that with which their clothes are
+dyed.) Yet we see no American tribe painted with indigo. It appears to
+me probable, as I have already hinted above, that the preference given
+by the Americans to the red colour is generally founded on the
+tendency which nations feel to attribute the idea of beauty to
+whatever characterises their national physiognomy. Men whose skin is
+naturally of a brownish red, love a red colour. If they be born with a
+forehead little raised, and the head flat, they endeavour to depress
+the foreheads of their children. If they be distinguished from other
+nations by a thin beard, they try to eradicate the few hairs that
+nature has given them. They think themselves embellished in proportion
+as they heighten the characteristic marks of their race, or of their
+national conformation.
+
+We were surprised to see, that, in the camp of Pararuma, the women far
+advanced in years were more occupied with their ornaments than the
+youngest women. We saw an Indian female of the nation of the Ottomacs
+employing two of her daughters in the operation of rubbing her hair
+with the oil of turtles' eggs, and painting her back with anato and
+caruto. The ornament consisted of a sort of lattice-work formed of
+black lines crossing each other on a red ground. Each little square
+had a black dot in the centre. It was a work of incredible patience.
+We returned from a very long herborization, and the painting was not
+half finished. This research of ornament seems the more singular when
+we reflect that the figures and marks are not produced by the process
+of tattooing, but that paintings executed with so much care are
+effaced,* if the Indian exposes himself imprudently to a heavy shower.
+(* The black and caustic pigment of the caruto (Genipa americana)
+however, resists a long time the action of water, as we found with
+regret, having one day, in sport with the Indians, caused our faces to
+be marked with spots and strokes of caruto. When we returned to
+Angostura, in the midst of Europeans, these marks were still visible.)
+There are some nations who paint only to celebrate festivals; others
+are covered with colour during the whole year: and the latter consider
+the use of anato as so indispensable, that both men and women would
+perhaps be less ashamed to present themselves without a guayaco* than
+destitute of paint. (* A word of the Caribbean language. The perizoma
+of the Indians of the Orinoco is rather a band than an apron.) These
+guayucos of the Orinoco are partly bark of trees, and partly
+cotton-cloth. Those of the men are broader than those worn by the
+women, who, the missionaries say, have in general a less lively
+feeling of modesty. A similar observation was made by Christopher
+Columbus. May we not attribute this in difference, this want of
+delicacy in women belonging to nations of which the manners are not
+much depraved, to that rude state of slavery to which the sex is
+reduced in South America by male injustice and tyranny?
+
+When we speak in Europe of a native of Guiana, we figure to ourselves
+a man whose head and waist are decorated with the fine feathers of the
+macaw, the toucan, and the humming-bird. Our painters and sculptors
+have long since regarded these ornaments as the characteristic marks
+of an American. We were surprised at not finding in the Chayma
+Missions, in the encampments of Uruana and of Pararuma (I might almost
+say on all the shores of the Orinoco and the Cassiquiare) those fine
+plumes, those feathered aprons, which are so often brought by
+travellers from Cayenne and Demerara. These tribes for the most part,
+even those whose intellectual faculties are most expanded, who
+cultivate alimentary plants, and know how to weave cotton, are
+altogether as naked,* as poor, and as destitute of ornaments as the
+natives of New Holland. (* For instance, the Macos and the Piraoas.
+The Caribs must be excepted, whose perizoma is a cotton cloth, so
+broad that it might cover the shoulders.) The excessive heat of the
+air, the profuse perspiration in which the body is bathed at every
+hour of the day and a great part of the night, render the use of
+clothes insupportable. Their objects of ornament, and particularly
+their plumes of feathers, are reserved for dances and solemn
+festivals. The plumes worn by the Guipunaves* are the most celebrated;
+being composed of the fine feathers of manakins and parrots. (* These
+came originally from the banks of the Inirida, one of the rivers that
+fall into the Guaviare.)
+
+The Indians are not always satisfied with one colour uniformly spread;
+they sometimes imitate, in the most whimsical manner, in painting
+their skin, the form of European garments. We saw some at Pararuma,
+who were painted with blue jackets and black buttons. The missionaries
+related to us that the Guaynaves of the Rio Caura are accustomed to
+stain themselves red with anato, and to make broad transverse stripes
+on the body, on which they stick spangles of silvery mica. Seen at a
+distance, these naked men appear to be dressed in laced clothes. If
+painted nations had been examined with the same attention as those who
+are clothed, it would have been perceived that the most fertile
+imagination, and the most mutable caprice, have created the fashions
+of painting, as well as those of garments.
+
+Painting and tattooing are not restrained, in either the New or the
+Old World, to one race or one zone only. These ornaments are most
+common among the Malays and American races; but in the time of the
+Romans they were also employed by the white race in the north of
+Europe. As the most picturesque garments and modes of dress are found
+in the Grecian Archipelago and western Asia, so the type of beauty in
+painting and tattooing is displayed by the islanders of the Pacific.
+Some clothed nations still paint their hands, their nails, and their
+faces. It would seem that painting is then confined to those parts of
+the body that remain uncovered; and while rouge, which recalls to mind
+the savage state of man, is disappearing by degrees in Europe, in some
+towns of the province of Peru the ladies think they embellish their
+delicate skins by covering them with colouring vegetable matter,
+starch, white-of-egg, and flour. After having lived a long time among
+men painted with anato and chica, we are singularly struck with these
+remains of ancient barbarism retained amidst all the usages of
+civilization.
+
+The encampment at Pararuma afforded us an opportunity of examining
+several animals in their natural state, which, till then, we had seen
+only in the collections of Europe. These little animals form a branch
+of commerce for the missionaries. They exchange tobacco, the resin
+called mani, the pigment of chica, gallitos (rock-manakins), orange
+monkeys, capuchin monkeys, and other species of monkeys in great
+request on the coast, for cloth, nails, hatchets, fishhooks, and pins.
+The productions of the Orinoco are bought at a low price from the
+Indians, who live in dependence on the monks; and these same Indians
+purchase fishing and gardening implements from the monks at a very
+high price, with the money they have gained at the egg-harvest. We
+ourselves bought several animals, which we kept with us throughout the
+rest of our passage on the river, and studied their manners.
+
+The gallitos, or rock-manakins, are sold at Pararuma in pretty little
+cages made of the footstalks of palm-leaves. These birds are
+infinitely more rare on the banks of the Orinoco, and in the north and
+west of equinoctial America, than in French Guiana. They have hitherto
+been found only near the Mission of Encaramada, and in the Raudales or
+cataracts of Maypures. I say expressly IN the cataracts, because the
+gallitos choose for their habitual dwelling the hollows of the little
+granitic rocks that cross the Orinoco and form such numerous cascades.
+We sometimes saw them appear in the morning in the midst of the foam
+of the river, calling their females, and fighting in the manner of our
+cocks, folding the double moveable crest that decorates the crown of
+the head. As the Indians very rarely take the full-grown gallitos, and
+those males only are valued in Europe, which from the third year have
+beautiful saffron-coloured plumage, purchasers should be on their
+guard not to confound young females with young males. Both the male
+and female gallitos are of an olive-brown; but the pollo, or young
+male, is distinguishable at the earliest age, by its size and its
+yellow feet. After the third year the plumage of the males assumes a
+beautiful saffron tint; but the female remains always of a dull dusky
+brown colour, with yellow only on the wing-coverts and tips of the
+wings.* (* Especially the part which ornithologists call the carpus.)
+To preserve in our collections the fine tint of the plumage of a male
+and full-grown rock-manakin, it must not be exposed to the light. This
+tint grows pale more easy than in the other genera of the passerine
+order. The young males, as in most other birds, have the plumage or
+livery of their mother. I am surprised to see that so skilful a
+naturalist as Le Vaillant can doubt whether the females always remain
+of a dusky olive tint.* (* Oiseaux de Paradis volume 2 page 61.) The
+Indians of the Raudales all assured me that they had never seen a
+saffron-coloured female.
+
+Among the monkeys, brought by the Indians to the fair of Pararuma, we
+distinguished several varieties of the sai,* (* Simia capucina the
+capuchin monkey.) belonging to the little groups of creeping monkeys
+called matchi in the Spanish colonies; marimondes* (* Simia
+belzebuth.), or ateles with a red belly; titis, and viuditas. The last
+two species particularly attracted our attention, and we purchased
+them to send to Europe.
+
+The titi of the Orinoco (Simia sciurea), well-known in our
+collections, is called bititeni by the Maypure Indians. It is very
+common on the south of the cataracts. Its face is white; and a little
+spot of bluish-black covers the mouth and the point of the nose. The
+titis of the most elegant form, and the most beautiful colour (with
+hair of a golden yellow), come from the banks of the Cassiquiare.
+Those that are taken on the shores of the Guaviare are large and
+difficult to tame. No other monkey has so much the physiognomy of a
+child as the titi; there is the same expression of innocence, the same
+playful smile, the same rapidity in the transition from joy to sorrow.
+Its large eyes are instantly filled with tears, when it is seized with
+fear. It is extremely fond of insects, particularly of spiders. The
+sagacity of this little animal is so great, that one of those we
+brought in our boat to Angostura distinguished perfectly the different
+plates annexed to Cuvier's Tableau elementaire d'Histoire naturelle.
+The engravings of this work are not coloured; yet the titi advanced
+rapidly its little hand in the hope of catching a grasshopper or a
+wasp, every time that we showed it the eleventh plate, on which these
+insects are represented. It remained perfectly indifferent when it was
+shown engravings of skeletons or heads of mammiferous animals.* (* I
+may observe, that I have never heard of an instance in which a
+picture, representing, in the greatest perfection, hares or deer of
+their natural size, has made the least impression even on sporting
+dogs, the intelligence of which appears the most improved. Is there
+any authenticated instance of a dog having recognized a full length
+picture of his master? In all these cases, the sight is not assisted
+by the smell.) When several of these little monkeys, shut up in the
+same cage, are exposed to the rain, and the habitual temperature of
+the air sinks suddenly two or three degrees, they twist their tail
+(which, however, is not prehensile) round their neck, and intertwine
+their arms and legs to warm one another. The Indian hunters told us,
+that in the forests they often met groups of ten or twelve of these
+animals, whilst others sent forth lamentable cries, because they
+wished to enter amid the group to find warmth and shelter. By shooting
+arrows dipped in weak poison at one of these groups, a great number of
+young monkeys are taken alive at once. The titi in falling remains
+clinging to its mother, and if it be not wounded by the fall, it does
+not quit the shoulder or the neck of the dead animal. Most of those
+that are found alive in the huts of the Indians have been thus taken
+from the dead bodies of their mothers. Those that are full grown, when
+cured of a slight wound, commonly die before they can accustom
+themselves to a domestic state. The titis are in general delicate and
+timid little animals. It is very difficult to convey them from the
+Missions of the Orinoco to the coast of Caracas, or of Cumana. They
+become melancholy and dejected in proportion as they quit the region
+of the forests, and enter the Llanos. This change cannot be attributed
+to the slight elevation of the temperature; it seems rather to depend
+on a greater intensity of light, a less degree of humidity, and some
+chemical property of the air of the coast.
+
+The saimiri, or titi of the Orinoco, the atele, the sajou, and other
+quadrumanous animals long known in Europe, form a striking contrast,
+both in their gait and habits, with the macavahu, called by the
+missionaries viudita, or widow in mourning. The hair of this little
+animal is soft, glossy, and of a fine black. Its face is covered with
+a mask of a square form and a whitish colour tinged with blue. This
+mask contains the eyes, nose, and mouth. The ears have a rim: they are
+small, very pretty, and almost bare. The neck of the widow presents in
+front a white band, an inch broad, and forming a semicircle. The feet,
+or rather the hinder hands, are black like the rest of the body; but
+the fore paws are white without, and of a glossy black within. In
+these marks, or white spots, the missionaries think they recognize the
+veil, the neckerchief, and the gloves of a widow in mourning. The
+character of this little monkey, which sits up on its hinder
+extremities only when eating, is but little indicated in its
+appearance. It has a wild and timid air; it often refuses the food
+offered to it, even when tormented by a ravenous appetite. It has
+little inclination for the society of other monkeys. The sight of the
+smallest saimiri puts it to flight. Its eye denotes great vivacity. We
+have seen it remain whole hours motionless without sleeping, and
+attentive to everything that was passing around. But this wildness and
+timidity are merely apparent. The viudita, when alone, and left to
+itself, becomes furious at the sight of a bird. It then climbs and
+runs with astonishing rapidity; darts upon its prey like a cat; and
+kills whatever it can seize. This rare and delicate monkey is found on
+the right bank of the Orinoco, in the granite mountains which rise
+behind the Mission of Santa Barbara. It inhabits also the banks of the
+Guaviare, near San Fernando de Atabapo.
+
+The viudita accompanied us on our whole voyage on the Cassiquiare and
+the Rio Negro, passing the cataracts twice. In studying the manners of
+animals, it is a great advantage to observe them during several months
+in the open air, and not in houses, where they lose all their natural
+vivacity.
+
+The new canoe intended for us was, like all Indian boats, a trunk of a
+tree hollowed out partly by the hatchet and partly by fire. It was
+forty feet long, and three broad. Three persons could not sit in it
+side by side. These canoes are so crank, and they require, from their
+instability, a cargo so equally distributed, that when you want to
+rise for an instant, you must warn the rowers to lean to the opposite
+side. Without this precaution the water would necessarily enter the
+side pressed down. It is difficult to form an idea of the
+inconveniences that are suffered in such wretched vessels.
+
+The missionary from the cataracts made the preparations for our voyage
+with greater energy than we wished. Lest there might not be a
+sufficient number of the Maco and Guahibe Indians, who are acquainted
+with the labyrinth of small channels and cascades of which the
+Raudales or cataracts are composed, two Indians were, during the
+night, placed in the cepo--a sort of stocks in which they were made to
+lie with their legs between two pieces of wood, notched and fastened
+together by a chain with a padlock. Early in the morning we were
+awakened by the cries of a young man, mercilessly beaten with a whip
+of manatee skin. His name was Zerepe, a very intelligent young Indian,
+who proved highly useful to us in the sequel, but who now refused to
+accompany us. He was born in the Mission of Atures; but his father was
+a Maco, and his mother a native of the nation of the Maypures. He had
+returned to the woods (al monte), and having lived some years with the
+unsubdued Indians, he had thus acquired the knowledge of several
+languages, and the missionary employed him as an interpreter. We
+obtained with difficulty the pardon of this young man. "Without these
+acts of severity," we were told, "you would want for everything. The
+Indians of the Raudales and the Upper Orinoco are a stronger and more
+laborious race than the inhabitants of the Lower Orinoco. They know
+that they are much sought after at Angostura. If left to their own
+will, they would all go down the river to sell their productions, and
+live in full liberty among the whites. The Missions would be totally
+deserted."
+
+These reasons, I confess, appeared to me more specious than sound.
+Man, in order to enjoy the advantages of a social state, must no doubt
+sacrifice a part of his natural rights, and his original independence;
+but, if the sacrifice imposed on him be not compensated by the
+benefits of civilization, the savage, wise in his simplicity, retains
+the wish of returning to the forests that gave him birth. It is
+because the Indian of the woods is treated like a person in a state of
+villanage in the greater part of the Missions, because he enjoys not
+the fruit of his labours, that the Christian establishments on the
+Orinoco remain deserts. A government founded on the ruins of the
+liberty of the natives extinguishes the intellectual faculties, or
+stops their progress.
+
+To say that the savage, like the child, can be governed only by force,
+is merely to establish false analogies. The Indians of the Orinoco
+have something infantine in the expression of their joy, and the quick
+succession of their emotions, but they are not great children; they
+are as little so as the poor labourers in the east of Europe, whom the
+barbarism of our feudal institutions has held in the rudest state. To
+consider the employment of force as the first and sole means of the
+civilization of the savage, is a principle as far from being true in
+the education of nations as in the education of youth. Whatever may be
+the state of weakness or degradation in our species, no faculty is
+entirely annihilated. The human understanding exhibits only different
+degrees of strength and development. The savage, like the child,
+compares the present with the past; he directs his actions, not
+according to blind instinct, but motives of interest. Reason can
+everywhere enlighten reason; and its progress will be retarded in
+proportion as the men who are called upon to bring up youth, or govern
+nations, substitute constraint and force for that moral influence
+which can alone unfold the rising faculties, calm the irritated
+passions, and give stability to social order.
+
+We could not set sail before ten on the morning of the 10th. To gain
+something in breadth in our new canoe, a sort of lattice-work had been
+constructed on the stern with branches of trees, that extended on each
+side beyond the gunwale. Unfortunately, the toldo or roof of leaves,
+that covered this lattice-work, was so low that we were obliged to lie
+down, without seeing anything, or, if seated, to sit nearly double.
+The necessity of carrying the canoe across the rapids, and even from
+one river to another; and the fear of giving too much hold to the
+wind, by making the toldo higher, render this construction necessary
+for vessels that go up towards the Rio Negro. The toldo was intended
+to cover four persons, lying on the deck or lattice-work of
+brush-wood; but our legs reached far beyond it, and when it rained
+half our bodies were wet. Our couches consisted of ox-hides or
+tiger-skins, spread upon branches of trees, which were painfully felt
+through so thin a covering. The fore part of the boat was filled with
+Indian rowers, furnished with paddles, three feet long, in the form of
+spoons. They were all naked, seated two by two, and they kept time in
+rowing with a surprising uniformity, singing songs of a sad and
+monotonous character. The small cages containing our birds and our
+monkeys, the number of which augmented as we advanced, were hung some
+to the toldo and others to the bow of the boat. This was our
+travelling menagerie. Notwithstanding the frequent losses occasioned
+by accidents, and above all by the fatal effects of exposure to the
+sun, we had fourteen of these little animals alive at our return from
+the Cassiquiare. Naturalists, who wish to collect and bring living
+animals to Europe, might cause boats to be constructed expressly for
+this purpose at Angostura, or at Grand Para, the two capitals situated
+on the banks of the Orinoco and the Amazon, the fore-deck of which
+boats might be fitted up with two rows of cages sheltered from the
+rays of the sun. Every night, when we established our watch, our
+collection of animals and our instruments occupied the centre; around
+these were placed first our hammocks, then the hammocks of the
+Indians; and on the outside were the fires which are thought
+indispensable against the attacks of the jaguar. About sunrise the
+monkeys in our cages answered the cries of the monkeys of the forest.
+These communications between animals of the same species sympathizing
+with one another, though unseen, one party enjoying that liberty which
+the other regrets, have something melancholy and affecting.
+
+In a canoe not three feet wide, and so incumbered, there remained no
+other place for the dried plants, trunks, a sextant, a dipping-needle,
+and the meteorological instruments, than the space below the
+lattice-work of branches, on which we were compelled to remain
+stretched the greater part of the day. If we wished to take the least
+object out of a trunk, or to use an instrument, it was necessary to
+row ashore and land. To these inconveniences were joined the torment
+of the mosquitos which swarmed under the toldo, and the heat radiated
+from the leaves of the palm-trees, the upper surface of which was
+continually exposed to the solar rays. We attempted every instant, but
+always without success, to amend our situation. While one of us hid
+himself under a sheet to ward off the insects, the other insisted on
+having green wood lighted beneath the toldo, in the hope of driving
+away the mosquitos by the smoke. The painful sensations of the eyes,
+and the increase of heat, already stifling, rendered both these
+contrivances alike impracticable. With some gaiety of temper, with
+feelings of mutual good-will, and with a vivid taste for the majestic
+grandeur of these vast valleys of rivers, travellers easily support
+evils that become habitual.
+
+Our Indians showed us, on the right bank of the river, the place which
+was formerly the site of the Mission of Pararuma, founded by the
+Jesuits about the year 1733. The mortality occasioned by the smallpox
+among the Salive Indians was the principal cause of the dissolution of
+the mission. The few inhabitants who survived this cruel epidemic,
+removed to the village of Carichana. It was at Pararuma, that,
+according to the testimony of Father Roman, hail was seen to fall
+during a great storm, about the middle of the last century. This is
+almost the only instance of it I know in a plain that is nearly on a
+level with the sea; for hail falls generally, between the tropics,
+only at three hundred toises of elevation. If it form at an equal
+height over plains and table-lands, we must suppose that it melts as
+it falls, in passing through the lowest strata of the atmosphere, the
+mean temperature of which is from 27.5 to 24 degrees of the centigrade
+thermometer. I acknowledge it is very difficult to explain, in the
+present state of meteorology, why it hails at Philadelphia, at Rome,
+and at Montpelier, during the hottest months, the mean temperature of
+which attains 25 or 26 degrees; while the same phenomenon is not
+observed at Cumana, at La Guayra, and in general, in the equatorial
+plains. In the United States, and in the south of Europe, the heat of
+the plains (from 40 to 43 degrees latitude) is nearly the same as
+within the tropics; and according to my researches the decrement of
+caloric equally varies but little. If then the absence of hail within
+the torrid zone, at the level of the sea, be produced by the melting
+of the hailstones in crossing the lower strata of the air, we must
+suppose that these hail-stones, at the moment of their formation, are
+larger in the temperate than in the torrid zone. We yet know so little
+of the conditions under which water congeals in a stormy cloud in our
+climates, that we cannot judge whether the same conditions be
+fulfilled on the equator above the plains. The clouds in which we hear
+the rattling of the hailstones against one another before they fall,
+and which move horizontally, have always appeared to me of little
+elevation; and at these small heights we may conceive that
+extraordinary refrigerations are caused by the dilatation of the
+ascending air, of which the capacity for caloric augments; by currents
+of cold air coming from a higher latitude, and above all, according to
+M. Gay Lussac, by the radiation from the upper surface of the clouds.
+I shall have occasion to return to this subject when speaking of the
+different forms under which hail and hoar-frost appear on the Andes,
+at two thousand and two thousand six hundred toises of height; and
+when examining the question whether we may consider the stratum of
+clouds that envelops the mountains as a horizontal continuation of the
+stratum which we see immediately above us in the plains.
+
+The Orinoco, full of islands, begins to divide itself into several
+branches, of which the most western remain dry during the months of
+January and February. The total breadth of the river exceeds two
+thousand five hundred or three thousand toises. We perceived to the
+East, opposite the island of Javanavo, the mouth of the Cano Aujacoa.
+Between this Cano and the Rio Paruasi or Paruati, the country becomes
+more and more woody. A solitary rock, of extremely picturesque aspect,
+rises in the midst of a forest of palm-trees, not far from the
+Orinoco. It is a pillar of granite, a prismatic mass, the bare and
+steep sides of which attain nearly two hundred feet in height. Its
+point, which overtops the highest trees of the forest, is terminated
+by a shelf of rock with a horizontal and smooth surface. Other trees
+crown this summit, which the missionaries call the peak, or Mogote de
+Cocuyza. This monument of nature, in its simple grandeur recalls to
+mind the Cyclopean remains of antiquity. Its strongly-marked outlines,
+and the group of trees and shrubs by which it is crowned, stand out
+from the azure of the sky. It seems a forest rising above a forest.
+
+Further on, near the mouth of the Paruasi, the Orinoco narrows. On the
+east is perceived a mountain with a bare top, projecting like a
+promontory. It is nearly three hundred feet high, and served as a
+fortress for the Jesuits. They had constructed there a small fort,
+with three batteries of cannon, and it was constantly occupied by a
+military detachment. We saw the cannon dismounted, and half-buried in
+the sand, at Carichana and at Atures. This fort of the Jesuits has
+been destroyed since the dissolution of their society; but the place
+is still called El Castillo. I find it set down, in a manuscript map,
+lately completed at Caracas by a member of the secular clergy, under
+the denomination of Trinchera del despotismo monacal.* (*
+Intrenchmnent of monachal despotism.)
+
+The garrison which the Jesuits maintained on this rock, was not
+intended merely to protect the Missions against the incursions of the
+Caribs: it was employed also in an offensive war, or, as they say
+here, in the conquest of souls (conquista de almas). The soldiers,
+excited by the allurement of gain, made military incursions (entradas)
+into the lands of the independent Indians. They killed all those who
+dared to make any resistance, burnt their huts, destroyed their
+plantations, and carried away the women, children, and old men, as
+prisoners. These prisoners were divided among the Missions of the
+Meta, the Rio Negro, and the Upper Orinoco. The most distant places
+were chosen, that they might not be tempted to return to their native
+country. This violent manner of conquering souls, though prohibited by
+the Spanish laws, was tolerated by the civil governors, and vaunted by
+the superiors of the society, as beneficial to religion, and the
+aggrandizement of the Missions. "The voice of the Gospel is heard
+only," said a Jesuit of the Orinoco, very candidly, in the Cartas
+Edifiantes, "where the Indians have heard also the sound of fire-arms
+(el eco de la polvora). Mildness is a very slow measure. By chastising
+the natives, we facilitate their conversion." These principles, which
+degrade humanity, were certainly not common to all the members of a
+society which, in the New World, and wherever education has remained
+exclusively in the hands of monks, has rendered service to letters and
+civilization. But the entradas, the spiritual conquests with the
+assistance of bayonets, was an inherent vice in a system, that tended
+to the rapid aggrandizement of the Missions. It is pleasing to find
+that the same system is not followed by the Franciscan, Dominican, and
+Augustinian monks who now govern a vast portion of South America; and
+who, by the mildness or harshness of their manners, exert a powerful
+influence over the fate of so many thousands of natives. Military
+incursions are almost entirely abolished; and when they do take place,
+they are disavowed by the superiors of the orders. We will not decide
+at present, whether this amelioration of the monachal system be owing
+to want of activity and cold indolence; or whether it must be
+attributed, as we would wish to believe, to the progress of knowledge,
+and to feelings more elevated, and more conformable to the true spirit
+of Christianity.
+
+Beyond the mouth of the Rio Paruasi, the Orinoco again narrows. Full
+of little islands and masses of granite rock, it presents rapids, or
+small cascades (remolinos), which at first sight may alarm the
+traveller by the continual eddies of the water, but which at no season
+of the year are dangerous for boats. A range of shoals, that crosses
+almost the whole river, bears the name of the Raudal de Marimara. We
+passed it without difficulty by a narrow channel, in which the water
+seems to boil up as it issues out impetuously* (* These places are
+called chorreros in the Spanish colonies.) below the Piedra de
+Marimara, a compact mass of granite eighty feet high, and three
+hundred feet in circumference, without fissures, or any trace of
+stratification. The river penetrates far into the land, and forms
+spacious bays in the rocks. One of these bays, inclosed between two
+promontories destitute of vegetation, is called the Port of
+Carichana.* (* Piedra y puerto de Carichana.) The spot has a very wild
+aspect. In the evening the rocky coasts project their vast shadows
+over the surface of the river. The waters appear black from reflecting
+the image of these granitic masses, which, in the colour of their
+external surface, sometimes resemble coal, and sometimes lead-ore. We
+passed the night in the small village of Carichana, where we were
+received at the priest's house, or convento. It was nearly a fortnight
+since we had slept under a roof.
+
+To avoid the effects of the inundations, often so fatal to health, the
+Mission of Carichana has been established at three quarters of a
+league from the river. The Indians in this Mission are of the nation
+of the Salives, and they have a disagreeable and nasal pronunciation.
+Their language, of which the Jesuit Anisson has composed a grammar
+still in manuscript, is, with the Caribbean, the Tamanac, the Maypure,
+the Ottomac, the Guahive, and the Jaruro, one of the mother-tongues
+most general on the Orinoco. Father Gili thinks that the Ature, the
+Piraoa, and the Quaqua or Mapoye, are only dialects of the Salive. My
+journey was much too rapid to enable me to judge of the accuracy of
+this opinion; but we shall soon see that, in the village of Ature,
+celebrated on account of its situation near the great cataracts,
+neither the Salive nor the Ature is now spoken, but the language of
+the Maypures. In the Salive of Carichana, man is called cocco; woman,
+gnacu; water, cagua; fire, eyussa; the earth, seke; the sky, mumeseke
+(earth on high); the jaguar, impii; the crocodile, cuipoo; maize,
+giomu; the plantain, paratuna; cassava, peibe. I may here mention one
+of those descriptive compounds that seem to characterise the infancy
+of language, though they are retained in some very perfect idioms.*
+(See volume 1 chapter 1.9.) Thus, as in the Biscayan, thunder is
+called the noise of the cloud (odotsa); the sun bears the name, in the
+Salive dialect, of mume-seke-cocco, the man (cocco) of the earth
+(seke) above (mume).
+
+The most ancient abode of the Salive nation appears to have been on
+the western banks of the Orinoco, between the Rio Vichada* and the
+Guaviare, and also between the Meta and the Rio Paute. (* The Salive
+mission, on the Rio Vichada, was destroyed by the Caribs.) Salives are
+now found not only at Carichana, but in the Missions of the province
+of Casanre, at Cabapuna, Guanapalo, Cabiuna, and Macuco. They are a
+social, mild, almost timid people; and more easy, I will not say to
+civilize, but to subdue, than the other tribes on the Orinoco. To
+escape from the dominion of the Caribs, the Salives willingly joined
+the first Missions of the Jesuits. Accordingly these fathers
+everywhere in their writings praise the docility and intelligence of
+that people. The Salives have a great taste for music: in the most
+remote times they had trumpets of baked earth, four or five feet long,
+with several large globular cavities communicating with one another by
+narrow pipes. These trumpets send forth most dismal sounds. The
+Jesuits have cultivated with success the natural taste of the Salives
+for instrumental music; and even since the destruction of the society,
+the missionaries of Rio Meta have continued at San Miguel de Macuco a
+fine church choir, and musical instruction for the Indian youth. Very
+lately a traveller was surprised to see the natives playing on the
+violin, the violoncello, the triangle, the guitar, and the flute.
+
+We found among these Salive Indians, at Carichana, a white woman, the
+sister of a Jesuit of New Grenada. It is difficult to define the
+satisfaction that is felt when, in the midst of nations of whose
+language we are ignorant, we meet with a being with whom we can
+converse without an interpreter. Every mission has at least two
+interpreters (lenguarazes). They are Indians, a little less stupid
+than the rest, through whose medium the missionaries of the Orinoco,
+who now very rarely give themselves the trouble of studying the idioms
+of the country, communicate with the neophytes. These interpreters
+attended us in all our herborizations; but they rather understand than
+speak Castilian. With their indolent indifference, they answer us by
+chance, but always with an officious smile, "Yes, Father; no, Father,"
+to every question addressed to them.
+
+The vexation that arises from such a style of conversation continued
+for months may easily be conceived, when you wish to be enlightened
+upon objects in which you take the most lively interest. We were often
+forced to employ several interpreters at a time, and several
+successive translators, in order to communicate with the natives.* (*
+To form a just idea of the perplexity of these communications by
+interpreters, we may recollect that, in the expedition of Lewis and
+Clarke to the river Columbia, in order to converse with the Chopunnish
+Indians, Captain Lewis addressed one of his men in English; that man
+translated the question into French to Chaboneau; Chaboneau translated
+it to his Indian wife in Minnetaree; the woman translated it into
+Shoshonee to a prisoner; and the prisoner translated it into
+Chopunnish. It may be feared that the sense of the question was a
+little altered by these successive translations.)
+
+"After leaving my Mission," said the good monk of Uruana, "you will
+travel like mutes." This prediction was nearly accomplished; and, not
+to lose the advantage we might derive from intercourse even with the
+rudest Indians, we sometimes preferred the language of signs. When a
+native perceives that you will not employ an interpreter; when you
+interrogate him directly, showing him the objects; he rouses himself
+from his habitual apathy, and manifests an extraordinary capacity to
+make himself comprehended. He varies his signs, pronounces his words
+slowly, and repeats them without being desired. The consequence
+conferred upon him, in suffering yourself to be instructed by him,
+flatters his self-love. This facility in making himself comprehended
+is particularly remarkable in the independent Indian. It cannot be
+doubted that direct intercourse with the natives is more instructive
+and more certain than the communication by interpreters, provided the
+questions be simplified, and repeated to several individuals under
+different forms. The variety of idioms spoken on the banks of the
+Meta, the Orinoco, the Cassiquiare, and the Rio Negro, is so
+prodigious, that a traveller, however great may be his talent for
+languages, can never hope to learn enough to make himself understood
+along the navigable rivers, from Angostura to the small fort of San
+Carlos del Rio Negro. In Peru and Quito it is sufficient to know the
+Quichua, or the Inca language; in Chile, the Araucan; and in Paraguay,
+the Guarany; in order to be understood by most of the population. But
+it is different in the Missions of Spanish Guiana, where nations of
+various races are mingled in the village. It is not even sufficient to
+have learned the Caribee or Carina, the Guamo, the Guahive, the
+Jaruro, the Ottomac, the Maypure, the Salive, the Marivitan, the
+Maquiritare, and the Guaica, ten dialects, of which there exist only
+imperfect grammars, and which have less affinity with each other than
+the Greek, German, and Persian languages.
+
+The environs of the Mission of Carichana appeared to us to be
+delightful. The little village is situated in one of those plains
+covered with grass that separate all the links of the granitic
+mountains, from Encaramada to beyond the Cataracts of Maypures. The
+line of the forests is seen only in the distance. The horizon is
+everywhere bounded by mountains, partly wooded and of a dark tint,
+partly bare, with rocky summits gilded by the beams of the setting
+sun. What gives a peculiar character to the scenery of this country
+are banks of rock (laxas) nearly destitute of vegetation, and often
+more than eight hundred feet in circumference, yet scarcely rising a
+few inches above the surrounding savannahs. They now make a part of
+the plain. We ask ourselves with surprise, whether some extraordinary
+revolutions may have carried away the earth and plants; or whether the
+granite nucleus of our planet shows itself bare, because the germs of
+life are not yet developed on all its points. The same phenomenon
+seems to be found also in the desert of Shamo, which separates
+Mongolia from China. Those banks of solitary rock in the desert are
+called tsy. I think they would be real table-lands, if the surrounding
+plains were stripped of the sand and mould that cover them, and which
+the waters have accumulated in the lowest places. On these stony flats
+of Carichana we observed with interest the rising vegetation in the
+different degrees of its development. We there found lichens cleaving
+the rock, and collected in crusts more or less thick; little portions
+of sand nourishing succulent plants; and lastly layers of black mould
+deposited in the hollows, formed from the decay of roots and leaves,
+and shaded by tufts of evergreen shrubs.
+
+At the distance of two or three leagues from the Mission, we find, in
+these plains intersected by granitic hills, a vegetation no less rich
+than varied. On comparing the site of Carichana with that of all the
+villages above the Great Cataracts, we are surprised at the facility
+with which we traverse the country, without following the banks of the
+rivers, or being stopped by the thickness of the forests. M. Bonpland
+made several excursions on horseback, which furnished him with a rich
+harvest of plants. I shall mention only the paraguatan, a magnificent
+species of the macrocnemum, the bark of which yields a red dye;* (*
+Macrocnemum tinctorium.) the guaricamo, with a poisonous root;* (*
+Ityania coccidea.) the Jacaranda obtusifolia; and the serrape, or
+jape* (* Dipterix odorata, Willd. or Baryosma tongo of Gaertner. The
+jape furnishes Carichana with excellent timber.) of the Salive
+Indians, which is the Coumarouna of Aublet, so celebrated throughout
+Terra Firma for its aromatic fruit. This fruit, which at Caracas is
+placed among linen, as in Europe it is in snuff, under the name of
+tonca, or Tonquin bean, is regarded as poisonous. It is a false
+notion, very general in the province of Cumana, that the excellent
+liqueur fabricated at Martinique owes its peculiar flavour to the
+jape. In the Missions it is called simaruba; a name that may occasion
+serious mistakes, the true simaruba being a febrifuge species of the
+Quassia genus, found in Spanish Guiana only in the valley of Rio
+Caura, where the Paudacot Indians give it the name of achecchari.
+
+I found the dip of the magnetic needle, in the great square at
+Carichana, 33.7 degrees (new division). The intensity of the magnetic
+action was expressed by two hundred and twenty-seven oscillations in
+ten minutes of time; an increase of force that would seem to indicate
+some local attraction. Yet the blocks of the granite, blackened by the
+waters of the Orinoco, have no perceptible action upon the needle.
+
+The river had risen several inches during the day on the 10th of
+April; this phenomenon surprised the natives so much the more, as the
+first swellings are almost imperceptible, and are usually followed in
+the month of April by a fall for some days. The Orinoco was already
+three feet higher than the level of the lowest waters. The natives
+showed us on a granite wall the traces of the great rise of the waters
+of late years. We found them to be forty-two feet high, which is
+double the mean rise of the Nile. But this measure was taken in a
+place where the bed of the Orinoco is singularly hemmed in by rocks,
+and I could only notice the marks shown me by the natives. It may
+easily be conceived that the effect and the height of the increase
+differs according to the profile of the river, the nature of the banks
+more or less elevated, the number of rivers flowing in that collect
+the pluvial waters, and the length of ground passed over. It is an
+unquestionable fact that at Carichana, at San Borja, at Atures, and at
+Maypures, wherever the river has forced its way through the mountains,
+you see at a hundred, sometimes at a hundred and thirty feet, above
+the highest present swell of the river, black bands and erosions, that
+indicate the ancient levels of the waters. Is then this river, which
+appears to us so grand and so majestic, only the feeble remains of
+those immense currents of fresh water which heretofore traversed the
+country at the east of the Andes, like arms of inland seas? What must
+have been the state of those low countries of Guiana that now undergo
+the effects of annual inundations? What immense numbers of crocodiles,
+manatees, and boas must have inhabited these vast spaces of land,
+converted alternately into marshes of stagnant water, and into barren
+and fissured plains! The more peaceful world which we inhabit has then
+succeeded to a world of tumult. The bones of mastodons and American
+elephants are found dispersed on the table-lands of the Andes. The
+megatherium inhabited the plains of Uruguay. On digging deep into the
+ground, in high valleys, where neither palm-trees nor arborescent
+ferns can grow, strata of coal are discovered, that still show
+vestiges of gigantic monocotyledonous plants.
+
+There was a remote period then, in which the classes of plants were
+otherwise distributed, when the animals were larger, and the rivers
+broader and of greater depth. There end those records of nature, that
+it is in our power to consult. We are ignorant whether the human race,
+which at the time of the discovery of America scarcely formed a few
+feeble tribes on the east of the Cordilleras, had already descended
+into the plains; or whether the ancient tradition of the great waters,
+which is found among the nations of the Orinoco, the Erevato, and the
+Caura, belong to other climates, whence it has been propagated to this
+part of the New Continent.
+
+On the 11th of April, we left Carichana at two in the afternoon, and
+found the course of the river more and more encumbered by blocks of
+granite rocks. We passed on the west the Cano Orupe, and then the
+great rock known by the name of Piedra del Tigre. The river is there
+so deep, that no bottom can be found with a line of twenty-two
+fathoms. Towards evening the weather became cloudy and gloomy. The
+proximity of the storm was marked by squalls alternating with dead
+calms. The rain was violent, and the roof of foliage, under which we
+lay, afforded but little shelter. Happily these showers drove away the
+mosquitos, at least for some time. We found ourselves before the
+cataract of Cariven, and the impulse of the waters was so strong, that
+we had great difficulty in gaining the land. We were continually
+driven back to the middle of the current. At length two Salive
+Indians, excellent swimmers, leaped into the water, and having drawn
+the boat to shore by means of a rope, made it fast to the Piedra de
+Carichana Vieja, a shelf of bare rock, on which we passed the night.
+The thunder continued to roll during a part of the night; the swell of
+the river became considerable; and we were several times afraid that
+our frail bark would be driven from the shore by the impetuosity of
+the waves.
+
+The granitic rock on which we lay is one of those, where travellers on
+the Orinoco have heard from time to time, towards sunrise,
+subterraneous sounds, resembling those of the organ. The missionaries
+call these stones laxas de musica. "It is witchcraft (cosa de
+bruxas)," said our young Indian pilot, who could speak Spanish. We
+never ourselves heard these mysterious sounds, either at Carichana
+Vieja, or in the Upper Orinoco; but from information given us by
+witnesses worthy of belief, the existence of a phenomenon that seems
+to depend on a certain state of the atmosphere, cannot be denied. The
+shelves of rock are full of very narrow and deep crevices. They are
+heated during the day to 48 or 50 degrees. I several times found their
+temperature at the surface, during the night, at 39 degrees, the
+surrounding atmosphere being at 28 degrees. It may easily be
+conceived, that the difference of temperature between the subterranean
+and the external air attains its maximum about sunrise, or at that
+moment which is at the same time farthest from the period of the
+maximum of the heat of the preceding day. May not these organ-like
+sounds, which are heard when a person lays his ear in contact with the
+stone, be the effect of a current of air that issues out through the
+crevices? Does not the impulse of the air against the elastic spangles
+of mica that intercept the crevices, contribute to modify the sounds?
+May we not admit that the ancient inhabitants of Egypt, in passing
+incessantly up and down the Nile, had made the same observation on
+some rock of the Thebaid; and that the music of the rocks there led to
+the jugglery of the priests in the statue of Memnon? Perhaps, when,
+"the rosy-fingered Aurora rendered her son, the glorious Memnon,
+vocal,"* (* These are the words of an inscription, which attests that
+sounds were heard on the 13th of the month Pachon, in the tenth year
+of the reign of Antoninus. See Monuments de l'Egypte Ancienne.) the
+voice was that of a man hidden beneath the pedestal of the statue; but
+the observation of the natives of the Orinoco, which we relate, seems
+to explain in a natural manner what gave rise to the Egyptian belief
+of a stone that poured forth sounds at sunrise.
+
+Almost at the same period at which I communicated these conjectures to
+some of the learned of Europe, three French travellers, MM. Jomard,
+Jollois, and Devilliers, were led to analogous ideas. They heard, at
+sunrise, in a monument of granite, at the centre of the spot on which
+stands the palace of Karnak, a noise resembling that of a string
+breaking. Now this comparison is precisely that which the ancients
+employed in speaking of the voice of Memnon. The French travellers
+thought, like me, that the passage of rarefied air through the
+fissures of a sonorous stone might have suggested to the Egyptian
+priests the invention of the juggleries of the Memnomium.
+
+We left the rock at four in the morning. The missionary had told us
+that we should have great difficulty in passing the rapids and the
+mouth of the Meta. The Indians rowed twelve hours and a half without
+intermission, and during all that time, they took no other nourishment
+than cassava and plantains. When we consider the difficulty of
+overcoming the force of the current, and of passing the cataracts;
+when we reflect on the constant employment of the muscular powers
+during a navigation of two months; we are equally surprised at the
+constitutional vigour and the abstinence of the Indians of the Orinoco
+and the Amazon. Amylaceous and saccharine substances, sometimes fish
+and the fat of turtles' eggs, supply the place of food drawn from the
+first two classes of the animal kingdom, those of quadrupeds and
+birds.
+
+We found the bed of the river, to the length of six hundred toises,
+full of granite rocks. Here is what is called the Raudal de Cariven.
+We passed through channels that were not five feet broad. Our canoe
+was sometimes jammed between two blocks of granite. We sought to avoid
+these passages, into which the waters rushed with a fearful noise; but
+there is really little danger, in a canoe steered by a good Indian
+pilot. When the current is too violent to be resisted the rowers leap
+into the water, and fasten a rope to the point of a rock, to warp the
+boat along. This manoeuvre is very tedious; and we sometimes availed
+ourselves of it, to climb the rocks among which we were entangled.
+They are of all dimensions, rounded, very black, glossy like lead, and
+destitute of vegetation. It is an extraordinary phenomenon to see the
+waters of one of the largest rivers on the globe in some sort
+disappear. We perceived, even far from the shore, those immense blocks
+of granite, rising from the ground, and leaning one against another.
+The intervening channels in the rapids are more than twenty-five
+fathoms deep; and are the more difficult to be observed, as the rocks
+are often narrow toward their bases, and form vaults suspended over
+the surface of the river. We perceived no crocodiles in the raudal;
+these animals seem to shun the noise of cataracts.
+
+From Cabruta to the mouth of the Rio Sinaruco, a distance of nearly
+two degrees of latitude, the left bank of the Orinoco is entirely
+uninhabited; but to the west of the Raudal de Cariven an enterprising
+man, Don Felix Relinchon, had assembled some Jaruro and Ottomac
+Indians in a small village. It is an attempt at civilization, on which
+the monks have had no direct influence. It is superfluous to add, that
+Don Felix lives at open war with the missionaries on the right bank of
+the Orinoco.
+
+Proceeding up the river we arrived, at nine in the morning, before the
+mouth of the Meta, opposite the spot where the Mission of Santa
+Teresa, founded by the Jesuits, was heretofore situated.
+
+Next to the Guaviare, the Meta is the most considerable river that
+flows into the Orinoco. It may be compared to the Danube, not for the
+length of its course, but for the volume of its waters. Its mean depth
+is thirty-six feet, and it sometimes reaches eighty-four. The union of
+these two rivers presents a very impressive spectacle. Lonely rocks
+rise on the eastern bank. Blocks of granite, piled upon one another,
+appear from afar like castles in ruins. Vast sandy shores keep the
+skirting of the forest at a distance from the river; but we discover
+amid them, in the horizon, solitary palm-trees, backed by the sky, and
+crowning the tops of the mountains. We passed two hours on a large
+rock, standing in the middle of the Orinoco, and called the Piedra de
+la Paciencia, or the Stone of Patience, because the canoes, in going
+up, are sometimes detained there two days, to extricate themselves
+from the whirlpool caused by this rock.
+
+The Rio Meta, which traverses the vast plains of Casanare, and which
+is navigable as far as the foot of the Andes of New Grenada, will one
+day be of great political importance to the inhabitants of Guiana and
+Venezuela. From the Golfo Triste and the Boca del Drago a small fleet
+may go up the Orinoco and the Meta to within fifteen or twenty leagues
+of Santa Fe de Bogota. The flour of New Grenada may be conveyed the
+same way. The Meta is like a canal of communication between countries
+placed in the same latitude, but differing in their productions as
+much as France and Senegal. The Meta has its source in the union of
+two rivers which descend from the paramos of Chingasa and Suma Paz.
+The first is the Rio Negro, which, lower down, receives the
+Pachaquiaro; the second is the Rio de Aguas Blancas, or Umadea. The
+junction takes place near the port of Marayal. It is only eight or ten
+leagues from the Passo de la Cabulla, where you quit the Rio Negro, to
+the capital of Santa Fe. From the villages of Xiramena and Cabullaro
+to those of Guanapalo and Santa Rosalia de Cabapuna, a distance of
+sixty leagues, the banks of the Meta are more inhabited than those of
+the Orinoco. We find in this space fourteen Christian settlements, in
+part very populous; but from the mouths of the rivers Pauto and
+Casanare, for a space of more than fifty leagues, the Meta is infested
+by the Guahibos, a race of savages.* (* I find the word written
+Guajibos, Guahivos, and Guagivos. They call themselves Gua-iva.)
+
+The navigation of this river was much more active in the time of the
+Jesuits, and particularly during the expedition of Iturriaga, in 1756,
+than it is at present. Missionaries of the same order then governed
+the banks of the Meta and of the Orinoco. The villages of Macuco,
+Zurimena, and Casimena, were founded by the Jesuits, as well as those
+of Uruana, Encaramada, and Carichana.
+
+These Fathers had conceived the project of forming a series of
+Missions from the junction of the Casanare with the Meta to that of
+the Meta with the Orinoco. A narrow zone of cultivated land would have
+crossed the vast steppes that separate the forests of Guiana from the
+Andes of New Grenada.
+
+At the period of the harvest of turtles' eggs, not only the flour of
+Santa Fe descended the river, but the salt of Chita,* (* East of
+Labranza Grande, and the north-west of Pore, now the capital of the
+province of Casanare.) the cotton cloth of San Gil, and the printed
+counterpanes of Socorro. To give some security to the little traders
+who devoted themselves to this inland commerce, attacks were made from
+time to time from the castillo or fort of Carichana, on the Guahibos.
+
+To keep these Guahibos in awe, the Capuchin missionaries, who
+succeeded the Jesuits in the government of the Missions of the
+Orinoco, formed the project of founding a city at the mouth of the
+Meta, under the name of the Villa de San Carlos. Indolence, and the
+dread of tertian fevers, have prevented the execution of this project;
+and all that has ever existed of the city of San Carlos, is a coat of
+arms painted on fine parchment, with an enormous cross erected on the
+bank of the Meta. The Guahibos, who, it is said, are some thousands in
+number, have become so insolent, that, at the time of our passage by
+Carichana, they sent word to the missionary that they would come on
+rafts, and burn his village. These rafts (valzas), which we had an
+opportunity of seeing, are scarcely three feet broad, and twelve feet
+long. They carry only two or three Indians; but fifteen or sixteen of
+these rafts are fastened to each other with the stems of the
+paullinia, the dolichos, and other creeping plants. It is difficult to
+conceive how these small craft remain tied together in passing the
+rapids. Many fugitives from the villages of the Casanare and the Apure
+have joined the Guahibos, and taught them the practice of eating beef,
+and preparing hides. The farms of San Vicente, Rubio, and San Antonio,
+have lost great numbers of their horned cattle by the incursions of
+the Indians, who also prevent travellers, as far as the junction of
+the Casanare, from sleeping on the shore in going up the Meta. It
+often happens, while the waters are low, that the traders of New
+Grenada, some of whom still visit the encampment of Pararuma, are
+killed by the poisoned arrows of the Guahibos.
+
+From the mouth of the Meta, the Orinoco appeared to us to be freer of
+shoals and rocks. We navigated in a channel five hundred toises broad.
+The Indians remained rowing in the boat, without towing or pushing it
+forward with their arms, and wearying us with their wild cries. We
+passed the Canos of Uita and Endava on the west. It was night when we
+reached the Raudal de Tabaje. The Indians would not hazard passing the
+cataract; and we slept on a very incommodious spot, on the shelf of a
+rock, with a slope of more than eighteen degrees, and of which the
+crevices sheltered a swarm of bats. We heard the cries of the jaguar
+very near us during the whole night. They were answered by our great
+dog in lengthened howlings. I waited the appearance of the stars in
+vain: the sky was exceedingly black; and the hoarse sounds of the
+cascades of the Orinoco mingled with the rolling of the distant
+thunder.
+
+Early in the morning of the 13th April we passed the rapids of Tabaje,
+and again disembarked. Father Zea, who accompanied us, desired to
+perform mass in the new Mission of San Borja, established two years
+before. We there found six houses inhabited by uncatechised Guahibos.
+They differ in nothing from the wild Indians. Their eyes, which are
+large and black, have more vivacity than those of the Indians who
+inhabit the ancient missions. We in vain offered them brandy; they
+would not even taste it. The faces of all the young girls were marked
+with round black spots; like the patches by which the ladies of Europe
+formerly imagined they set off the whiteness of their skins. The
+bodies of the Guahibos were not painted. Several of them had beards,
+of which they seemed proud; and, taking us by the chin, showed us by
+signs, that they were made like us. Their shape was in general
+slender. I was again struck, as I had been among the Salives and the
+Macos, with the little uniformity of features to be found among the
+Indians of the Orinoco. Their look is sad and gloomy; but neither
+stern nor ferocious. Without having any notion of the practices of the
+Christian religion, they behaved with the utmost decency at church.
+The Indians love to exhibit themselves; and will submit temporarily to
+any restraint or subjection, provided they are sure of drawing
+attention. At the moment of the consecration, they made signs to one
+another, to indicate beforehand that the priest was going to raise the
+chalice to his lips. With the exception of this gesture, they remained
+motionless and in imperturbable apathy.
+
+The interest with which we examined these poor savages became perhaps
+the cause of the destruction of the mission. Some among them, who
+preferred a wandering life to the labours of agriculture, persuaded
+the rest to return to the plains of the Meta. They told them, that the
+white men would come back to San Borja, to take them away in the
+boats, and sell them as poitos, or slaves, at Angostura. The Guahibos
+awaited the news of our return from the Rio Negro by the Cassiquiare;
+and when they heard that we were arrived at the first great cataract,
+that of Atures, they all deserted, and fled to the savannahs that
+border the Orinoco on the west. The Jesuit Fathers had already formed
+a mission on this spot, and bearing the same name. No tribe is more
+difficult to fix to the soil than the Guahibos. They would rather feed
+on stale fish, scolopendras, and worms, than cultivate a little spot
+of ground. The other Indians say, that a Guahibo eats everything that
+exists, both on and under the ground.
+
+In ascending the Orinoco more to the south, the heat, far from
+increasing, became more bearable. The air in the day was at 26 or 27.5
+degrees; and at night, at 23.7. The water of the Orinoco retained its
+habitual temperature of 27.7 degrees. The torment of the mosquitos
+augmented severely, notwithstanding the decrease of heat. We never
+suffered so much from them as at San Borja. We could neither speak nor
+uncover our faces without having our mouths and noses filled with
+insects. We were surprised not to find the thermometer at 35 or 36
+degrees; the extreme irritation of the skin made us believe that the
+air was scorching. We passed the night on the beach of Guaripo. The
+fear of the little caribe fish prevented us from bathing. The
+crocodiles we had met with this day were all of an extraordinary size,
+from twenty-two to twenty-four feet.
+
+Our sufferings from the zancudos made us depart at five o'clock on the
+morning of the 14th. There are fewer insects in the strata of air
+lying immediately on the river, than near the edge of the forests. We
+stopped to breakfast at the island of Guachaco, or Vachaco, where the
+granite is immediately covered by a formation of sandstone, or
+conglomerate. This sandstone contains fragments of quartz, and even of
+feldspar, cemented by indurated clay. It exhibits little veins of
+brown iron-ore, which separate in laminae, or plates, of one line in
+thickness. We had already found these plates on the shores between
+Encaramada and Baraguan, where the missionaries had sometimes taken
+them for an ore of gold, and sometimes for tin. It is probable, that
+this secondary formation occupied formerly a larger space. Having
+passed the mouth of the Rio Parueni, beyond which the Maco Indians
+dwell, we spent the night on the island of Panumana. I could with
+difficulty take the altitudes of Canopus, in order to fix the
+longitude of the point, near which the river suddenly turns towards
+the west. The island of Panumana is rich in plants. We there again
+found those shelves of bare rock, those tufts of melastomas, those
+thickets of small shrubs, the blended scenery of which had charmed us
+in the plains of Carichana. The mountains of the Great Cataracts
+bounded the horizon towards the south-east. In proportion as we
+advanced, the shores of the Orinoco exhibited a more imposing and
+picturesque aspect.
+
+
+CHAPTER 2.20.
+
+THE MOUTH OF THE RIO ANAVENI.
+PEAK OF UNIANA.
+MISSION OF ATURES.
+CATARACT, OR RAUDAL OF MAPARA.
+ISLETS OF SURUPAMANA AND UIRAPURI.
+
+The river of the Orinoco, in running from south to north, is crossed
+by a chain of granitic mountains. Twice confined in its course, it
+turbulently breaks on the rocks, that form steps and transverse dykes.
+Nothing can be grander than the aspect of this spot. Neither the fall
+of the Tequendama, near Santa Fe de Bogota, nor the magnificent scenes
+of the Cordilleras, could weaken the impression produced upon my mind
+by the first view of the rapids of Atures and of Maypures. When the
+spectator is so stationed that the eye can at once take in the long
+succession of cataracts, the immense sheet of foam and vapours
+illumined by the rays of the setting sun, the whole river seems as it
+were suspended over its bed.
+
+Scenes so astonishing must for ages have fixed the attention of the
+inhabitants of the New World. When Diego de Todaz, Alfonzo de Herrera,
+and the intrepid Raleigh, anchored at the mouth of the Orinoco, they
+were informed by the Indians of the Great Cataracts, which they
+themselves had never visited, and which they even confounded with
+cascades farther to the east. Whatever obstacles the force of
+vegetation under the torrid zone may throw in the way of intercourse
+among nations, all that relates to the course of great rivers acquires
+a celebrity which extends to vast distances. The Orinoco, the Amazon,
+and the Uruguay, traverse, like inland arms of seas, in different
+directions, a land covered with forests, and inhabited by tribes, part
+of whom are cannibals. It is not yet two hundred years since
+civilization and the light of a more humane religion have pursued
+their way along the banks of these ancient canals traced by the hand
+of nature; long, however, before the introduction of agriculture,
+before communications for the purposes of barter were established
+among these scattered and often hostile tribes, the knowledge of
+extraordinary phenomena, of falls of water, of volcanic fires, and of
+snows resisting all the ardent heat of summer, was propagated by a
+thousand fortuitous circumstances. Three hundred leagues from the
+coast, in the centre of South America, among nations whose excursions
+do not extend to three days' journey, we find an idea of the ocean,
+and words that denote a mass of salt water extending as far as the eye
+can discern. Various events, which repeatedly occur in savage life,
+contribute to enlarge these conceptions. In consequence of the petty
+wars between neighbouring tribes, a prisoner is brought into a strange
+country, and treated as a poito or mero, that is to say, as a slave.
+After being often sold, he is dragged to new wars, escapes, and
+returns home; he relates what he has seen, and what he has heard from
+those whose tongue he has been compelled to learn. As on discovering a
+coast, we hear of great inland animals, so, on entering the valley of
+a vast river, we are surprised to find that savages, who are strangers
+to navigation, have acquired a knowledge of distant things. In the
+infant state of society, the exchange of ideas precedes, to a certain
+point, the exchange of productions.
+
+The two great cataracts of the Orinoco, the celebrity of which is so
+far-spread and so ancient, are formed by the passage of the river
+across the mountains of Parima. They are called by the natives Mapara
+and Quittuna; but the missionaries have substituted for these names
+those of Atures and Maypures, after the names of the tribes which were
+first assembled together in the nearest villages. On the coast of
+Caracas, the two Great Cataracts are denoted by the simple appellation
+of the two Raudales, or rapids; a denomination which implies that the
+other falls of water, even the rapids of Camiseta and of Carichana,
+are not considered as worthy of attention when compared with the
+cataracts of Atures and Maypures.
+
+These last, situated between five and six degrees of north latitude,
+and a hundred leagues west of the Cordilleras of New Grenada, in the
+meridian of Porto Cabello, are only twelve leagues distant from each
+other. It is surprising that their existence was not known to
+D'Anville, who, in his fine map of South America, marks the
+inconsiderable cascades of Marimara and San Borja, by the names of the
+rapids of Carichana and Tabaje. The Great Cataracts divide the
+Christian establishments of Spanish Guiana into two unequal parts.
+Those situated between the Raudal of Atures and the mouth of the river
+are called the Missions of the Lower Orinoco; the Missions of the
+Upper Orinoco comprehend the villages between the Raudal of Maypures
+and the mountains of Duida. The course of the Lower Orinoco, if we
+estimate the sinuosities at one-third of the distance in a direct
+line, is two hundred and sixty nautical leagues: the course of the
+Upper Orinoco, supposing its sources to be three degrees east of
+Duida, includes one hundred and sixty-seven leagues.
+
+Beyond the Great Cataracts an unknown land begins. The country is
+partly mountainous and partly flat, receiving at once the confluents
+of the Amazon and the Orinoco. From the facility of its communications
+with the Rio Negro and Grand Para, it appears to belong still more to
+Brazil than to the Spanish colonies. None of the missionaries who have
+described the Orinoco before me, neither Father Gumilla, Gili, nor
+Caulin, had passed the Raudal of Maypures. We found but three
+Christian establishments above the Great Cataracts, along the shores
+of the Orinoco, in an extent of more than a hundred leagues; and these
+three establishments contained scarcely six or eight white persons,
+that is to say, persons of European race. We cannot be surprised that
+such a desert region should have been at all times the land of fable
+and fairy visions. There, according to the statements of certain
+missionaries, are found races of men, some of whom have an eye in the
+centre of the forehead, whilst others have dogs' heads, and mouths
+below their stomachs. There they pretend to have found all that the
+ancients relate of the Garamantes, of the Arimaspes, and of the
+Hyperboreans. It would be an error to suppose that these simple and
+often rustic missionaries had themselves invented all these
+exaggerated fictions; they derived them in great part from the
+recitals of the Indians. A fondness for narration prevails in the
+Missions, as it does at sea, in the East, and in every place where the
+mind seeks amusement. A missionary, from his vocation, is not inclined
+to scepticism; he imprints on his memory what the natives have so
+often repeated to him; and, when returned to Europe, and restored to
+the civilized world, he finds a pleasure in creating astonishment by a
+recital of facts which he thinks he has collected, and by an animated
+description of remote things. These stories, which the Spanish
+colonists call tales of travellers and of monks (cuentos de viageros y
+frailes), increase in improbability in proportion as you increase your
+distance from the forests of the Orinoco, and approach the coasts
+inhabited by the whites. When, at Cumana, Nueva Barcelona, and other
+seaports which have frequent communication with the Missions, you
+betray any sign of incredulity, you are reduced to silence by these
+few words: The fathers have seen it, but far above the Great Cataracts
+(mas arriba de los Raudales).
+
+On the 15th of April, we left the island of Panumana at four in the
+morning, two hours before sunrise. The sky was in great part obscured,
+and lightnings flashed over dense clouds at more than forty degrees of
+elevation. We were surprised at not hearing thunder; but possibly this
+was owing to the prodigious height of the storm? It appears to us,
+that in Europe the electric flashes without thunder, vaguely called
+heat-lightning, are seen generally nearer the horizon. Under a cloudy
+sky, that sent back the radiant caloric of the soil, the heat was
+stifling; not a breath of wind agitated the foliage of the trees. The
+jaguars, as usual, had crossed the arm of the Orinoco by which we were
+separated from the shore, and we heard their cries extremely near.
+During the night the Indians had advised us to quit our station in the
+open air, and retire to a deserted hut belonging to the conucos of the
+inhabitants of Atures. They had taken care to barricade the opening
+with planks, a precaution which seemed to us superfluous; but near the
+Cataracts tigers are very numerous, and two years before, in these
+very conucos of Panumana, an Indian returning to his hut, towards the
+close of the rainy season, found a tigress settled in it with her two
+young. These animals had inhabited the dwelling for several months;
+they were dislodged from it with difficulty, and it was only after an
+obstinate combat that the former master regained possession of his
+dwelling. The jaguars are fond of retiring to deserted ruins, and I
+believe it is more prudent in general for a solitary traveller to
+encamp in the open air, between two fires, than to seek shelter in
+uninhabited huts.
+
+On quitting the island of Panumana, we perceived on the western bank
+of the river the fires of an encampment of Guahibo savages. The
+missionary who accompanied us caused a few musket-shots to be fired in
+the air, which he said would intimidate them, and shew that we were in
+a state to defend ourselves. The savages most likely had no canoes,
+and were not desirous of troubling us in the middle of the river. We
+passed at sunrise the mouth of the Rio Anaveni, which descends from
+the eastern mountains. On its banks, now deserted, Father Olmos had
+established, in the time of the Jesuits, a small village of Japuins or
+Jaruros. The heat was so excessive that we rested a long time in a
+woody spot, to fish with a hook and line, and it was not without some
+trouble that we carried away all the fish we had caught. We did not
+arrive till very late at the foot of the Great Cataract, in a bay
+called the lower harbour (puerto de abaxo); and we followed, not
+without difficulty, in a dark night, the narrow path that leads to the
+Mission of Atures, a league distant from the river. We crossed a plain
+covered with large blocks of granite.
+
+The little village of San Juan Nepomuceno de los Atures was founded by
+the Jesuit Francisco Gonzales, in 1748. In going up the river this is
+the last of the Christian missions that owe their origin to the order
+of St. Ignatius. The more southern establishments, those of Atabapo,
+of Cassiquiare, and of Rio Negro, were formed by the fathers of the
+Observance of St. Francis. The Orinoco appears to have flowed
+heretofore where the village of Atures now stands, and the flat
+savannah that surrounds the village no doubt formed part of the river.
+I saw to the east of the mission a succession of rocks, which seemed
+to have been the ancient shore of the Orinoco. In the lapse of ages
+the river has been impelled westward, in consequence of the
+accumulations of earth, which occur more frequently on the side of the
+eastern mountains, that are furrowed by torrents. The cataract bears
+the name of Mapara,* as we have mentioned above (* I am ignorant of
+the etymology of this word, which I believe means only a fall of
+water. Gili translates into Maypure a small cascade (raudalito) by
+uccamatisi mapara canacapatirri. Should we not spell this word
+matpara? mat being a radical of the Maypure tongue, and meaning bad
+(Hervas, Saggio N. 29). The radical par (para) is found among American
+tribes more than five hundred leagues distant from each other, the
+Caribs, Maypures, Brazilians, and Peruvians, in the words sea, rain,
+water, lake. We must not confound mapara with mapaja; this last word
+signifies, in Maypure and Tamanac, the papaw or melon-tree, no doubt
+on account of the sweetness of its fruit, for mapa means in the
+Maypure, as well as in the Peruvian and Omagua tongues, the honey of
+bees. The Tamanacs call a cascade, or raudal, in general uatapurutpe;
+the Maypures, uca.); while the name of the village is derived from
+that of the nation of Atures, now believed to be extinct. I find on
+the maps of the seventeenth century, Island and Cataract of Athule;
+which is the word Atures written according to the pronunciation of the
+Tamanacs, who confound, like so many other people, the consonants l
+and r. This mountainous region was so little known in Europe, even in
+the middle of the eighteenth century, that D'Anville, in the first
+edition of his South America, makes a branch issue from the Orinoco,
+near Salto de los Atures, and fall into the Amazon, to which branch he
+gives the name of Rio Negro.
+
+Early maps, as well as Father Gumilla's work, place the Mission in
+latitude 1 degree 30 minutes. Abbe Gili gives it 3 degrees 50 minutes.
+I found, by meridian altitudes of Canopus and a of the Southern Cross,
+5 degrees 38 minutes 4 seconds for the latitude; and by the
+chronometer 4 hours 41 minutes 17 seconds of longitude west of the
+meridian of Paris.
+
+We found this small Mission in the most deplorable state. It
+contained, even at the time of the expedition of Solano, commonly
+called the expedition of the boundaries, three hundred and twenty
+Indians. This number had diminished, at the time of our passage by the
+Cataracts, to forty-seven; and the missionary assured us that this
+diminution became from year to year more sensible. He showed us, that
+in the space of thirty-two months only one marriage had been entered
+in the registers of the parish church. Two others had been contracted
+by uncatechised natives, and celebrated before the Indian Gobernador.
+At the first foundation of the Mission, the Atures, Maypures,
+Meyepures, Abanis, and Quirupas, had been assembled together. Instead
+of these tribes we found only Guahibos, and a few families of the
+nation of Macos. The Atures have almost entirely disappeared; they are
+no longer known, except by the tombs in the cavern of Ataruipe, which
+recall to mind the sepulchres of the Guanches at Teneriffe. We learned
+on the spot, that the Atures, as well as the Quaquas, and the Macos or
+Piaroas, belong to the great stock of the Salive nations; while the
+Maypures, the Abanis, the Parenis, and the Guaypunaves, are of the
+same race as the Cabres or Caveres, celebrated for their long wars
+with the Caribs. In this labyrinth of petty nations, divided from one
+another as the nations of Latium, Asia Minor, and Sogdiana, formerly
+were, we can trace no general relations but by following the analogy
+of tongues. These are the only monuments that have reached us from the
+early ages of the world; the only monuments, which, not being fixed to
+the soil, are at once moveable and lasting, and have as it were
+traversed time and space. They owe their duration, and the extent they
+occupy, much less to conquering and polished nations, than to those
+wandering and half-savage tribes, who, fleeing before a powerful
+enemy, carried along with them in their extreme wretchedness only
+their wives, their children, and the languages of their fathers.
+
+Between the latitudes of 4 and 8 degrees, the Orinoco not only
+separates the great forest of the Parime from the bare savannahs of
+the Apure, Meta, and Guaviare, but also forms the boundary between
+tribes of very different manners. To the westward, over treeless
+plains, wander the Guahibos, the Chiricoas, and the Guamos; nations,
+proud of their savage independence, whom it is difficult to fix to the
+soil, or habituate to regular labour. The Spanish missionaries
+characterise them well by the name of Indios andantes (errant or
+vagabond Indians), because they are perpetually moving from place to
+place. To the east of the Orinoco, between the neighbouring sources of
+the Caura, Cataniapo, and Ventuari, live the Macos, the Salives, the
+Curacicanas, Parecas, and Maquiritares, mild, tranquil tribes,
+addicted to agriculture, and easily subjected to the discipline of the
+Missions. The Indian of the plains differs from the Indian of the
+forests in language as well as manners and mental disposition; both
+have an idiom abounding in spirited and bold terms; but the language
+of the former is harsher, more concise, and more impassioned; that of
+the latter, softer, more diffuse, and fuller of ambiguous expressions.
+
+The Mission of Atures, like most of the Missions of the Orinoco,
+situated between the mouths of the Apure and the Atabapo, is composed
+of both the classes of tribes we have just described. We there find
+the Indians of the forests, and the Indians heretofore nomadic*
+(Indios monteros and Indios llaneros, or andantes). (* I employ the
+word nomadic as synonymous with wandering, and not in its primitive
+signification. The wandering nations of America (those of the
+indigenous tribes, it is to be understood) are never shepherds; they
+live by fishing and hunting, on the fruit of a few trees, the
+farinaceous pith of palm-trees, etc.) We visited with the missionary
+the huts of Macos, whom the Spaniards call Piraoas, and those of the
+Guahibos. The first indicated more love of order, cleanliness, and
+ease. The independent Macos (I do not designate them by the name of
+savages) have their rochelas, or fixed dwellings, two or three days'
+journey east of Atures, toward the sources of the little river
+Cataniapo. They are very numerous. Like most of the natives of the
+woods, they cultivate, not maize, but cassava; and they live in great
+harmony with the Christian Indians of the mission. The harmony was
+established and wisely cultivated by the Franciscan monk, Bernardo
+Zea. This alcalde of the reduced Macos quitted the village of Atures
+for a few months every year, to live in the plantations which he
+possessed in the midst of the forests near the hamlet of the
+independent Macos. In consequence of this peaceful intercourse, many
+of the Indios monteros came and established themselves some time ago
+in the mission. They asked eagerly for knives, fishing hooks, and
+those coloured glass beads, which, notwithstanding the positive
+prohibition of the priests, were employed not as necklaces, but as
+ornaments of the guayuco (perizoma). Having obtained what they sought,
+they returned to the woods, weary of the regulations of the mission.
+Epidemic fevers, which prevailed with violence at the entrance of the
+rainy season, contributed greatly to this unexpected flight. In 1799
+the mortality was very considerable at Carichana, on the banks of the
+Meta, and at the Raudal of Atures. The Indian of the forest conceives
+a horror of the life of the civilized man, when, I will not say any
+misfortune befalls his family settled in the mission, but merely any
+disagreeable or unforeseen accident. Natives, who were neophytes, have
+been known to desert for ever the Christian establishments, on account
+of a great drought; as if this calamity would not have reached them
+equally in their plantations, had they remained in their primitive
+independence.
+
+The fevers which prevail during a great part of the year in the
+villages of Atures and Maypures, around the two Great Cataracts of the
+Orinoco, render these spots highly dangerous to European travellers.
+They are caused by violent heats, in combination with the excessive
+humidity of the air, bad nutriment, and, if we may believe the
+natives, the pestilent exhalations rising from the bare rocks of the
+Raudales. These fevers of the Orinoco appeared to us to resemble those
+which prevail every year between New Barcelona, La Guayra, and Porto
+Cabello, in the vicinity of the sea; and which often degenerate into
+adynamic fevers. "I have had my little fever (mi calenturita) only
+eight months," said the good missionary of the Atures, who accompanied
+us to the Rio Negro; speaking of it as of an habitual evil, easy to be
+borne. The fits were violent, but of short duration. He was sometimes
+seized with them when lying along in the boat under a shelter of
+branches of trees, sometimes when exposed to the burning rays of the
+sun on an open beach. These tertian agues are attended with great
+debility of the muscular system; yet we find poor ecclesiastics on the
+Orinoco, who endure for several years these calenturitas, or
+tercianas: their effects are not so fatal as those which are
+experienced from fevers of much shorter duration in temperate
+climates.
+
+I have just alluded to the noxious influence on the salubrity of the
+atmosphere, which is attributed by the natives, and even the
+missionaries, to the bare rocks. This opinion is the more worthy of
+attention, as it is connected with a physical phenomenon lately
+observed in different parts of the globe, and not yet sufficiently
+explained. Among the cataracts, and wherever the Orinoco, between the
+Missions of Carichana and of Santa Barbara, periodically washes the
+granitic rocks, they become smooth, black, and as if coated with
+plumbago. The colouring matter does not penetrate the stone, which is
+coarse-grained granite, containing a few solitary crystals of
+hornblende. Taking a general view of the primitive formation of
+Atures, we perceive, that, like the granite of Syene in Egypt, it is a
+granite with hornblende, and not a real syenite formation. Many of the
+layers are entirely destitute of hornblende. The black crust is 0.3 of
+a line in thickness; it is found chiefly on the quartzose parts. The
+crystals of feldspar sometimes preserve externally their reddish-white
+colour, and rise above the black crust. On breaking the stone with a
+hammer, the inside is found to be white, and without any trace of
+decomposition. These enormous stony masses appear sometimes in rhombs,
+sometimes under those hemispheric forms, peculiar to granitic rocks
+when they separate in blocks. They give the landscape a singularly
+gloomy aspect; their colour being in strong contrast with that of the
+foam of the river which covers them, and of the vegetation by which
+they are surrounded. The Indians say, that the rocks are burnt (or
+carbonized) by the rays of the sun. We saw them not only in the bed of
+the Orinoco, but in some spots as far as five hundred toises from its
+present shore, on heights which the waters now never reach even in
+their greatest swellings.
+
+What is this brownish black crust, which gives these rocks, when they
+have a globular form, the appearance of meteoric stones? What idea can
+we form of the action of the water, which produces a deposit, or a
+change of colour, so extraordinary? We must observe, in the first
+place, that this phenomenon does not belong to the cataracts of the
+Orinoco alone, but is found in both hemispheres. At my return from
+Mexico in 1807, when I showed the granites of Atures and Maypures to
+M. Roziere, who had travelled over the valley of Egypt, the coasts of
+the Red Sea, and Mount Sinai, this learned geologist pointed out to me
+that the primitive rocks of the little cataracts of Syene display,
+like the rocks of the Orinoco, a glossy surface, of a blackish-grey,
+or almost leaden colour, and of which some of the fragments seem
+coated with tar. Recently, in the unfortunate expedition of Captain
+Tuckey, the English naturalists were struck with the same appearance
+in the yellalas (rapids and shoals) that obstruct the river Congo or
+Zaire. Dr. Koenig has placed in the British Museum, beside the
+syenites of the Congo, the granites of Atures, taken from a series of
+rocks which were presented by M. Bonpland and myself to the
+illustrious president of the Royal Society of London. "These
+fragments," says Mr. Koenig, "alike resemble meteoric stones; in both
+rocks, those of the Orinoco and of Africa, the black crust is
+composed, according to the analysis of Mr. Children, of the oxide of
+iron and manganese." Some experiments made at Mexico, conjointly with
+Senor del Rio, led me to think that the rocks of Atures, which blacken
+the paper in which they are wrapped,* contain, besides oxide of
+manganese, carbon, and supercarburetted iron. (* I remarked the same
+phenomenon from spongy grains of platina one or two lines in length,
+collected at the stream-works of Taddo, in the province of Choco.
+Having been wrapped up in white paper during a journey of several
+months, they left a black stain, like that of plumbago or
+supercarburetted iron.) At the Orinoco, granitic masses of forty or
+fifty feet thick are uniformly coated with these oxides; and, however
+thin these crusts may appear, they must nevertheless contain pretty
+considerable quantities of iron and manganese, since they occupy a
+space of above a league square.
+
+It must be observed that all these phenomena of coloration have
+hitherto appeared in the torrid zone only, in rivers that have
+periodical overflowings, of which the habitual temperature is from
+twenty-four to twenty-eight centesimal degrees, and which flow, not
+over gritstone or calcareous rocks, but over granite, gneiss, and
+hornblende rocks. Quartz and feldspar scarcely contain five or six
+thousandths of oxide of iron and of manganese; but in mica and
+hornblende these oxides, and particularly that of iron, amount,
+according to Klaproth and Herrmann, to fifteen or twenty parts in a
+hundred. The hornblende contains also some carbon, like the Lydian
+stone and kieselschiefer. Now, if these black crusts were formed by a
+slow decomposition of the granitic rock, under the double influence of
+humidity and the tropical sun, how is it to be conceived that these
+oxides are spread so uniformly over the whole surface of the stony
+masses, and are not more abundant round a crystal of mica or
+hornblende than on the feldspar and milky quartz? The ferruginous
+sandstones, granites, and marbles, that become cinereous and sometimes
+brown in damp air, have an aspect altogether different. In reflecting
+upon the lustre and equal thickness of the crusts, we are rather
+inclined to think that this matter is deposited by the Orinoco, and
+that the water has penetrated even into the clefts of the rocks.
+Adopting this hypothesis, it may be asked whether the river holds the
+oxides suspended like sand and other earthy substances, or whether
+they are found in a state of chemical solution. The first supposition
+is less admissible, on account of the homogeneity of the crusts, which
+contain neither grains of sand, nor spangles of mica, mixed with the
+oxides. We must then recur to the idea of a chemical solution; and
+this idea is no way at variance with the phenomena daily observable in
+our laboratories. The waters of great rivers contain carbonic acid;
+and, were they even entirely pure, they would still be capable, in
+very great volumes, of dissolving some portions of oxide, or those
+metallic hydrates which are regarded as the least soluble. The mud of
+the Nile, which is the sediment of the matters which the river holds
+suspended, is destitute of manganese; but it contains, according to
+the analysis of M. Regnault, six parts in a hundred of oxide of iron;
+and its colour, at first black, changes to yellowish brown by
+desiccation and the contact of air. The mud consequently is not the
+cause of the black crusts on the rocks of Syene. Berzelius, who, at my
+request, examined these crusts, recognized in them, as in those of the
+granites of the Orinoco and River Congo, the union of iron and
+manganese. That celebrated chemist was of opinion that the rivers do
+not take up these oxides from the soil over which they flow, but that
+they derive them from their subterranean sources, and deposit them on
+the rocks in the manner of cementation, by the action of particular
+affinities, perhaps by that of the potash of the feldspar. A long
+residence at the cataracts of the Orinoco, the Nile, and the Rio
+Congo, and an examination of the circumstances attendant on this
+phenomenon of coloration, could alone lead to the complete solution of
+the problem we have discussed. Is this phenomenon independent of the
+nature of the rocks? I shall content myself with observing, in
+general, that neither the granitic masses remote from the ancient bed
+of the Orinoco, but exposed during the rainy season to the
+alternations of heat and moisture, nor the granitic rocks bathed by
+the brownish waters of the Rio Negro, assume the appearance of
+meteoric stones. The Indians say, that the rocks are black only where
+the waters are white. They ought, perhaps, to add, where the waters
+acquire great swiftness, and strike with force against the rocks of
+the banks. Cementation seems to explain why the crusts augment so
+little in thickness.
+
+I know not whether it be an error, but in the Missions of the Orinoco,
+the neighbourhood of bare rocks, and especially of the masses that
+have crusts of carbon, oxide of iron, and manganese, are considered
+injurious to health. In the torrid zone, still more than in others,
+the people multiply pathogenic causes at will. They are afraid to
+sleep in the open air, if forced to expose the face to the rays of the
+full moon. They also think it dangerous to sleep on granite near the
+river; and many examples are cited of persons, who, after having
+passed the night on these black and naked rocks, have awakened in the
+morning with a strong paroxysm of fever. Without entirely lending
+faith to the assertions of the missionaries and natives, we generally
+avoided the laxas negras, and stretched ourselves on the beach covered
+with white sand, when we found no tree from which to suspend our
+hammocks. At Carichana, the village is intended to be destroyed, and
+its place changed, merely to remove it from the black rocks, or from a
+site where, for a space of more than ten thousand square toises, banks
+of bare granite form the surface. From similar motives, which must
+appear very chimerical to the naturalists of Europe, the Jesuits Olmo,
+Forneri, and Mellis, removed a village of Jaruros to three different
+spots, between the Raudal of Tabaje and the Rio Anaveni. I merely
+state these facts as they were related to me, because we are almost
+wholly ignorant of the nature of the gaseous mixtures which cause the
+insalubrity of the atmosphere. Can it be admitted that, under the
+influence of excessive heat and of constant humidity, the black crusts
+of the granitic rocks are capable of acting upon the ambient air, and
+producing miasmata with a triple basis of carbon, azote, and hydrogen?
+This I doubt. The granites of the Orinoco, it is true, often contain
+hornblende; and those who are accustomed to practical labour in mines
+are not ignorant that the most noxious exhalations rise from galleries
+wrought in syenitic and hornblende rocks: but in an atmosphere renewed
+every instant by the action of little currents of air, the effect
+cannot be the same as in a mine.
+
+It is probably dangerous to sleep on the laxas negras, only because
+these rocks retain a very elevated temperature during the night. I
+have found their temperature in the day at 48 degrees, the air in the
+shade being at 29.7 degrees; during the night the thermometer on the
+rock indicated 36 degrees, the air being at 26 degrees. When the
+accumulation of heat in the stony masses has reached a stationary
+degree, these masses become at the same hours nearly of the same
+temperature. What they have acquired more in the day they lose at
+night by radiation, the force of which depends on the state of the
+surface of the radiating body, the interior arrangement of its
+particles, and, above all, on the clearness of the sky, that is, on
+the transparency of the atmosphere and the absence of clouds. When the
+declination of the sun varies very little, this luminary adds daily
+nearly the same quantities of heat, and the rocks are not hotter at
+the end than in the middle of summer. There is a certain maximum which
+they cannot pass, because they do not change the state of their
+surface, their density, or their capacity for caloric. On the shores
+of the Orinoco, on getting out of one's hammock during the night, and
+touching with the bare feet the rocky surface of the ground, the
+sensation of heat experienced is very remarkable. I observed pretty
+constantly, in putting the bulb of the thermometer in contact with the
+ledges of bare rocks, that the laxas negras are hotter during the day
+than the reddish-white granites at a distance from the river; but the
+latter cool during the night less rapidly than the former. It may be
+easily conceived that the emission and loss of caloric is more rapid
+in masses with black crusts than in those which abound in laminae of
+silvery mica. When walking between the hours of one and three in the
+afternoon, at Carichana, Atures, or Maypures, among those blocks of
+stone destitute of vegetable mould, and piled up to great heights, one
+feels a sensation of suffocation, as if standing before the opening of
+a furnace. The winds, if ever felt in those woody regions, far from
+bringing coolness, appear more heated when they have passed over beds
+of stone, and heaps of rounded blocks of granite. This augmentation of
+heat adds to the insalubrity of the climate.
+
+Among the causes of the depopulation of the Raudales, I have not
+reckoned the small-pox, that malady which in other parts of America
+makes such cruel ravages that the natives, seized with dismay, burn
+their huts, kill their children, and renounce every kind of society.
+This scourge is almost unknown on the banks of the Orinoco, and should
+it penetrate thither, it is to be hoped that its effects may be
+immediately counteracted by vaccination, the blessings of which are
+daily felt along the coasts of Terra Firma. The causes which
+depopulate the Christian settlements are, the repugnance of the
+Indians for the regulations of the missions, insalubrity of climate,
+bad nourishment, want of care in the diseases of children, and the
+guilty practice of preventing pregnancy by the use of deleterious
+herbs. Among the barbarous people of Guiana, as well as those of the
+half-civilized islands of the South Sea, young wives are fearful of
+becoming mothers. If they have children, their offspring are exposed
+not only to the dangers of savage life, but also to other dangers
+arising from the strangest popular prejudices. When twins are born,
+false notions of propriety and family honour require that one of them
+should be destroyed. To bring twins into the world, say the Indians,
+is to be exposed to public scorn; it is to resemble rats, opossums,
+and the vilest animals, which bring forth a great number of young at a
+time. Nay, more, they affirm that two children born at the same time
+cannot belong to the same father. This is an axiom of physiology among
+the Salives; and in every zone, and in different states of society,
+when the vulgar seize upon an axiom, they adhere to it with more
+stedfastness than the better-informed men by whom it was first
+hazarded. To avoid the disturbance of conjugal tranquillity, the old
+female relations of the mother take care, that when twins are born one
+of them shall disappear. If a new-born infant, though not a twin, have
+any physical deformity, the father instantly puts it to death. They
+will have none but robust and well-made children, for deformities
+indicate some influence of the evil spirit Ioloquiamo, or the bird
+Tikitiki, the enemy of the human race. Sometimes children of a feeble
+constitution undergo the same fate. When the father is asked what is
+become of one of his sons, he will pretend that he has lost him by a
+natural death. He will disavow an action that appears to him
+blameable, but not criminal. "The poor boy," he will tell you, "could
+not follow us; we must have waited for him every moment; he has not
+been seen again; he did not come to sleep where we passed the night."
+Such is the candour and simplicity of manners--such the boasted
+happiness--of man in the state of nature! He kills his son to escape
+the ridicule of having twins, or to avoid journeying more slowly; in
+fact, to avoid a little inconvenience.
+
+These acts of cruelty, I confess, are less frequent than they are
+believed to be; yet they occur even in the Missions, during the time
+when the Indians leave the village, to retire to the conucos of the
+neighbouring forests. It would be erroneous to attribute these actions
+to the state of polygamy in which the uncatechized Indians live.
+Polygamy no doubt diminishes the domestic happiness and internal union
+of families; but this practice, sanctioned by Ismaelism, does not
+prevent the people of the east from loving their children with
+tenderness. Among the Indians of the Orinoco, the father returns home
+only to eat, or to sleep in his hammock; he lavishes no caresses on
+his infants, or on his wives, whose office it is to serve him.
+Parental affection begins to display itself only when the son has
+become strong enough to take a part in hunting, fishing, and the
+agricultural labours of the plantations.
+
+While our boat was unloading, we examined closely, wherever the shore
+could be approached, the terrific spectacle of a great river narrowed
+and reduced as it were to foam. I shall endeavour to paint, not the
+sensations we felt, but the aspect of a spot so celebrated among the
+scenes of the New World. The more imposing and majestic the objects we
+describe, the more essential it becomes to seize them in their
+smallest details, to fix the outline of the picture we would present
+to the imagination of the reader, and to describe with simplicity what
+characterises the great and imperishable monuments of nature.
+
+The navigation of the Orinoco from its mouth as far as the confluence
+of the Anaveni, an extent of 260 leagues, is not impeded. There are
+shoals and eddies near Muitaco, in a cove that bears the name of the
+Mouth of Hell (Boca del Infierno); and there are rapids (raudalitos)
+near Carichana and San Borja; but in all these places the river is
+never entirely barred, as a channel is left by which boats can pass up
+and down.
+
+In all this navigation of the Lower Orinoco travellers experience no
+other danger than that of the natural rafts formed by trees, which are
+uprooted by the river, and swept along in its great floods. Woe to the
+canoes that during the night strike against these rafts of wood
+interwoven with lianas! Covered with aquatic plants, they resemble
+here, as in the Mississippi, floating meadows, the chinampas or
+floating gardens of the Mexican lakes. The Indians, when they wish to
+surprise a tribe of their enemies, bring together several canoes,
+fasten them to each other with cords, and cover them with grass and
+branches, to imitate this assemblage of trunks of trees, which the
+Orinoco sweeps along in its middle current. The Caribs are accused of
+having heretofore excelled in the use of this artifice; at present the
+Spanish smugglers in the neighbourhood of Angostura have recourse to
+the same expedient to escape the vigilance of the custom-house
+officers.
+
+After proceeding up the Orinoco beyond the Rio Anaveni, we find,
+between the mountains of Uniana and Sipapu, the Great Cataracts of
+Mapara and Quittuna, or, as they are more commonly called by the
+missionaries, the Raudales of Atures and Maypures. These bars, which
+extend from one bank to the other, present in general a similar
+aspect: they are composed of innumerable islands, dikes of rock, and
+blocks of granite piled on one another and covered with palm-trees.
+But, notwithstanding a uniformity of aspect, each of these cataracts
+preserves an individual character. The first, the Atures, is most
+easily passable when the waters are low. The Indians prefer crossing
+the second, the Maypures, at the time of great floods. Beyond the
+Maypures and the mouth of the Cano Cameji, the Orinoco is again
+unobstructed for the length of more than one hundred and sixty-seven
+leagues, or nearly to its source; that is to say, as far as the
+Raudalito of Guaharibos, east of the Cano Chiguire and the lofty
+mountains of Yumariquin.
+
+Having visited the basins of the two rivers Orinoco and Amazon, I was
+singularly struck by the differences they display in their course of
+unequal extent. The falls of the Amazon, which is nearly nine hundred
+and eighty nautical leagues (twenty to a degree) in length, are pretty
+near its source in the first sixth of its total length, and
+five-sixths of its course are entirely free. We find the great falls
+of the Orinoco on a point far more unfavourable to navigation; if not
+at the half, at least much beyond the first third of its length. In
+both rivers it is neither the mountains, nor the different stages of
+flat lands lying over one another, whence they take their origin, that
+cause the cataracts; they are produced by other mountains, other
+ledges which, after a long and tranquil course, the rivers have to
+pass over, precipitating themselves from step to step.
+
+The Amazon does not pierce its way through the principal chain of the
+Andes, as was affirmed at a period when it was gratuitously supposed
+that, wherever mountains are divided into parallel chains, the
+intermedial or central ridge must be more elevated than the others.
+This great river rises (and this is a point of some importance to
+geology) eastward of the western chain, which alone in this latitude
+merits the denomination of the high chain of the Andes. It is formed
+by the junction of the river Aguamiros with the Rio Chavinillo, which
+issues from the lake Llauricocha in a longitudinal valley bounded by
+the western and the intermedial chain of the Andes. To form an
+accurate idea of these hydrographical relations, it must be borne in
+mind that a division into three chains takes place in the colossal
+group or knot of the mountains of Pasco and Huanuco. The western
+chain, which is the loftiest, and takes the name of the Cordillera
+Real de Nieve, directs its course (between Huary and Caxatamba,
+Guamachuco and Luema, Micuipampa and Guangamarca) by the Nevados of
+Viuda, Pelagatos, Moyopata, and Huaylillas, and by the Paramos of
+Guamani and Guaringa, towards the town of Loxa. The intermedial chain
+separates the waters of the Upper Maranon from those of the Guallaga,
+and over a long space reaches only the small elevation of a thousand
+toises; it enters the region of perpetual snow to the south of Huanuco
+in the Cordillera of Sasaguanca. It stretches at first northward by
+Huacrachuco, Chachapoyas, Moyobamba, and the Paramo of Piscoguannuna;
+then it progressively lowers toward Peca, Copallin, and the Mission of
+Santiago, at the eastern extremity of the province of Jaen de
+Bracamoros. The third, or easternmost chain, skirts the right bank of
+the Rio Guallaga, and loses itself in the seventh degree of latitude.
+So long as the Amazon flows from south to north in the longitudinal
+valley, between two chains of unequal height (that is, from the farms
+of Quivilla and Guancaybamba, where the river is crossed on wooden
+bridges, as far as the confluence of the Rio Chinchipe), there are
+neither bars, nor any obstacle whatever to the navigation of boats.
+The falls of water begin only where the Amazon turns toward the east,
+crossing the intermedial chain of the Andes, which widens considerably
+toward the north. It meets with the first rocks of red sandstone, or
+ancient conglomerate, between Tambillo and the Pongo of Rentema (near
+which I measured the breadth, depth, and swiftness of the waters), and
+it leaves the rocks of red sandstone east of the famous strait of
+Manseriche, near the Pongo of Tayuchuc, where the hills rise no higher
+than forty or fifty toises above the level of its waters. The river
+does not reach the most easterly chain, which bounds the Pampas del
+Sacramento. From the hills of Tayuchuc as far as Grand Para, during a
+course of more than seven hundred and fifty leagues, the navigation is
+free from obstacles. It results from this rapid sketch, that, if the
+Maranon had not to pass over the hilly country between Santiago and
+Tomependa (which belongs to the central chain of the Andes) it would
+be navigable from its mouth as far as Pumpo, near Piscobamba in the
+province of Conchucos, forty-three leagues north of its source.
+
+We have just seen that, in the Orinoco, as in the Amazon, the great
+cataracts are not found near the sources of the rivers. After a
+tranquil course of more than one hundred and sixty leagues from the
+little Raudal of Guaharibos, east of Esmeralda, as far as the
+mountains of Sipapu, the river, augmented by the waters of the Jao,
+the Ventuari, the Atabapo, and the Guaviare, suddenly changes its
+primitive direction from east to west, and runs from south to north:
+then, in crossing the land-strait* in the plains of Meta, (* This
+strait, which I have several times mentioned, is formed by the
+Cordilleras of the Andes of New Granada, and the Cordillera of
+Parima.) meets the advanced buttresses of the Cordillera of Parima.
+This obstacle causes cataracts far more considerable, and presents
+greater impediments to navigation, than all the Pongos of the Upper
+Maranon, because they are proportionally nearer to the mouth of the
+river. These geographical details serve to prove, in the instances of
+the two greatest rivers of the New World, first, that it cannot be
+ascertained in an absolute manner that, beyond a certain number of
+toises, or a certain height above the level of the sea, rivers are not
+navigable; secondly, that the rapids are not always occasioned, as
+several treatises of general topography affirm, by the height of the
+first obstacles, by the first lines of ridges which the waters have to
+surmount near their sources.
+
+The most northern of the great cataracts of the Orinoco is the only
+one bounded on each side by lofty mountains. The left bank of the
+river is generally lower, but it makes part of a plane which rises
+again west of Atures, towards the Peak of Uniana, a pyramid nearly
+three thousand feet high, and placed on a wall of rock with steep
+slopes. The situation of this solitary peak in the plain contributes
+to render its aspect more imposing and majestic. Near the Mission, in
+the country which surrounds the cataract, the aspect of the landscape
+varies at every step. Within a small space we find all that is most
+rude and gloomy in nature, united with an open country and lovely
+pastoral scenery. In the physical, as in the moral world, the contrast
+of effects, the comparison of what is powerful and menacing with what
+is soft and peaceful, is a never-failing source of our pleasures and
+our emotions.
+
+I shall here repeat some scattered features of a picture which I
+traced in another work shortly after my return to Europe.* (* Views of
+Nature page 153 Bohn's edition.) The savannahs of Atures, covered with
+slender plants and grasses, are really meadows resembling those of
+Europe. They are never inundated by the rivers, and seem as if waiting
+to be ploughed by the hand of man. Notwithstanding their extent, these
+savannahs do not exhibit the monotony of our plains; they surround
+groups of rocks and blocks of granite piled on one another. On the
+very borders of these plains and this open country, glens are seen
+scarcely lighted by the rays of the setting sun, and hollows where the
+humid soil, loaded with arums, heliconias, and lianas, manifests at
+every step the wild fecundity of nature. Everywhere, just rising above
+the earth, appear those shelves of granite completely bare, which we
+saw at Carichana, and which I have already described. Where springs
+gush from the bosom of these rocks, verrucarias, psoras, and lichens
+are fixed on the decomposed granite, and have there accumulated mould.
+Little euphorbias, peperomias, and other succulent plants, have taken
+the place of the cryptogamous tribes; and evergreen shrubs, rhexias,
+and purple-flowered melastomas, form verdant isles amid desert and
+rocky plains. The distribution of these spots, the clusters of small
+trees with coriaceous and shining leaves scattered in the savannahs,
+the limpid rills that dig channels across the rocks, and wind
+alternately through fertile places and over bare shelves of granite,
+all call to mind the most lovely and picturesque plantations and
+pleasure-grounds of Europe. We seem to recognise the industry of man,
+and the traces of cultivation, amid this wild scenery.
+
+The lofty mountains that bound the horizon on every side, contribute
+also, by their forms and the nature of their vegetation, to give an
+extraordinary character to the landscape. The average height of these
+mountains is not more than seven or eight hundred feet above the
+surrounding plains. Their summits are rounded, as for the most part in
+granitic mountains, and covered with thick forests of the
+laurel-tribe. Clusters of palm-trees,* (* El cucurito.) the leaves of
+which, curled like feathers, rise majestically at an angle of seventy
+degrees, are dispersed amid trees with horizontal branches; and their
+bare trunks, like columns of a hundred or a hundred and twenty feet
+high, shoot up into the air, and when seen in distinct relief against
+the azure vault of the sky, they resemble a forest planted upon
+another forest. When, as the moon was going down behind the mountains
+of Uniana, her reddish disc was hidden behind the pinnated foliage of
+the palm-trees, and again appeared in the aerial zone that separates
+the two forests, I thought myself transported for a few moments to the
+hermitage which Bernardin de Saint-Pierre has described as one of the
+most delicious scenes of the Isle of Bourbon, and I felt how much the
+aspect of the plants and their groupings resembled each other in the
+two worlds. In describing a small spot of land in an island of the
+Indian Ocean, the inimitable author of Paul and Virginia has sketched
+the vast picture of the landscape of the tropics. He knew how to paint
+nature, not because he had studied it scientifically, but because he
+felt it in all its harmonious analogies of forms, colours, and
+interior powers.
+
+East of the Atures, near these rounded mountains crowned, as it were,
+by two superimposed forests of laurels and palms, other mountains of a
+very different aspect arise. Their ridge is bristled with pointed
+rocks, towering like pillars above the summits of the trees and
+shrubs. These effects are common to all granitic table-lands, at the
+Harz, in the metalliferous mountains of Bohemia, in Galicia, on the
+limit of the two Castiles, or wherever a granite of new formation
+appears above the ground. The rocks, which are at distances from each
+other, are composed of blocks piled together, or divided into regular
+and horizontal beds. On the summits of those situated near the
+Orinoco, flamingos, soldados,* (* The soldado (soldier) is a large
+species of heron.) and other fishing-birds perch, and look like men
+posted as sentinels. This resemblance is so striking, that the
+inhabitants of Angostura, soon after the foundation of their city,
+were one day alarmed by the sudden appearance of soldados and garzas,
+on a mountain towards the south. They believed they were menaced with
+an attack of Indios monteros (wild Indians called mountaineers); and
+the people were not perfectly tranquilized, till they saw the birds
+soaring in the air, and continuing their migration towards the mouths
+of the Orinoco.
+
+The fine vegetation of the mountains spreads over the plains, wherever
+the rock is covered with mould, We generally find that this black
+mould, mixed with fibrous vegetable matter, is separated from the
+granitic rock by a layer of white sand. The missionary assured us that
+verdure of perpetual freshness prevails in the vicinity of the
+cataracts, produced by the quantity of vapour which the river, broken
+into torrents and cascades for the length of three or four thousand
+toises, diffuses in the air.
+
+We had not heard thunder more than once or twice at Atures, and the
+vegetation everywhere displayed that vigorous aspect, that brilliancy
+of colour, seen on the coast only at the end of the rainy season. The
+old trees were decorated with beautiful orchideas,* (* Cymbidium
+violaceum, Habenaria angustifolia, etc.) yellow bannisterias,
+blue-flowered bignonias, peperomias, arums, and pothoses. A single
+trunk displays a greater variety of vegetable forms than are contained
+within an extensive space of ground in our countries. Close to the
+parasite plants peculiar to very hot climates we observed, not without
+surprise, in the centre of the torrid zone, and near the level of the
+sea, mosses resembling in every respect those of Europe. We gathered,
+near the Great Cataract of Atures, that fine specimen of Grimmia* with
+fontinalis leaves, which has so much fixed the attention of botanists.
+(* Grimmia fontinaloides. See Hooker's Musci Exotici, 1818 tab. 2. The
+learned author of the Monography of the Jungermanniae (Mr. Jackson
+Hooker), with noble disinterestedness, published at his own expense,
+in London, the whole collection of cryptogamous plants, brought by
+Bonpland and Humboldt from the equinoctial regions of America.) It is
+suspended to the branches of the loftiest trees. Of the phaenerogamous
+plants, those which prevail in the woody spots are the mimosa, ficus,
+and laurinea. This fact is the more characteristic as, according to
+the observations of Mr. Brown, the laurineae appear to be almost
+entirely wanting on the opposite continent, in the equinoctial part of
+Africa. Plants that love humidity adorn the scenery surrounding the
+cataracts. We there find in the plains groups of heliconias and other
+scitamineae with large and glossy leaves, bamboos, and the three
+palm-trees, the murichi, jagua, and vadgiai, each of which forms a
+separate group. The murichi, or mauritia with scaly fruits, is the
+celebrated sago-tree of the Guaraon Indians. It has palmate leaves,
+and has no relation to the palm-trees with pinnate and curled leaves;
+to the jagua, which appears to be a species of the cocoa-tree; or to
+the vadgiai or cucurito, which may be assimilated to the fine species
+Oreodoxa. The cucurito, which is the palm most prevalent around the
+cataracts of the Atures and Maypures, is remarkable for its
+stateliness. Its leaves, or rather its palms, crown a trunk of eighty
+or one hundred feet high; their direction is almost perpendicular when
+young, as well as at their full growth, the points only being
+incurvated. They look like plumes of the most soft and verdant green.
+The cucurito, the pirijao, the fruit of which resembles the apricot,
+the Oreodoxa regia or palma real of the island of Cuba, and the
+ceroxylon of the high Andes, are the most majestic of all the
+palm-trees we saw in the New World. As we advance toward the temperate
+zone, the plants of this family decrease in size and beauty. What a
+difference between the species we have just mentioned, and the
+date-tree of the East, which unfortunately has become to the landscape
+painters of Europe the type of a group of palm-trees!
+
+It is not suprising that persons who have travelled only in the north
+of Africa, in Sicily, or in Spain, cannot conceive that, of all large
+trees, the palm is the most grand and beautiful in form. Incomplete
+analogies prevent Europeans from having a just idea of the aspect of
+the torrid zone. All the world knows, for instance, that this zone is
+embellished by the contrasts exhibited in the foliage of the trees,
+and particularly by the great number of those with pinnate leaves. The
+ash, the service-tree, the inga, the acacia of the United States, the
+gleditsia, the tamarind, the mimosa, the desmanthus, have all pinnate
+leaves, with foliolae more or less long, slender, tough, and shining.
+But can a group of ash-trees, of service-trees, or of sumach, recall
+the picturesque effect of tamarinds or mimosas, when the azure of the
+sky appears through their small, slender, and delicately pinnated
+leaves? These considerations are more important than they may at first
+seem. The forms of plants determine the physiognomy of nature; and
+this physiognomy influences the moral dispositions of nations. Every
+type comprehends species, which, while exhibiting the same general
+appearance, differ in the varied development of the similar organs.
+The palm-trees, the scitamineae, the malvaceae, the trees with pinnate
+leaves, do not all display the same picturesque beauties; and
+generally the most beautiful species of each type, in plants as in
+animals, belong to the equinoctial zone.
+
+The proteaceae,* (* Rhopalas, which characterise the vegetation of the
+Llanos.) crotons, agaves, and the great tribe of the cactuses, which
+inhabit exclusively the New World, disappear gradually, as we ascend
+the Orinoco above the Apure and the Meta. It is, however, the shade
+and humidity, rather than the distance from the coast, which oppose
+the migration of the cactuses southward. We found forests of them
+mingled with crotons, covering a great space of arid land to the east
+of the Andes, in the province of Bracamoros, towards the Upper
+Maranon. The arborescent ferns seem to fail entirely near the
+cataracts of the Orinoco; we found no species as far as San Fernando
+de Atabapo, that is, to the confluence of the Orinoco and the
+Guaviare.
+
+Having now examined the vicinity of the Atures, it remains for me to
+speak of the rapids themselves, which occur in a part of the valley
+where the bed of the river, deeply ingulfed, has almost inaccessible
+banks. It was only in a very few spots that we could enter the Orinoco
+to bathe, between the two cataracts, in coves where the waters have
+eddies of little velocity. Persons who have dwelt in the Alps, the
+Pyrenees, or even the Cordilleras, so celebrated for the fractures and
+the vestiges of destruction which they display at every step, can
+scarcely picture to themselves, from a mere narration, the state of
+the bed of the river. It is traversed, in an extent of more than five
+miles, by innumerable dikes of rock, forming so many natural dams, so
+many barriers resembling those of the Dnieper, which the ancients
+designated by the name of phragmoi. The space between the rocky dikes
+of the Orinoco is filled with islands of different dimensions; some
+hilly, divided into several peaks, and two or three hundred toises in
+length, others small, low, and like mere shoals. These islands divide
+the river into a number of torrents, which boil up as they break
+against the rocks. The jaguas and cucuritos with plumy leaves, with
+which all the islands are covered, seem like groves of palm-trees
+rising from the foamy surface of the waters. The Indians, whose task
+it is to pass the boats empty over the raudales, distinguish every
+shelf, and every rock, by a particular name. On entering from the
+south you find first the Leap of the Toucan (Salto del Piapoco); and
+between the islands of Avaguri and Javariveni is the Raudal of
+Javariveni, where, on our return from Rio Negro, we passed some hours
+amid the rapids, waiting for our boat. A great part of the river
+appeared dry. Blocks of granite are heaped together, as in the
+moraines which the glaciers of Switzerland drive before them. The
+river is ingulfed in caverns; and in one of these caverns we heard the
+water roll at once over our heads and beneath our feet. The Orinoco
+seems divided into a multitude of arms or torrents, each of which
+seeks to force a passage through the rocks. We were struck with the
+little water to be seen in the bed of the river, the frequency of
+subterraneous falls, and the tumult of the waters breaking on the
+rocks in foam.
+
+Cuncta fremunt undis; ac multo murmure montis
+Spumeus invictis canescit fluctibus amnis.*
+(* Lucan, Pharsalia lib 10 v 132.)
+
+Having passed the Raudal of Javariveni (I name here only the principal
+falls) we come to the Raudal of Canucari, formed by a ledge of rocks
+uniting the islands of Surupamana and Uirapuri. When the dikes, or
+natural dams, are only two or three feet high, the Indians venture to
+descend them in boats. In going up the river, they swim on before, and
+if, after many vain efforts, they succeed in fixing a rope to one of
+the points of rock that crown the dike, they then, by means of that
+rope, draw the bark to the top of the raudal. The bark, during this
+arduous task, often fills with water; at other times it is stove
+against the rocks, and the Indians, their bodies bruised and bleeding,
+extricate themselves with difficulty from the whirlpools, and reach,
+by swimming, the nearest island. When the steps or rocky barriers are
+very high, and entirely bar the river, light boats are carried on
+shore, and with the help of branches of trees placed under them to
+serve as rollers, they are drawn as far as the place where the river
+again becomes navigable. This operation is seldom necessary when the
+water is high. We cannot speak of the cataracts of the Orinoco without
+recalling to mind the manner heretofore employed for descending the
+cataracts of the Nile, of which Seneca has left us a description
+probably more poetical than accurate. I shall cite the passage, which
+traces with fidelity what may be seen every day at Atures, Maypures,
+and in some pongos of the Amazon. "Two men embark in a small boat; one
+steers, and the other empties it as it fills with water. Long buffeted
+by the rapids, the whirlpools, and the contrary currents, they pass
+through the narrowest channels, avoid the shoals, and rush down the
+whole river, guiding the course of the boat in its accelerated fall."
+(Nat. Quaest. lib 4 cap 2 edit. Elzev. tome 2 page 609.)
+
+In hydrographic descriptions of countries, the vague names of
+cataracts, cascades, falls, and rapids,* (* The corresponding terms in
+use among the people of South America, are saltos, chorros, pongos,
+cachoeiras, and raudales.) denoting those tumultuous movements of
+water which arise from very different circumstances, are generally
+confounded with one another. Sometimes a whole river precipitating
+itself from a great height, and by one single fall, renders navigation
+impossible. Such is the majestic fall of the Rio Tequendama, which I
+have represented in my Views of the Cordilleras; such are the falls of
+Niagara and of the Rhine, much less remarkable for their elevation,
+than for the mass of water they contain. Sometimes stony dikes of
+small height succeed each other at great distances, and form distinct
+falls; such are the cachoeiras of the Rio Negro and the Rio Madeira,
+the saltos of the Rio Cauca, and the greater part of the pongos that
+are found in the Upper Maranon, from the confluence of the Chinchipe
+to the village of San Borja. The highest and most formidable of these
+pongos, which are descended on rafts, that of Mayasi, is however only
+three feet in height. Sometimes small rocky dikes are so near each
+other that they form for several miles an uninterrupted succession of
+cascades and whirlpools (chorros and remolinos); these are properly
+what are called rapids (raudales). Such are the yellalas, or rapids of
+the River Zaire,* or Congo, which Captain Tuckey has recently made
+known to us (* Voyage to explore the River Zaire, 1818, pages 152,
+327, 340. What the inhabitants of Upper Egypt and Nubia call chellal
+in the Nile, is called yellala in the River Congo. This analogy
+between words signifying rapids is remarkable, on account of the
+enormous distance of the yellalas of the Congo from the chellal and
+djenadel of the Nile. Did the word chellal penetrate with the Moors
+into the west of Africa? If, with Burckhardt, we consider the origin
+of this word as Arabic (Travels in Nubia, 1819), it must be derived
+from the root challa, to disperse, which forms chelil, water falling
+through a narrow channel.); the rapids of the Orange River in Africa,
+above Pella; and the falls of the Missouri, which are four leagues in
+length, where the river issues from the Rocky Mountains. Such also are
+the cataracts of Atures and Maypures; the only cataracts which,
+situated in the equinoctial region of the New World, are adorned with
+the noble growth of palm-trees. At all seasons they exhibit the aspect
+of cascades, and present the greatest obstacles to the navigation of
+the Orinoco, while the rapids of the Ohio and of Upper Egypt are
+scarcely visible at the period of floods. A solitary cataract, like
+Niagara, or the cascade of Terni, affords a grand but single picture,
+varying only as the observer changes his place. Rapids, on the
+contrary, especially when adorned with large trees, embellish a
+landscape during a length of several leagues. Sometimes the tumultuous
+movement of the waters is caused only by extraordinary contractions of
+the beds of the rivers. Such is the angostura of Carare, in the river
+Magdalena, a strait that impedes communication between Santa Fe de
+Bogota and the coast of Carthagena; and such is the pongo of
+Manseriche, in the Upper Maranon.
+
+The Orinoco, the Rio Negro, and almost all the confluents of the
+Amazon and the Maranon, have falls or rapids, either because they
+cross the mountains where they take rise, or because they meet other
+mountains in their course. If the Amazon, from the pongo of Manseriche
+(or, to speak with more precision, from the pongo of Tayuchuc) as far
+as its mouth, a space of more than seven hundred and fifty leagues,
+exhibit no tumultuous movement of the waters, the river owes this
+advantage to the uniform direction of its course. It flows from west
+to east in a vast plain, forming a longitudinal valley between the
+mountains of Parima and the great mass of the mountains of Brazil.
+
+I was surprised to find by actual measurement that the rapids of the
+Orinoco, the roar of which is heard at the distance of more than a
+league, and which are so eminently picturesque from the varied
+appearance of the waters, the palm-trees and the rocks, have not
+probably, on their whole length, a height of more than twenty-eight
+feet perpendicular. In reflecting on this, we find that it is a great
+deal for rapids, while it would be very little for a single cataract.
+The Yellalas of the Rio Congo, in the contracted part of the river
+from Banza Noki as far as Banza Inga, furnish, between the upper and
+lower levels, a much more considerable difference; but Mr. Barrow
+observes, that among the great number of these rapids there is one
+fall, which alone is thirty feet high. On the other hand, the famous
+pongos of the river Amazon, so dangerous to go up, the falls of
+Rentema, of Escurrebragas, and of Mayasi, are but a few feet in
+perpendicular height. Those who are engaged in hydraulic works know
+the effect that a bar of eighteen or twenty inches' height produces in
+a great river. The whirling and tumultuous movement of the water does
+not depend solely on the greatness of partial falls; what determines
+the force and impetuosity is the nearness of these falls, the
+steepness of the rocky ledges, the returning sheets of water which
+strike against and surmount each other, the form of the islands and
+shoals, the direction of the counter-currents, and the contraction and
+sinuosity of the channels through which the waters force a passage
+between two adjacent levels. In two rivers equally large, that of
+which the falls have least height may sometimes present the greatest
+dangers and the most impetuous movements.
+
+It is probable that the river Orinoco loses part of its waters in the
+cataracts, not only by increased evaporation, caused by the dispersion
+of minute drops in the atmosphere, but still more by filtrations into
+the subterraneous cavities. These losses, however, are not very
+perceptible when we compare the mass of waters entering into the
+raudal with that which issues out near the mouth of the Rio Anaveni.
+It was by a similar comparison that the existence of subterraneous
+cavities in the yellalas or rapids of the river Congo was discovered.
+The pongo of Manseriche, which ought rather to be called a strait than
+a fall, ingulfs, in a manner not yet sufficiently explored, a part of
+the waters and all the floating wood of the Upper Maranon.
+
+The spectator, seated on the bank of the Orinoco, with his eyes fixed
+on those rocky dikes, is naturally led to inquire whether, in the
+lapse of ages, the falls change their form or height. I am not much
+inclined to believe in such effects of the shock of water against
+blocks of granite, and in the erosion of siliceous matter. The holes
+narrowed toward the bottom, the funnels that are discovered in the
+raudales, as well as near so many other cascades in Europe, are owing
+only to the friction of the sand, and the movement of quartz pebbles.
+We saw many such, whirled perpetually by the current at the bottom of
+the funnels, and contributing to enlarge them in every direction. The
+pongos of the river Amazon are easily destroyed, because the rocky
+dikes are not granite, but a conglomerate, or red sandstone with large
+fragments. A part of the pongo of Rentama was broken down eighty years
+ago, and the course of the waters being interrupted by a new bar, the
+bed of the river remained dry for some hours, to the great
+astonishment of the inhabitants of the village of Payaya, seven
+leagues below the pongo. The Indians of Atures assert (and in this
+their testimony is contrary to the opinion of Caulin) that the rocks
+of the raudal preserve the same aspect; but that the partial torrents
+into which the great river divides itself as it passes through the
+heaped blocks of granite, change their direction, and carry sometimes
+more, sometimes less water towards one or the other bank; but the
+causes of these changes may be very remote from the cataracts, for in
+the rivers that spread life over the surface of the globe, as in the
+arteries by which it is diffused through organized bodies, all the
+movements are propagated to great distances. Oscillations, that at
+first seem partial, react on the whole liquid mass contained in the
+trunk as well as in its numerous ramifications.
+
+Some of the Missionaries in their writings have alleged that the
+inhabitants of Atures and Maypures have been struck with deafness by
+the noise of the Great Cataracts, but this is untrue. When the noise
+is heard in the plain that surrounds the mission, at the distance of
+more than a league, you seem to be near a coast skirted by reefs and
+breakers. The noise is three times as loud by night as by day, and
+gives an inexpressible charm to these solitary scenes. What can be the
+cause of this increased intensity of sound, in a desert where nothing
+seems to interrupt the silence of nature? The velocity of the
+propagation of sound, far from augmenting, decreases with the lowering
+of the temperature. The intensity diminishes in air agitated by a wind
+which is contrary to the direction of the sound; it diminishes also by
+dilatation of the air, and is weaker in the higher than in the lower
+regions of the atmosphere, where the number of particles of air in
+motion is greater in the same radius. The intensity is the same in dry
+air, and in air mingled with vapours; but it is feebler in carbonic
+acid gas than in mixtures of azote and oxygen. From these facts, which
+are all we know with any certainty, it is difficult to explain a
+phenomenon observed near every cascade in Europe, and which, long
+before our arrival in the village of Atures, had struck the missionary
+and the Indians.
+
+It may be thought that, even in places not inhabited by man, the hum
+of insects, the song of birds, the rustling of leaves agitated by the
+feeblest winds, occasion during the day a confused noise, which we
+perceive the less because it is uniform, and constantly strikes the
+ear. Now this noise, however slightly perceptible it may be, may
+diminish the intensity of a louder noise; and this diminution may
+cease if during the calm of the night the song of birds, the hum of
+insects, and the action of the wind upon the leaves be interrupted.
+But this reasoning, even admitting its justness, can scarcely be
+applied to the forests of the Orinoco, where the air is constantly
+filled by an innumerable quantity of mosquitos, where the hum of
+insects is much louder by night than by day, and where the breeze, if
+ever it be felt, blows only after sunset.
+
+I rather think that the presence of the sun acts upon the propagation
+and intensity of sound by the obstacles met in currents of air of
+different density, and by the partial undulations of the atmosphere
+arising from the unequal heating of different parts of the soil. In
+calm air, whether dry or mingled with vesicular vapours equally
+distributed, sound-waves are propagated without difficulty. But when
+the air is crossed in every direction by small currents of hotter air,
+the sonorous undulation is divided into two undulations where the
+density of the medium changes abruptly; partial echoes are formed that
+weaken the sound, because one of the streams comes back upon itself;
+and those divisions of undulations take place of which M. Poisson has
+developed the theory with great sagacity.* (* Annales de Chimie tome 7
+page 293.) It is not therefore the movement of the particles of air
+from below to above in the ascending current, or the small oblique
+currents that we consider as opposing by a shock the propagation of
+the sonorous undulations. A shock given to the surface of a liquid
+will form circles around the centre of percussion, even when the
+liquid is agitated. Several kinds of undulations may cross each other
+in water, as in air, without being disturbed in their propagation:
+little movements may, as it were, ride over each other, and the real
+cause of the less intensity of sound during the day appears to be the
+interpretation of homogeneity in the elastic medium. During the day
+there is a sudden interruption of density wherever small streamlets of
+air of a high temperature rise over parts of the soil unequally
+heated. The sonorous undulations are divided, as the rays of light are
+refracted and form the mirage wherever strata of air of unequal
+density are contiguous. The propagation of sound is altered when a
+stratum of hydrogen gas is made to rise in a tube closed at one end
+above a stratum of atmospheric air; and M. Biot has well explained, by
+the interposition of bubbles of carbonic acid gas, why a glass filled
+with champagne is not sonorous so long as that gas is evolved, and
+passing through the strata of the liquid.
+
+In support of these ideas, I might almost rest on the authority of an
+ancient philosopher, whom the moderns do not esteem in proportion to
+his merits, though the most distinguished zoologists have long
+rendered ample justice to the sagacity of his observations. "Why,"
+says Aristotle in his curious book of Problems, "why is sound better
+heard during the night? Because there is more calmness on account of
+the absence of caloric (of the hottest).* (* I have placed in a
+parenthesis, a literal version of the term employed by Aristotle, to
+express in reality what we now term the matter of heat. Theodore of
+Gaza, in his Latin translation, expresses in the shape of a doubt what
+Aristotle positively asserts. I may here remark, that, notwithstanding
+the imperfect state of science among the ancients, the works of the
+Stagirite contain more ingenious observations than those of many later
+philosophers. It is in vain we look in Aristoxenes (De Musica), in
+Theophylactus Simocatta (De Quaestionibus physicis), or in the 5th
+Book of the Quest. Nat. of Seneca, for an explanation of the nocturnal
+augmentation of sound.) This absence renders every thing calmer, for
+the sun is the principle of all movement." Aristotle had no doubt a
+vague presentiment of the cause of the phenomenon; but he attributes
+to the motion of the atmosphere, and the shock of the particles of
+air, that which seems to be rather owing to abrupt changes of density
+in the contiguous strata of air.
+
+On the 16th of April, towards evening, we received tidings that in
+less than six hours our boat had passed the rapids, and had arrived in
+good condition in a cove called el Puerto de arriba, or the Port of
+the Expedition. We were shown in the little church of Atures some
+remains of the ancient wealth of the Jesuits. A silver lamp of
+considerable weight lay on the ground half-buried in the sand. Such an
+object, it is true, would nowhere tempt the cupidity of a savage; yet
+I may here remark, to the honor of the natives of the Orinoco, that
+they are not addicted to stealing, like the less savage tribes of the
+islands in the Pacific. The former have a great respect for property;
+they do not even attempt to steal provision, hooks, or hatchets. At
+Maypures and Atures, locks on doors are unknown: they will be
+introduced only when whites and men of mixed race establish themselves
+in the missions.
+
+The Indians of Atures are mild and moderate, and accustomed, from the
+effects of their idleness, to the greatest privations. Formerly, being
+excited to labour by the Jesuits, they did not want for food. The
+fathers cultivated maize, French beans (frijoles), and other European
+vegetables; they even planted sweet oranges and tamarinds round the
+villages; and they possessed twenty or thirty thousand head of cows
+and horses, in the savannahs of Atures and Carichana. They had at
+their service a great number of slaves and servants (peones), to tend
+their herds. Nothing is now cultivated but a little cassava, and a few
+plantains. Such however is the fertility of the soil, that at Atures I
+counted on a single branch of a musa one hundred and eight fruits,
+four or five of which would almost have sufficed for a man's daily
+food. The culture of maize is entirely neglected, and the horses and
+cows have entirely disappeared. Near the raudal, a part of the village
+still bears the name of Passo del ganado (ford of the cattle), while
+the descendants of those very Indians whom the Jesuits had assembled
+in a mission, speak of horned cattle as of animals of a race now lost.
+In going up the Orinoco, toward San Carlos del Rio Negro, we saw the
+last cow at Carichana. The Fathers of the Observance, who now govern
+these vast countries, did not immediately succeed the Jesuits. During
+an interregnum of eighteen years, the missions were visited only from
+time to time, and by Capuchin monks. The agents of the secular
+government, under the title of Royal Commissioners, managed the hatos
+or farms of the Jesuits with culpable negligence. They killed the
+cattle for the sake of selling the hides. Many heifers were devoured
+by the jaguars, and a great number perished in consequence of wounds
+made by the bats of the raudales, which, though smaller, are far
+bolder than the bats of the Llanos. At the time of the expedition of
+the boundaries, horses from Encaramada, Carichana, and Atures, were
+conveyed as far as San Jose de Maravitanos, where, on the banks of the
+Rio Negro, the Portuguese could only procure them, after a long
+passage, and of a very inferior quality, by the rivers Amazon and
+Grand Para. Since the year 1795, the cattle of the Jesuits have
+entirely disappeared. There now remain as monuments of the ancient
+cultivation of these countries, and the active industry of the first
+missionaries, only a few trunks of the orange and tamarind, in the
+savannahs, surrounded by wild trees.
+
+The tigers, or jaguars, which are less dangerous for the cattle than
+the bats, come into the village at Atures, and devour the swine of the
+poor Indians. The missionary related to us a striking instance of the
+familiarity of these animals, usually so ferocious. Some months before
+our arrival, a jaguar, which was thought to be young, though of a
+large size, had wounded a child in playing with him. The facts of this
+case, which were verified to us on the spot, are not without interest
+in the history of the manners of animals. Two Indian children, a boy
+and a girl, about eight and nine years of age, were seated on the
+grass near the village of Atures, in the middle of a savannah, which
+we several times traversed. At two o'clock in the afternoon, a jaguar
+issued from the forest, and approached the children, bounding around
+them; sometimes he hid himself in the high grass, sometimes he sprang
+forward, his back bent, his head hung down, in the manner of our cats.
+The little boy, ignorant of his danger, seemed to be sensible of it
+only when the jaguar with one of his paws gave him some blows on the
+head. These blows, at first slight, became ruder and ruder; the claws
+of the jaguar wounded the child, and the blood flowed freely. The
+little girl then took a branch of a tree, struck the animal, and it
+fled from her. The Indians ran up at the cries of the children, and
+saw the jaguar, which then bounded off without making the least show
+of resistance.
+
+The little boy was brought to us, who appeared lively and intelligent.
+The claw of the jaguar had torn away the skin from the lower part of
+the forehead, and there was a second scar at the top of the head. This
+was a singular fit of playfulness in an animal which, though not
+difficult to be tamed in our menageries, nevertheless shows itself
+always wild and ferocious in its natural state. If we admit that,
+being sure of its prey, it played with the little Indian as our cats
+play with birds whose wings have been clipped, how shall we explain
+the patience of a jaguar of large size, which finds itself attacked by
+a girl? If the jaguar were not pressed by hunger, why did it approach
+the children at all? There is something mysterious in the affections
+and hatreds of animals. We have known lions kill three or four dogs
+that were put into their den, and instantly caress a fifth, which,
+less timid, took the king of animals by the mane. These are instincts
+of which we know not the secret.
+
+We have mentioned that domestic pigs are attacked by the jaguars.
+There are in these countries, besides the common swine of European
+race, several species of peccaries, or pigs with lumbar glands, two of
+which only are known to the naturalists of Europe. The Indians call
+the little peccary (Dicotiles torquatus, Cuv.), in the Maypure tongue,
+chacharo; while they give the name of apida to a species of pig which
+they say has no pouch, is larger, and of a dark brown colour, with the
+belly and lower jaw white. The chacharo, reared in the houses, becomes
+tame like our sheep and goats. It reminds us, by the gentleness of its
+manners, of the curious analogies which anatomists have observed
+between the peccaries and the ruminating animals. The apida, which is
+domesticated like our swine in Europe, wanders in large herds composed
+of several hundreds. The presence of these herds is announced from
+afar, not only by their hoarse gruntings, but above all by the
+impetuosity with which they break down the shrubs in their way. M.
+Bonpland, in an herborizing excursion, warned by his Indian guide to
+hide himself behind the trunk of a tree, saw a number of these
+peccaries (cochinos or puercos del monte) pass close by him. The herd
+marched in a close body, the males proceeding first; and each sow was
+accompanied by her young. The flesh of the chacharo is flabby, and not
+very agreeable; it affords, however, a plentiful nourishment to the
+natives, who kill these animals with small lances tied to cords. We
+were assured at Atures, that the tiger dreads being surrounded in the
+forests by these herds of wild pigs; and that, to avoid being stifled,
+he tries to save himself by climbing up a tree. Is this a hunter's
+tale, or a fact that has really been observed? In several parts of
+America the hunters believe in the existence of a javali, or native
+boar with tusks curved outwardly. I never saw one, but this animal is
+mentioned in the works of the Spanish missionaries, a source too much
+neglected by zoologists; for amidst much incorrectness and
+extravagance, they contain many curious local observations.
+
+Among the monkeys which we saw at the mission of the Atures, we found
+one new species, of the tribe of sais and sajous, which the Creoles
+vulgarly call machis. It is the Guvapavi with grey hair and a bluish
+face. It has the orbits of the eyes and the forehead as white as snow,
+a peculiarity which at first sight distinguishes it from the Simia
+capucina, the Simia apella, the Simia trepida, and the other weeping
+monkeys hitherto so confusedly described. This little animal is as
+gentle as it is ugly. A monkey of this species, which was kept in the
+courtyard of the missionary, would frequently mount on the back of a
+pig, and in this manner traverse the savannahs. We have also seen it
+upon the back of a large cat, which had been brought up with it in
+Father Zea's house.
+
+It was among the cataracts that we began to hear of the hairy man of
+the woods, called salvaje, that carries off women, constructs huts,
+and sometimes eats human flesh. The Tamanacs call it achi, and the
+Maypures vasitri, or great devil. The natives and the missionaries
+have no doubt of the existence of this man-shaped monkey, of which
+they entertain a singular dread. Father Gili gravely relates the
+history of a lady in the town of San Carlos, in the Llanos of
+Venezuela, who much praised the gentle character and attentions of the
+man of the woods. She is stated to have lived several years with one
+in great domestic harmony, and only requested some hunters to take her
+back, because she and her children (a little hairy also) were weary of
+living far from the church and the sacraments. The same author,
+notwithstanding his credulity, acknowledges that he never knew an
+Indian who asserted positively that he had seen the salvaje with his
+own eyes. This wild legend, which the missionaries, the European
+planters, and the negroes of Africa, have no doubt embellished with
+many features taken from the description of the manners of the
+orang-otang,* the gibbon, the jocko or chimpanzee, and the pongo,
+followed us, during five years, from the northern to the southern
+hemisphere. (* Simia satyrus. We must not believe, notwithstanding the
+assertions of almost all zoological writers, that the word orang-otang
+is applied exclusively in the Malay language to the Simia satyrus of
+Borneo. This expression, on the contrary, means any very large monkey,
+that resembles man in figure. Marsden's History of Sumatra 3rd edition
+page 117. Modern zoologists have arbitrarily appropriated provincial
+names to certain species; and by continuing to prefer these names,
+strangely disfigured in their orthography, to the Latin systematic
+names, the confusion of the nomenclature has been increased.) We were
+everywhere blamed, in the most cultivated class of society, for being
+the only persons to doubt the existence of the great anthropomorphous
+monkey of America. There are certain regions where this belief is
+particularly prevalent among the people; such are the banks of the
+Upper Orinoco, the valley of Upar near the lake of Maracaybo, the
+mountains of Santa Martha and of Merida, the provinces of Quixos, and
+the banks of the Amazon near Tomependa. In all these places, so
+distant one from the other, it is asserted that the salvaje is easily
+recognized by the traces of its feet, the toes of which are turned
+backward. But if there exist a monkey of a large size in the New
+Continent, how has it happened that for three centuries no man worthy
+of belief has been able to procure the skin of one? Several hypotheses
+present themselves to the mind, in order to explain the source of so
+ancient an error or belief. Has the famous capuchin monkey of
+Esmeralda (Simia chiropotes), with its long canine teeth, and
+physiognomy much more like man's* (* The whole of the features--the
+expression of the physiognomy; but not the forehead.) than that of the
+orang-otang, given rise to the fable of the salvaje? It is not so
+large indeed as the coaita (Simia paniscus); but when seen at the top
+of a tree, and the head only visible, it might easily be taken for a
+human being. It may be also (and this opinion appears to me the most
+probable) that the man of the woods was one of those large bears, the
+footsteps of which resemble those of a man, and which are believed in
+every country to attack women. The animal killed in my time at the
+foot of the mountains of Merida, and sent, by the name of salvaje, to
+Colonel Ungaro, the governor of the province of Varinas, was in fact a
+bear with black and smooth fur. Our fellow-traveller, Don Nicolas
+Soto, had examined it closely. Did the strange idea of a plantigrade
+animal, the toes of which are placed as if it walked backward, take
+its origin from the habit of the real savages of the woods, the
+Indians of the weakest and most timid tribes, of deceiving their
+enemies, when they enter a forest, or cross a sandy shore, by covering
+the traces of their feet with sand, or walking backward?
+
+Though I have expressed my doubts of the existence of an unknown
+species of large monkey in a continent which appears entirely
+destitute of quadrumanous animals of the family of the orangs,
+cynocephali, mandrils, and pongos; yet it should be remembered that
+almost all matters of popular belief, even those most absurd in
+appearance, rest on real facts, but facts ill observed. In treating
+them with disdain, the traces of a discovery may often be lost, in
+natural philosophy as well as in zoology. We will not then admit, with
+a Spanish author, that the fable of the man of the woods was invented
+by the artifice of Indian women, who pretended to have been carried
+off, when they had been long absent unknown to their husbands.
+Travellers who may hereafter visit the missions of the Orinoco will do
+well to follow up our researches on the salvaje or great devil of the
+woods; and examine whether it be some unknown species of bear, or some
+very rare monkey analogous to the Simia chiropotes, or Simia satanas,
+which may have given rise to such singular tales.
+
+After having spent two days near the cataract of Atures, we were not
+sorry when our boat was reladen, and we were enabled to leave a spot
+where the temperature of the air is generally by day twenty-nine
+degrees, and by night twenty-six degrees, of the centigrade
+thermometer. This temperature seemed to us to be still much more
+elevated, from the feeling of heat which we experienced. The want of
+concordance between the instruments and the sensations must be
+attributed to the continual irritation of the skin excited by the
+mosquitos. An atmosphere filled with venomous insects always appears
+to be more heated than it is in reality. We were horribly tormented in
+the day by mosquitos and the jejen, a small venomous fly (simulium),
+and at night by the zancudos, a large species of gnat, dreaded even by
+the natives. Our hands began to swell considerably, and this swelling
+increased daily till our arrival on the banks of the Temi. The means
+that are employed to escape from these little plagues are very
+extraordinary. The good missionary Bernardo Zea, who passed his life
+tormented by mosquitos, had constructed near the church, on a
+scaffolding of trunks of palm-trees, a small apartment, in which we
+breathed more freely. To this we went up in the evening, by means of a
+ladder, to dry our plants and write our journal. The missionary had
+justly observed, that the insects abounded more particularly in the
+lowest strata of the atmosphere, that which reaches from the ground to
+the height of twelve or fifteen feet. At Maypures the Indians quit the
+village at night, to go and sleep on the little islets in the midst of
+the cataracts. There they enjoy some rest; the mosquitoes appearing to
+shun air loaded with vapours. We found everywhere fewer in the middle
+of the river than near its banks; and thus less is suffered in
+descending the Orinoco than in going up in a boat.
+
+Persons who have not navigated the great rivers of equinoctial
+America, for instance, the Orinoco and the Magdalena, can scarcely
+conceive how, at every instant, without intermission, you may be
+tormented by insects flying in the air; and how the multitude of these
+little animals may render vast regions almost uninhabitable. Whatever
+fortitude be exercised to endure pain without complaint, whatever
+interest may be felt in the objects of scientific research, it is
+impossible not to be constantly disturbed by the mosquitos, zancudos,
+jejens, and tempraneros, that cover the face and hands, pierce the
+clothes with their long needle-formed suckers, and getting into the
+mouth and nostrils, occasion coughing and sneezing whenever any
+attempt is made to speak in the open air. In the missions of the
+Orinoco, in the villages on the banks of the river, surrounded by
+immense forests, the plaga de las moscas, or the plague of the
+mosquitos, affords an inexhaustible subject of conversation. When two
+persons meet in the morning, the first questions they address to each
+other are: How did you find the zancudos during the night? How are we
+to-day for the mosquitos?* (* Que le han parecido los zancudos de
+noche? Como stamos hoy de mosquitos?) These questions remind us of a
+Chinese form of politeness, which indicates the ancient state of the
+country where it took birth. Salutations were made heretofore in the
+Celestial empire in the following words, vou-to-hou, Have you been
+incommoded in the night by the serpents?
+
+The geographical distribution of the insects of the family of tipulae
+presents very remarkable phenomena. It does not appear to depend
+solely on heat of climate, excess of humidity, or the thickness of
+forests, but on local circumstances that are difficult to
+characterise. It may be observed that the plague of mosquitos and
+zancudos is not so general in the torrid zone as is commonly believed.
+On the table-lands elevated more than four hundred toises above the
+level of the ocean, in the very dry plains remote from the beds of
+great rivers (for instance, at Cumana and Calabozo), there are not
+sensibly more gnats than in the most populous parts of Europe. They
+are perceived to augment enormously at Nueva Barcelona, and more to
+the west, on the coast that extends towards Cape Codera. Between the
+little harbour of Higuerote and the mouth of the Rio Unare, the
+wretched inhabitants are accustomed to stretch themselves on the
+ground, and pass the night buried in the sand three or four inches
+deep, leaving out the head only, which they cover with a handkerchief.
+You suffer from the sting of insects, but in a manner easy to bear, in
+descending the Orinoco from Cabruta towards Angostura, and in going up
+from Cabruta towards Uruana, between the latitudes of 7 and 8 degrees.
+But beyond the mouth of the Rio Arauca, after having passed the strait
+of Baraguan, the scene suddenly changes. From this spot the traveller
+may bid farewell to repose. If he have any poetical remembrance of
+Dante, he may easily imagine he has entered the citta dolente, and he
+will seem to read on the granite rocks of Baraguan these lines of the
+Inferno:
+
+Noi sem venuti al luogo, ov' i' t'ho detto
+Che tu vedrai le genti dolorose.
+
+The lower strata of air, from the surface of the ground to the height
+of fifteen or twenty feet, are absolutely filled with venomous
+insects. If in an obscure spot, for instance in the grottos of the
+cataracts formed by superincumbent blocks of granite, you direct your
+eyes toward the opening enlightened by the sun, you see clouds of
+mosquitos more or less thick. At the mission of San Borja, the
+suffering from mosquitos is greater than at Carichana; but in the
+Raudales, at Atures, and above all at Maypures, this suffering may be
+said to attain its maximum. I doubt whether there be a country upon
+earth where man is exposed to more cruel torments in the rainy season.
+Having passed the fifth degree of latitude, you are somewhat less
+stung; but on the Upper Orinoco the stings are more painful, because
+the heat and the absolute want of wind render the air more burning and
+more irritating in its contact with the skin.
+
+"How comfortable must people be in the moon!" said a Salive Indian to
+Father Gumilla; "she looks so beautiful and so clear, that she must be
+free from mosquitos." These words, which denote the infancy of a
+people, are very remarkable. The satellite of the earth appears to all
+savage nations the abode of the blessed, the country of abundance. The
+Esquimaux, who counts among his riches a plank or trunk of a tree,
+thrown by the currents on a coast destitute of vegetation, sees in the
+moon plains covered with forests; the Indian of the forests of Orinoco
+there beholds open savannahs, where the inhabitants are never stung by
+mosquitos.
+
+After proceeding further to the south, where the system of
+yellowish-brown waters commences,* (* Generally called black waters,
+aguas negras.) on the banks of the Atabapo, the Tuni, the Tuamini, and
+the Rio Negro, we enjoyed an unexpected repose. These rivers, like the
+Orinoco, cross thick forests, but the tipulary insects, as well as the
+crocodiles, shun the proximity of the black waters. Possibly these
+waters, which are a little colder, and chemically different from the
+white waters, are adverse to the larvae of tipulary insects and gnats,
+which may be considered as real aquatic animals. Some small rivers,
+the colour of which is deep blue, or yellowish-brown (as the Toparo,
+the Mataveni, and the Zama), are exceptions to the almost general rule
+of the absence of mosquitos over the black waters. These three rivers
+swarm with them; and the Indians themselves fixed our attention on the
+problematic causes of this phenomenon. In going down the Rio Negro, we
+breathed freely at Maroa, Daripe, and San Carlos, villages situated on
+the boundaries of Brazil. But this improvement of our situation was of
+short continuance; our sufferings recommenced as soon as we entered
+the Cassiquiare. At Esmeralda, at the eastern extremity of the Upper
+Orinoco, where ends the known world of the Spaniards, the clouds of
+mosquitos are almost as thick as at the Great Cataracts. At Mandavaca
+we found an old missionary, who told us with an air of sadness, that
+he had had his twenty years of mosquitos in America*. (* "Yo tengo mis
+veinte anos de mosquitos.") He desired us to look at his legs, that we
+might be able to tell one day, beyond sea (por alla), what the poor
+monks suffer in the forests of Cassiquiare. Every sting leaving a
+small darkish brown point, his legs were so speckled that it was
+difficult to recognize the whiteness of his skin through the spots of
+coagulated blood. If the insects of the genus Simulium abound in the
+Cassiquiare, which has white waters, the culices or zancudos are so
+much the more rare; you scarcely find any there; while on the rivers
+of black waters, in the Atabapo and the Rio, there are generally some
+zancudos and no mosquitos.
+
+I have just shown, from my own observations, how much the geographical
+distribution of venomous insects varies in this labyrinth of rivers
+with white and black waters. It were to be wished that a learned
+entomologist could study on the spot the specific differences of these
+noxious insects,* which in the torrid zone, in spite of their minute
+size, act an important point in the economy of nature. (* The mosquito
+bovo or tenbiguai; the melero, which always settles upon the eyes; the
+tempranero, or putchiki; the jejen; the gnat rivau, the great zancudo,
+or matchaki; the cafafi, etc.) What appeared to us very remarkable,
+and is a fact known to all the missionaries, is, that the different
+species do not associate together, and that at different hours of the
+day you are stung by distinct species. Every time that the scene
+changes, and, to use the simple expression of the missionaries, other
+insects mount guard, you have a few minutes, often a quarter of an
+hour, of repose. The insects that disappear have not their places
+instantly supplied by their successors. From half-past-six in the
+morning till five in the afternoon, the air is filled with mosquitos;
+which have not, as some travellers have stated, the form of our
+gnats,* (* Culex pipiens. This difference between mosquito (little
+fly, simulium) and zancudo (gnat, culex) exists in all the Spanish
+colonies. The word zancudo signifies long legs, qui tiene las zancas
+largas. The mosquitos of the Orinoco are the moustiques; the zancudos
+are the maringouins of French travellers.) but that of a small fly.
+They are simuliums of the family Nemocera of the system of Latreille.
+Their sting is as painful as that of the genus Stomox. It leaves a
+little reddish brown spot, which is extravased and coagulated blood,
+where their proboscis has pierced the skin. An hour before sunset a
+species of small gnats, called tempraneros,* because they appear also
+at sunrise, take the place of the mosquitos. (* Which appear at an
+early hour (temprano). Some persons say, that the zancudo is the same
+as the tempranero, which returns at night, after hiding itself for
+some time. I have doubts of this identity of the species; the pain
+caused by the sting of the two insects appeared to me different.)
+Their presence scarcely lasts an hour and a half; they disappear
+between six and seven in the evening, or, as they say here, after the
+Angelus (a la oracion). After a few minutes' repose, you feel yourself
+stung by zancudos, another species of gnat with very long legs. The
+zancudo, the proboscis of which contains a sharp-pointed sucker,
+causes the most acute pain, and a swelling that remains several weeks.
+Its hum resembles that of the European gnat, but is louder and more
+prolonged. The Indians pretend to distinguish the zancudos and the
+tempraneros by their song; the latter are real twilight insects, while
+the zancudos are most frequently nocturnal insects, and disappear
+toward sunrise.
+
+In our way from Carthagena to Santa Fe de Bogota, we observed that
+between Mompox and Honda, in the valley of the Rio Magdalena, the
+zancudos darkened the air from eight in the evening till midnight;
+that towards midnight they diminished in number, and were hidden for
+three or four hours; and lastly that they returned in crowds, about
+four in the morning. What is the cause of these alternations of motion
+and rest? Are these animals fatigued by long flight? It is rare on the
+Orinoco to see real gnats by day; while at the Rio Magdalena we were
+stung night and day, except from noon till about two o'clock. The
+zancudos of the two rivers are no doubt of different species.
+
+We have seen that the insects of the tropics everywhere follow a
+certain standard in the periods at which they alternately arrive and
+disappear. At fixed and invariable hours, in the same season, and the
+same latitude, the air is peopled with new inhabitants, and in a zone
+where the barometer becomes a clock,* (* By the extreme regularity of
+the horary variations of the atmospheric pressure.) where everything
+proceeds with such admirable regularity, we might guess blindfold the
+hour of the day or night, by the hum of the insects, and by their
+stings, the pain of which differs according to the nature of the
+poison that each species deposits in the wound.
+
+At a period when the geography of animals and of plants had not yet
+been studied, the analogous species of different climates were often
+confounded. It was believed that the pines and ranunculuses, the
+stags, the rats, and the tipulary insects of the north of Europe, were
+to be found in Japan, on the ridge of the Andes, and at the Straits of
+Magellan. Justly celebrated naturalists have thought that the zancudo
+of the torrid zone was the gnat of our marshes, become more vigorous,
+more voracious, and more noxious, under the influence of a burning
+climate. This is a very erroneous opinion. I carefully examined and
+described upon the spot those zancudos, the stings of which are most
+tormenting. In the rivers Magdalena and Guayaquil alone there are five
+distinct species.
+
+The culices of South America have generally the wings, corslet, and
+legs of an azure colour, ringed and variegated with a mixture of spots
+of metallic lustre. Here as in Europe, the males, which are
+distinguished by their feathered antennae, are extremely rare; you are
+seldom stung except by females. The preponderance of this sex explains
+the immense increase of the species, each female laying several
+hundred eggs. In going up one of the great rivers of America, it is
+observed, that the appearance of a new species of culex denotes the
+proximity of a new stream flowing in. I shall mention an instance of
+this curious phenomenon. The Culex lineatus, which belongs to the Cano
+Tamalamec, is only perceived in the valley of the Rio Grande de la
+Magdalena, at a league north of the junction of the two rivers; it
+goes up, but scarcely ever descends the Rio Grande. It is thus, that,
+on a principal vein, the appearance of a new substance in the gangue
+indicates to the miner the neighbourhood of a secondary vein that
+joins the first.
+
+On recapitulating the observations here recorded, we see, that within
+the tropics, the mosquitos and zancudos do not rise on the slope of
+the Cordilleras* toward the temperate region, where the mean heat is
+below 19 or 20 degrees (* The culex pipiens of Europe does not, like
+the culex of the torrid zone, shun mountainous places. Giesecke
+suffered from these insects in Greenland, at Disco, in latitude 70
+degrees. They are found in Lapland in summer, at three or four hundred
+toises high, and at a temperature of 11 or 12 degrees.); and that,
+with few exceptions, they shun the black waters, and dry and unwooded
+spots.* (* Trifling modifications in the waters, or in the air, often
+appear to prevent the development of the mosquitos. Mr. Bowdich
+remarks that there are none at Coomassie, in the kingdom of the
+Ashantees, though the town is surrounded by marshes, and though the
+thermometer keeps up between seventeen and twenty-eight centesimal
+degrees, day and night.) The atmosphere swarms with them much more in
+the Upper than in the Lower Orinoco, because in the former the river
+is surrounded with thick forests on its banks, and the skirts of the
+forests are not separated from the river by a barren and extensive
+beach. The mosquitos diminish on the New Continent with the diminution
+of the water, and the destruction of the woods; but the effects of
+these changes are as slow as the progress of cultivation. The towns of
+Angostura, Nueva Barcelona, and Mompox, where from the want of police,
+the streets, the great squares, and the interior of court-yards are
+overgrown with brushwood, are sadly celebrated for the abundance of
+zancudos.
+
+People born in the country, whether whites, mulattoes, negroes, or
+Indians, all suffer from the sting of these insects. But as cold does
+not render the north of Europe uninhabitable, so the mosquitos do not
+prevent men from dwelling in the countries where they abound, provided
+that, by their situation and government, they afford resources for
+agriculture and industry. The inhabitants pass their lives in
+complaining of the insufferable torment of the mosquitos, yet,
+notwithstanding these continual complaints, they seek, and even with a
+sort of predilection, the commercial towns of Mompox, Santa Marta, and
+Rio de la Hacha. Such is the force of habit in evils which we suffer
+every hour of the day, that the three missions of San Borja, Atures,
+and Esmeralda, where, to make use of an hyperbolical expression of the
+monks, there are more mosquitos than air,* (* Mas moscas que aire.)
+would no doubt become flourishing towns, if the Orinoco afforded
+planters the same advantages for the exchange of produce, as the Ohio
+and the Lower Mississippi.
+
+It is a curious fact, that the whites born in the torrid zone may walk
+barefoot with impunity, in the same apartment where a European
+recently landed is exposed to the attack of the nigua or chegoe (Pulex
+penetrans). This animal, almost invisible to the eye, gets under the
+toe-nails, and there acquires the size of a small pea, by the quick
+increase of its eggs, which are placed in a bag under the belly of the
+insect. The nigua therefore distinguishes what the most delicate
+chemical analysis could not distinguish, the cellular membrane and
+blood of a European from those of a creole white. The mosquitos, on
+the contrary, attack equally the natives and the Europeans; but the
+effects of the sting are different in the two races of men. The same
+venomous liquid, deposited in the skin of a copper-coloured man of
+Indian race, and in that of a white man newly landed, causes no
+swelling in the former, while in the latter it produces hard blisters,
+greatly inflamed, and painful for several days; so different is the
+action on the epidermis, according to the degree of irritability of
+the organs in different races and different individuals!
+
+I shall here recite several facts, which prove that the Indians, and
+in general all the people of colour, at the moment of being stung,
+suffer like the whites, although perhaps with less intensity of pain.
+In the day-time, and even when labouring at the oar, the natives, in
+order to chase the insects, are continually giving one another smart
+slaps with the palm of the hand. They even strike themselves and their
+comrades mechanically during their sleep. The violence of their blows
+reminds one of the Persian tale of the bear that tried to kill with
+his paw the insects on the forehead of his sleeping master. Near
+Maypures we saw some young Indians seated in a circle and rubbing
+cruelly each others' backs with the bark of trees dried at the fire.
+Indian women were occupied, with a degree of patience of which the
+copper-coloured race alone are capable, in extracting, by means of a
+sharp bone, the little mass of coagulated blood that forms the centre
+of every sting, and gives the skin a speckled appearance. One of the
+most barbarous nations of the Orinoco, that of the Ottomacs, is
+acquainted with the use of mosquito-curtains (mosquiteros) woven from
+the fibres of the moriche palm-tree. At Higuerote, on the coast of
+Caracas, the copper-coloured people sleep buried in the sand. In the
+villages of the Rio Magdalena the Indians often invited us to stretch
+ourselves as they did on ox-skins, near the church, in the middle of
+the plaza grande, where they had assembled all the cows in the
+neighbourhood. The proximity of cattle gives some repose to man. The
+Indians of the Upper Orinoco and the Cassiquiare, seeing that M.
+Bonpland could not prepare his herbal, owing to the continual torment
+of the mosquitos, invited him to enter their ovens (hornitos). Thus
+they call little chambers, without doors or windows, into which they
+creep horizontally through a very low opening. When they have driven
+away the insects by means of a fire of wet brushwood, which emits a
+great deal of smoke, they close the opening of the oven. The absence
+of the mosquitos is purchased dearly enough by the excessive heat of
+the stagnated air, and the smoke of a torch of copal, which lights the
+oven during your stay in it. M. Bonpland, with courage and patience
+well worthy of praise, dried hundreds of plants, shut up in these
+hornitos of the Indians.
+
+These precautions of the Indians sufficiently prove that,
+notwithstanding the different organization of the epidermis, the
+copper-coloured man, like the white man, suffers from the stings of
+insects; but the former seems to feel less pain, and the sting is not
+followed by those swellings which, during several weeks, heighten the
+irritability of the skin, and throw persons of a delicate constitution
+into that feverish state which always accompanies eruptive maladies.
+Whites born in equinoctial America, and Europeans who have long
+sojourned in the Missions, on the borders of forests and great rivers,
+suffer much more than the Indians, but infinitely less than Europeans
+newly arrived. It is not, therefore, as some travellers assert, the
+thickness of the skin that renders the sting more or less painful at
+the moment when it is received; nor is it owing to the particular
+organization of the integuments, that in the Indians the sting is
+followed by less of swelling and inflammatory symptoms; it is on the
+nervous irritability of the epidermis that the acuteness and duration
+of the pain depend. This irritability is augmented by very warm
+clothing, by the use of alcoholic liquors, by the habit of scratching
+the wounds, and lastly, (and this physiological observation is the
+result of my own experience,) that of baths repeated at too short
+intervals. In places where the absence of crocodiles permits people to
+enter a river, M. Bonpland and myself observed that the immoderate use
+of baths, while it moderated the pain of old stings of zancudos,
+rendered us more sensible to new stings. By bathing more than twice a
+day, the skin is brought into a state of nervous irritability, of
+which no idea can be formed in Europe. It would seem as if all feeling
+were carried toward the integuments.
+
+As the mosquitos and gnats pass two-thirds of their lives in the
+water, it is not surprising that these noxious insects become less
+numerous in proportion as you recede from the banks of the great
+rivers which intersect the forests. They seem to prefer the spots
+where their metamorphosis took place, and where they go to deposit
+their eggs. In fact the wild Indians (Indios monteros) experience the
+greater difficulty in accustoming themselves to the life of the
+missions, as they suffer in the Christian establishments a torment
+which they scarcely know in their own inland dwellings. The natives at
+Maypures, Atures, and Esmeralda, have been seen fleeing to the woods,
+or, as they say, al monte, solely from the dread of mosquitos.
+Unfortunately, all the Missions of the Orinoco have been established
+too near the banks of the river. At Esmeralda the inhabitants assured
+us that if the village were situated in one of the five plains
+surrounding the high mountains of Duida and Maraguaca, they should
+breathe freely, and enjoy some repose. The great cloud of mosquitos
+(la nube de moscas) to use the expression of the monks, is suspended
+only over the Orinoco and its tributary streams, and is dissipated in
+proportion as you remove from the rivers. We should form a very
+inaccurate idea of Guiana and Brazil, were we to judge of that great
+forest four hundred leagues wide, lying between the sources of the
+Madeira and the Lower Orinoco, from the valleys of the rivers by which
+it is crossed.
+
+I learned that the little insects of the family of the nemocerae
+migrate from time to time like the alouate monkeys, which live in
+society. In certain spots, at the commencement of the rainy season,
+different species appear, the sting of which has not yet been felt. We
+were informed at the Rio Magdalena, that at Simiti no other culex than
+the jejen was formerly known; and it was then possible to enjoy a
+tranquil night's rest, for the jejen is not a nocturnal insect. Since
+the year 1801, the great blue-winged gnat (Culex cyanopterus) has
+appeared in such numbers, that the poor inhabitants of Simiti know not
+how to procure an undisturbed sleep. In the marshy channels (esteros)
+of the isle of Baru, near Carthagena, is found a little white fly
+called cafafi. It is scarcely visible to the naked eye, and causes
+very painful swellings. The toldos or cottons used for
+mosquito-curtains, are wetted to prevent the cafafi penetrating
+through the interstices left by the crossing threads. This insect,
+happily rare elsewhere, goes up in January, by the channel (dique) of
+Mahates, as far as Morales. When we went to this village in the month
+of May, we found there cimuliae and zancudos, but no jejens.
+
+The insects most troublesome at Orinoco, or as the Creoles say, the
+most ferocious (los mas feroces), are those of the great cataracts of
+Esmeralda and Mandavaca. On the Rio Magdalena the Culex cyanopterus is
+dreaded, particularly at Mompox, Chiloa, and Tamalameca. At these
+places this insect is larger and stronger, and its legs blacker. It is
+difficult to avoid smiling on hearing the missionaries dispute about
+the size and voracity of the mosquitos at different parts of the same
+river. In a region the inhabitants of which are ignorant of all that
+is passing in the rest of the world, this is the favourite subject of
+conversation. "How I pity your situation!" said the missionary of the
+Raudales to the missionary of Cassiquiare, at our departure; "you are
+alone, like me, in this country of tigers and monkeys; with you fish
+is still more rare, and the heat more violent; but as for my mosquitos
+(mias moscas) I can boast that with one of mine I would beat three of
+yours."
+
+This voracity of insects in certain spots, the fury with which they
+attack man,* (* This voracity, this appetite for blood, seems
+surprising in little insects, that live on vegetable juices, and in a
+country almost entirely uninhabited. "What would these animals eat, if
+we did not pass this way?" say the Creoles, in going through countries
+where there are only crocodiles covered with a scaly skin, and hairy
+monkeys.) the activity of the venom varying in the same species, are
+very remarkable facts; which find their analogy, however, in the
+classes of large animals. The crocodile of Angostura pursues men,
+while at Nueva Barcelona you may bathe tranquilly in the Rio Neveri
+amidst these carnivorous reptiles. The jaguars of Maturin, Cumanacoa,
+and the isthmus of Panama, are timid in comparison of those of the
+Upper Orinoco. The Indians well know that the monkeys of some valleys
+are easily tamed, while others of the same species, caught elsewhere,
+will rather die of hunger than submit to slavery.* (* I might have
+added the example of the scorpion of Cumana, which it is very
+difficult to distinguish from that of the island of Trinidad, Jamaica,
+Carthagena, and Guayaquil; yet the former is not more to be feared
+than the Scorpio europaeus (of the south of France), while the latter
+produces consequences far more alarming than the Scorpio occitanus (of
+Spain and Barbary). At Carthagena and Guayaquil, the sting of the
+scorpion (alacran) instantly causes the loss of speech. Sometimes a
+singular torpor of the tongue is observed for fifteen or sixteen
+hours. The patient, when stung in the legs, stammers as if he had been
+struck with apoplexy.)
+
+The common people in America have framed systems respecting the
+salubrity of climates and pathological phenomena, as well as the
+learned of Europe; and their systems, like ours, are diametrically
+opposed to each other, according to the provinces into which the New
+Continent is divided. At the Rio Magdalena the frequency of mosquitos
+is regarded as troublesome, but salutary. These animals, say the
+inhabitants, give us slight bleedings, and preserve us, in a country
+excessively hot, from the scarlet fever, and other inflammatory
+diseases. But at the Orinoco, the banks of which are very
+insalubrious, the sick blame the mosquitos for all their sufferings.
+It is unnecessary to refute the fallacy of the popular belief that the
+action of the mosquitos is salutary by its local bleedings. In Europe
+the inhabitants of marshy countries are not ignorant that the insects
+irritate the epidermis, and stimulate its functions by the venom which
+they deposit in the wounds they make. Far from diminishing the
+inflammatory state of the skin, the stings increase it.
+
+The frequency of gnats and mosquitos characterises unhealthy climates
+only so far as the development and multiplication of these insects
+depend on the same causes that give rise to miasmata. These noxious
+animals love a fertile soil covered with plants, stagnant waters, and
+a humid air never agitated by the wind; they prefer to an open country
+those shades, that softened day, that tempered degree of light, heat,
+and moisture which, while it favours the action of chemical
+affinities, accelerates the putrefaction of organised substances. May
+not the mosquitos themselves increase the insalubrity of the
+atmosphere? When we reflect that to the height of three or four toises
+a cubic foot of air is often peopled by a million of winged insects,*
+(* It is sufficient to mention, that the cubic foot contains 2,985,984
+cubic lines.) which contain a caustic and venomous liquid; when we
+recollect that several species of culex are 1.8 lines long from the
+head to the extremity of the corslet (without reckoning the legs);
+lastly, when we consider that in this swarm of mosquitos and gnats,
+diffused in the atmosphere like smoke, there is a great number of dead
+insects raised by the force of the ascending air, or by that of the
+lateral currents which are caused by the unequal heating of the soil,
+we are led to inquire whether the presence of so many animal
+substances in the air must not occasion particular miasmata. I think
+that these substances act on the atmosphere differently from sand and
+dust; but it will be prudent to affirm nothing positively on this
+subject. Chemistry has not yet unveiled the numerous mysteries of the
+insalubrity of the air; it has only taught us that we are ignorant of
+many things with which a few years ago we believed we were acquainted.
+
+Daily experience appears in a certain degree to prove the fact that at
+the Orinoco, Cassiquiare, Rio Caura, and wherever the air is very
+unhealthy, the sting of the mosquito augments the disposition of the
+organs to receive the impression of miasmata. When you are exposed day
+and night, during whole months, to the torment of insects, the
+continual irritation of the skin causes febrile commotions; and, from
+the sympathy existing between the dermoid and the gastric systems,
+injures the functions of the stomach. Digestion first becomes
+difficult, the cutaneous inflammation excites profuse perspirations,
+an unquenchable thirst succeeds, and, in persons of a feeble
+constitution, increasing impatience is succeeded by depression of
+mind, during which all the pathogenic causes act with increased
+violence. It is neither the dangers of navigating in small boats, the
+savage Indians, nor the serpents, crocodiles, or jaguars, that make
+Spaniards dread a voyage on the Orinoco; it is, as they say with
+simplicity, "el sudar y las moscas," (the perspiration and the flies).
+We have reason to believe that mankind, as they change the surface of
+the soil, will succeed in altering by degrees the constitution of the
+atmosphere. The insects will diminish when the old trees of the forest
+have disappeared; when, in those countries now desert, the rivers are
+seen bordered with cottages, and the plains covered with pastures and
+harvests.
+
+Whoever has lived long in countries infested by mosquitos will be
+convinced, as we were, that there exists no remedy for the torment of
+these insects. The Indians, covered with anoto, bolar earth, or turtle
+oil, are not protected from their attacks. It is doubtful whether the
+painting even relieves: it certainly does not prevent the evil.
+Europeans, recently arrived at the Orinoco, the Rio Magdalena, the
+river Guayaquil, or Rio Chagres (I mention the four rivers where the
+insects are most to be dreaded) at first obtain some relief by
+covering their faces and hands, but they soon feel it difficult to
+endure the heat, are weary of being condemned to complete inactivity,
+and finish with leaving the face and hands uncovered. Persons who
+would renounce all kind of occupation during the navigation of these
+rivers, might bring some particular garment from Europe in the form of
+a bag, under which they could remain covered, opening it only every
+half-hour. This bag should be distended by whalebone hoops, for a
+close mask and gloves would be perfectly insupportable. Sleeping on
+the ground, on skins, or in hammocks, we could not make use of
+mosquito-curtains (toldos) while on the Orinoco. The toldo is useful
+only where it forms a tent so well closed around the bed that there is
+not the smallest opening by which a gnat can pass. This is difficult
+to accomplish; and often when you succeed (for instance, in going up
+the Rio Magdalena, where you travel with some degree of convenience),
+you are forced, in order to avoid being suffocated by the heat, to
+come out from beneath your toldo, and walk about in the open air. A
+feeble wind, smoke, and powerful smells, scarcely afford any relief in
+places where the insects are very numerous and very voracious. It is
+erroneously affirmed that these little animals fly from the peculiar
+smell emitted by the crocodile. We were fear fully stung at Bataillez,
+in the road from Carthagena to Honda, while we were dissecting a
+crocodile eleven feet long, the smell of which infested all the
+surrounding atmosphere. The Indians much commend the fumes of burnt
+cow-dung. When the wind is very strong, and accompanied by rain, the
+mosquitos disappear for some time: they sting most cruelly at the
+approach of a storm, particularly when the electric explosions are not
+followed by heavy showers.
+
+Anything waved about the head and the hands contributes to chase away
+the insects. "The more you stir yourself, the less you will be stung,"
+say the missionaries. The zancudo makes a buzzing before it settles;
+but, when it has assumed confidence, when it has once begun to fix its
+sucker, and distend itself, you may touch its wings without its being
+frightened. It remains the whole time with its two hind legs raised;
+and, if left to suck to satiety, no swelling takes place, and no pain
+is left behind. We often repeated this experiment on ourselves in the
+valley of the Rio Magdalena. It may be asked whether the insect
+deposits the stimulating liquid only at the moment of its flight, when
+it is driven away, or whether it draws the liquid up again when left
+to suck undisturbed. I incline to this latter opinion; for on quietly
+presenting the back of my hand to the Culex cyanopterus, I observed
+that the pain, though violent in the beginning, diminishes in
+proportion as the insect continues to suck, and ceases altogether when
+it voluntarily flies away. I also wounded my skin with a pin, and
+rubbed the pricks with bruised mosquitos, and no swelling ensued. The
+irritating liquid, in which chemists have not yet recognized any acid
+properties, is contained, as in the ant and other hymenopterous
+insects, in particular glands; and is probably too much diluted, and
+consequently too much weakened, if the skin be rubbed with the whole
+of the bruised insect.
+
+I have thrown together at the close of this chapter all we learned
+during the course of our travels on phenomena which naturalists have
+hitherto singularly neglected, though they exercise a great influence
+on the welfare of the inhabitants, the salubrity of the climate, and
+the establishment of new colonies on the rivers of equinoctial
+America. I might justly have incurred the charge of having treated
+this subject too much in detail, were it not connected with general
+physiological views. Our imagination is struck only by what is great;
+but the lover of natural philosophy should reflect equally on little
+things. We have just seen that winged insects, collected in society,
+and concealing in their sucker a liquid that irritates the skin, are
+capable of rendering vast countries almost uninhabitable. Other
+insects equally small, the termites (comejen),* (* Literally, the
+eaters or the devourers.) create obstacles to the progress of
+civilization, in several hot and temperate parts of the equinoctial
+zone, that are difficult to be surmounted. They devour paper,
+pasteboard, and parchment with frightful rapidity, utterly destroying
+records and libraries. Whole provinces of Spanish America do not
+possess one written document that dates a hundred years back. What
+improvement can the civilization of nations acquire if nothing link
+the present with the past; if the depositories of human knowledge must
+be repeatedly renewed; if the records of genius and reason cannot be
+transmitted to posterity?
+
+In proportion as you ascend the table-land of the Andes these evils
+disappear. Man breathes a fresh and pure air. Insects no more disturb
+the labours of the day or the slumbers of the night. Documents can be
+collected in archives without our having to complain of the voracity
+of the termites. Mosquitos are no longer feared at a height of two
+hundred toises; and the termites, still very frequent at three hundred
+toises of elevation,* (* There are some at Popayan (height 910 toises;
+mean temperature 18.7 degrees), but they are species that gnaw wood
+only.) become very rare at Mexico, Santa Fe de Bogota, and Quito. In
+these great capitals, situated on the back of the Cordilleras, we find
+libraries and archives, augmented from day to day by the enlightened
+zeal of the inhabitants. These circumstances, combined with others,
+insure a moral preponderance to the Alpine region over the lower
+regions of the torrid zone. If we admit, agreeably to the ancient
+traditions collected in both the old and new worlds, that at the time
+of the catastrophe which preceded the renewal of our species, man
+descended from the mountains into the plains, we may admit, with still
+greater confidence, that these mountains, the cradle of so many
+various nations, will for ever remain the centre of human civilization
+in the torrid zone. From these fertile and temperate table-lands, from
+these islets scattered in the aerial ocean, knowledge and the
+blessings of social institutions will be spread over those vast
+forests extending along the foot of the Andes, now inhabited only by
+savage tribes whom the very wealth of nature has retained in indolence
+and barbarism.
+
+
+CHAPTER 2.21.
+
+RAUDAL OF GARCITA.
+MAYPURES.
+CATARACTS OF QUITUNA.
+MOUTH OF THE VICHADA AND THE ZAMA.
+ROCK OF ARICAGUA.
+SIQUITA.
+
+We directed our course to the Puerto de arriba, above the cataract of
+Atures, opposite the mouth of the Rio Cataniapo, where our boat was to
+be ready for us. In the narrow path that leads to the embarcadero we
+beheld for the last time the peak of Uniana. It appeared like a cloud
+rising above the horizon of the plains. The Guahibos wander at the
+foot of the mountains, and extend their course as far as the banks of
+the Vichada. We were shown at a distance, on the right of the river,
+the rocks that surround the cavern of Ataruipe; but we had not time to
+visit that cemetery of the destroyed tribe of the Atures. Father Zea
+had repeatedly described to us this extraordinary cavern, the
+skeletons painted with anoto, the large vases of baked earth, in which
+the bones of separate families appear to be collected; and many other
+curious objects, which we proposed to examine on our return from the
+Rio Negro. "You will scarcely believe," said the missionaries, "that
+these skeletons, these painted vases, things which we believed were
+unknown to the rest of the world, have brought trouble upon me and my
+neighbour, the missionary of Carichana. You have seen the misery in
+which I live in the raudales. Though devoured by mosquitos, and often
+in want of plantains and cassava, yet I have found envious people even
+in this country! A white man, who inhabits the pastures between the
+Meta and the Apure, denounced me recently in the Audencia of Caracas,
+as concealing a treasure I had discovered, jointly with the missionary
+of Carichana, amid the tombs of the Indians. It is asserted that the
+Jesuits of Santa Fe de Bogota were apprised beforehand of the
+destruction of their company; and that, in order to save the riches
+they possessed in money and precious vases, they sent them, either by
+the Rio Meta or the Vichada, to the Orinoco, with orders to have them
+hidden in the islets amid the raudales. These treasures I am supposed
+to have appropriated unknown to my superiors. The Audencia of Caracas
+brought a complaint before the governor of Guiana, and we were ordered
+to appear in person. We uselessly performed a journey of one hundred
+and fifty leagues; and, although we declared that we had found in the
+cavern only human bones, and dried bats and polecats, commissioners
+were gravely nominated to come hither and search on the spot for the
+supposed treasures of the Jesuits. We shall wait long for these
+commissioners. When they have gone up the Orinoco as far as San Borja,
+the fear of the mosquitos will prevent them from going farther. The
+cloud of flies which envelopes us in the raudales is a good defence."
+
+The account given by the missionary was entirely conformable to what
+we afterwards learned at Angostura from the governor himself.
+Fortuitous circumstances had given rise to the strangest suspicions.
+In the caverns where the mummies and skeletons of the nation of the
+Atures are found, even in the midst of the cataracts, and in the most
+inaccessible islets, the Indians long ago discovered boxes bound with
+iron, containing various European tools, remnants of clothes,
+rosaries, and glass trinkets. These objects are thought to have
+belonged to Portuguese traders of the Rio Negro and Grand Para, who,
+before the establishment of the Jesuits on the banks of the Orinoco,
+went up to Atures by the portages and interior communications of
+rivers, to trade with the natives. It is supposed that these men sunk
+beneath the epidemic maladies so common in the raudales, and that
+their chests became the property of the Indians, the wealthiest of
+whom were usually buried with all they possessed most valuable during
+their lives. From these very uncertain traditions the tale of hidden
+treasures has been fabricated. As in the Andes of Quito every ruined
+building, not excepting the foundations of the pyramids erected by the
+French savans for the measurement of the meridian, is regarded as Inga
+pilca,* that is, the work of the Inca (* Pilca (properly in Quichua
+pirca), wall of the Inca.); so on the Orinoco every hidden treasure
+can belong only to the Jesuits, an order which, no doubt, governed the
+missions better than the Capuchins and the monks of the Observance,
+but whose riches and success in the civilization of the Indians have
+been much exaggerated. When the Jesuits of Santa Fe were arrested,
+those heaps of piastres, those emeralds of Muzo, those bars of gold of
+Choco, which the enemies of the company supposed they possessed, were
+not found in their dwellings. I can cite a respectable testimony,
+which proves incontestibly, that the viceroy of New Granada had not
+warned the Jesuits of Santa Fe of the danger with which they were
+menaced. Don Vicente Orosco, an engineer officer in the Spanish army,
+related to me that, being arrived at Angostura, with Don Manuel
+Centurion, to arrest the missionaries of Carichana, he met an Indian
+boat that was going down the Rio Meta. The boat being manned with
+Indians who could speak none of the tongues of the country, gave rise
+to suspicions. After useless researches, a bottle was at length
+discovered, containing a letter, in which the Superior of the company
+residing at Santa Fe informed the missionaries of the Orinoco of the
+persecutions to which the Jesuits were exposed in New Grenada. This
+letter recommended no measure of precaution; it was short, without
+ambiguity, and respectful towards the government, whose orders were
+executed with useless and unreasonable severity.
+
+Eight Indians of Atures had conducted our boat through the raudales,
+and seemed well satisfied with the slight recompence we gave them.
+They gain little by this employment; and in order to give a just idea
+of the poverty and want of commerce in the missions of the Orinoco, I
+shall observe that during three years, with the exception of the boats
+sent annually to Angostura by the commander of San Carlos de Rio
+Negro, to fetch the pay of the soldiers, the missionary had seen but
+five canoes of the Upper Orinoco pass the cataract, which were bound
+for the harvest of turtles' eggs, and eight boats laden with
+merchandize.
+
+About eleven on the morning of the 17th of April we reached our boat.
+Father Zea caused to be embarked, with our instruments, the small
+store of provisions he had been able to procure for the voyage, on
+which he was to accompany us; these provisions consisted of a few
+bunches of plantains, some cassava, and fowls. Leaving the
+embarcadero, we immediately passed the mouth of the Cataniapo, a small
+river, the banks of which are inhabited by the Macos, or Piaroas, who
+belong to the great family of the Salive nations.
+
+Besides the Piaroas of Cataniapo, who pierce their ears, and wear as
+ear-ornaments the teeth of caymans and peccaries, three other tribes
+of Macos are known: one, on the Ventuari, above the Rio Mariata; the
+second, on the Padamo, north of the mountains of Maraguaca; and the
+third, near the Guaharibos, towards the sources of the Orinoco, above
+the Rio Gehette. This last tribe bears the name of Macos-Macos. I
+collected the following words from a young Maco of the banks of the
+Cataniapo, whom we met near the embarcadero, and who wore in his ears,
+instead of a tusk of the peccary, a large wooden cylinder.* (* This
+custom is observed among the Cabres, the Maypures, and the Pevas of
+the Amazon. These last, described by La Condamine, stretch their ears
+by weights of a considerable size.)
+
+Plantain, Paruru (in Tamanac also, paruru).
+Cassava, Elente (in Maco, cahig).
+Maize, Niarne.
+The sun, Jama (in Salive, mume-seke-cocco).
+The moon, Jama (in Salive, vexio).
+Water, Ahia (in Salive, cagua).
+One, Nianti.
+Two, Tajus.
+Three, Percotahuja.
+Four, Imontegroa.
+
+The young man could not reckon as far as five, which certainly is no
+proof that the word five does not exist in the Maco tongue. I know not
+whether this tongue be a dialect of the Salive, as is pretty generally
+asserted; for idioms derived from one another, sometimes furnish words
+utterly different for the most common and most important things.* (*
+The great family of the Esthonian (or Tschoudi) languages, and of the
+Samoiede languages, affords numerous examples of these differences.)
+But in discussions on mother-tongues and derivative languages, it is
+not the sounds, the roots only, that are decisive; but rather the
+interior structure and grammatical forms. In the American idioms,
+which are notwithstanding rich, the moon is commonly enough called the
+sun of night or even the sun of sleep; but the moon and sun very
+rarely bear the same name, as among the Macos. I know only a few
+examples in the most northerly part of America, among the Woccons, the
+Ojibbeways, the Muskogulges, and the Mohawks.* (* Nipia-kisathwa in
+the Shawanese (the idiom of Canada), from nippi, to sleep, and
+kisathwa, the sun.) Our missionary asserted that jama, in Maco,
+indicated at the same time the Supreme Being, and the great orbs of
+night and day; while many other American tongues, for instance the
+Tamanac, and the Caribbee, have distinct words to denote God, the
+Moon, and the Sun. We shall soon see how anxious the missionaries of
+the Orinoco are not to employ, in their translations of the prayers of
+the church, the native words which denote the Divinity, the Creator
+(Amanene), the Great Spirit who animates all nature. They choose
+rather to Indianize the Spanish word Dios, converting it, according to
+the differences of pronunciation, and the genius of the different
+dialects, into Dioso, Tiosu, or Piosu.
+
+When we again embarked on the Orinoco, we found the river free from
+shoals. After a few hours we passed the Raudal of Garcita, the rapids
+of which are easy of ascent, when the waters are high. To the eastward
+is seen a small chain of mountains called the chain of Cumadaminari,
+consisting of gneiss, and not of stratified granite. We were struck
+with a succession of great holes at more than one hundred and eighty
+feet above the present level of the Orinoco, yet which,
+notwithstanding, appear to be the effects of the erosion of the
+waters. We shall see hereafter, that this phenomenon occurs again
+nearly at the same height, both in the rocks that border the cataracts
+of Maypures, and fifty leagues to the east, near the mouth of the Rio
+Jao. We slept in the open air, on the left bank of the river, below
+the island of Tomo. The night was beautiful and serene, but the
+torment of the mosquitos was so great near the ground, that I could
+not succeed in levelling the artificial horizon; consequently I lost
+the opportunity of making an observation.
+
+On the 18th we set out at three in the morning, to be more sure of
+arriving before the close of the day at the cataract known by the name
+of the Raudal de los Guahibos. We stopped at the mouth of the Rio
+Tomo. The Indians went on shore, to prepare their food, and take some
+repose. When we reached the foot of the raudal, it was near five in
+the afternoon. It was extremely difficult to go up the current against
+a mass of water, precipitated from a bank of gneiss several feet high.
+An Indian threw himself into the water, to reach, by swimming, the
+rock that divides the cataract into two parts. A rope was fastened to
+the point of this rock, and when the canoe was hauled near enough, our
+instruments, our dry plants, and the provision we had collected at
+Atures, were landed in the raudal itself. We remarked with surprise,
+that the natural damn over which the river is precipitated, presents a
+dry space of considerable extent; where we stopped to see the boat go
+up.
+
+The rock of gneiss exhibits circular holes, the largest of which are
+four feet deep, and eighteen inches wide. These funnels contain quartz
+pebbles, and appear to have been formed by the friction of masses
+rolled along by the impulse of the waters. Our situation, in the midst
+of the cataract, was singular enough, but unattended by the smallest
+danger. The missionary, who accompanied us, had his fever-fit on him.
+In order to quench the thirst by which he was tormented, the idea
+suggested itself to us of preparing a refreshing beverage for him in
+one of the excavations of the rock. We had taken on board at Atures an
+Indian basket called a mapire, filled with sugar, limes, and those
+grenadillas, or fruits of the passion-flower, to which the Spaniards
+give the name of parchas. As we were absolutely destitute of large
+vessels for holding and mixing liquids, we poured the water of the
+river, by means of a calabash, into one of the holes of the rock: to
+this we added sugar and lime-juice. In a few minutes we had an
+excellent beverage, which is almost a refinement of luxury, in that
+wild spot; but our wants rendered us every day more and more
+ingenious.
+
+After an hour of expectation, we saw the boat arrive above the raudal,
+and we were soon ready to depart. After quitting the rock, our passage
+was not exempt from danger. The river is eight hundred toises broad,
+and must be crossed obliquely, above the cataract, at the point where
+the waters, impelled by the slope of their bed, rush with extreme
+violence toward the ledge from which they are precipitated. We were
+overtaken by a storm, accompanied happily by no wind, but the rain
+fell in torrents. After rowing for twenty minutes, the pilot declared
+that, far from gaining upon the current, we were again approaching the
+raudal. These moments of uncertainty appeared to us very long: the
+Indians spoke only in whispers, as they do always when they think
+their situation perilous. They redoubled their efforts, and we arrived
+at nightfall, without any accident, in the port of Maypures.
+
+Storms within the tropics are as short as they are violent. The
+lightning had fallen twice near our boat, and had no doubt struck the
+surface of the water. I mention this phenomenon, because it is pretty
+generally believed in those countries that the clouds, the surface of
+which is charged with electricity, are at so great a height that the
+lightning reaches the ground more rarely than in Europe. The night was
+extremely dark, and we could not in less than two hours reach the
+village of Maypures. We were wet to the skin. In proportion as the
+rain ceased, the zancudos reappeared, with that voracity which
+tipulary insects always display immediately after a storm. My
+fellow-travellers were uncertain whether it would be best to stop in
+the port or proceed on our way on foot, in spite of the darkness of
+the night. Father Zea was determined to reach his home. He had given
+directions for the construction of a large house of two stories, which
+was to be begun by the Indians of the mission. "You will there find,"
+said he gravely, "the same conveniences as in the open air; I have
+neither a bench nor a table, but you will not suffer so much from the
+flies, which are less troublesome in the mission than on the banks of
+the river." We followed the counsel if the missionary, who caused
+torches of copal to be lighted. These torches are tubes made of bark,
+three inches in diameter, and filled with copal resin. We walked at
+first over beds of rock, which were bare and slippery, and then we
+entered a thick grove of palm trees. We were twice obliged to pass a
+stream on trunks of trees hewn down. The torches had already ceased to
+give light. Being formed on a strange principle, the woody substance
+which resembles the wick surrounding the resin, they emit more smoke
+than light, and are easily extinguished. The Indian pilot, who
+expressed himself with some facility in Spanish, told us of snakes,
+water-serpents, and tigers, by which we might be attacked. Such
+conversations may be expected as matters of course, by persons who
+travel at night with the natives. By intimidating the European
+traveller, the Indians imagine they render themselves more necessary,
+and gain the confidence of the stranger. The rudest inhabitant of the
+missions fully understands the deceptions which everywhere arise from
+the relations between men of unequal fortune and civilization. Under
+the absolute and sometimes vexatious government of the monks, the
+Indian seeks to ameliorate his condition by those little artifices
+which are the weapons of physical and intellectual weakness.
+
+Having arrived during the night at San Jose de Maypures we were
+forcibly struck by the solitude of the place; the Indians were plunged
+in profound sleep, and nothing was heard but the cries of nocturnal
+birds, and the distant sound of the cataract. In the calm of the
+night, amid the deep repose of nature, the monotonous sound of a fall
+of water has in it something sad and solemn. We remained three days at
+Maypures, a small village founded by Don Jose Solano at the time of
+the expedition of the boundaries, the situation of which is more
+picturesque, it might be said still more admirable, than that of
+Atures.
+
+The raudal of Maypures, called by the Indians Quituna, is formed, as
+all cataracts are, by the resistance which the river encounters in its
+way across a ridge of rocks, or a chain of mountains. The lofty
+mountains of Cunavami and Calitamini, between the sources of the
+rivers Cataniapo and Ventuari, stretch toward the west in a chain of
+granitic hills. From this chain flow three small rivers, which embrace
+in some sort the cataract of Maypures. There are, on the eastern bank,
+the Sanariapo, and on the western, the Cameji and the Toparo. Opposite
+the village of Maypures, the mountains fall back in an arch, and, like
+a rocky coast, form a gulf open to the south-east. The irruption of
+the river is effected between the mouths of the Toparo and the
+Sanariapo, at the western extremity of this majestic amphitheatre.
+
+The waters of the Orinoco now roll at the foot of the eastern chain of
+the mountains, and have receded from the west, where, in a deep
+valley, the ancient shore is easily recognized. A savannah, scarcely
+raised thirty feet above the mean level of the river, extends from
+this valley as far as the cataracts. There the small church of
+Maypures has been constructed. It is built of trunks of palm-trees,
+and is surrounded by seven or eight huts. The dry valley, which runs
+in a straight line from south to north, from the Cameji to the Toparo,
+is filled with granitic and solitary mounds, all resembling those
+found in the shape of islands and shoals in the present bed of the
+river. I was struck with this analogy of form, on comparing the rocks
+of Keri and Oco, situated in the deserted bed of the river, west of
+Maypures, with the islets of Ouivitari and Caminitamini, which rise
+like old castles amid the cataracts to the east of the mission. The
+geological aspect of these scenes, the insular form of the elevations
+farthest from the present shore of the Orinoco, the cavities which the
+waves appear to have hollowed in the rock Oco, and which are precisely
+on the same level (twenty-five or thirty toises high) as the
+excavations perceived opposite to them in the isle of Ouivitari; all
+these appearances prove that the whole of this bay, now dry, was
+formerly covered by water. Those waters probably formed a lake, the
+northern dike preventing their running out: but, when this dike was
+broken down, the savannah that surrounds the mission appeared at first
+like a very low island, bounded by two arms of the same river. It may
+be supposed that the Orinoco continued for some time to fill the
+ravine, which we shall call the valley of Keri, because it contains
+the rock of that name; and that the waters retired wholly toward the
+eastern chain, leaving dry the western arm of the river, only as they
+gradually diminished. Coloured stripes, which no doubt owe their black
+tint to the oxides of iron and manganese, seem to justify this
+conjecture. They are found on all the stones, far from the mission,
+and indicate the former abode of the waters. In going up the river,
+all merchandise is discharged at the confluence of the Rio Toparo and
+the Orinoco. The boats are entrusted to the natives, who have so
+perfect a knowledge of the raudal, that they have a particular name
+for every step. They conduct the boats as far as the mouth of the
+Cameji, where the danger is considered as past.
+
+I will here describe the cataract of Quituna or Maypures as it
+appeared at the two periods when I examined it, in going down and up
+the river. It is formed, like that of Mapara or Atures, by an
+archipelago of islands, which, to the length of three thousand toises,
+fill the bed of the river, and by rocky dikes, which join the islands
+together. The most remarkable of these dikes, or natural dams, are
+Purimarimi, Manimi, and the Leap of the Sardine (Salto de la Sardina).
+I name them in the order in which I saw them in succession from south
+to north. The last of these three stages is near nine feet high, and
+forms by its breadth a magnificent cascade. I must here repeat,
+however, that the turbulent shock of the precipitated and broken
+waters depends not so much on the absolute height of each step or
+dike, as upon the multitude of counter-currents, the grouping of the
+islands and shoals, that lie at the foot of the raudalitos or partial
+cascades, and the contraction of the channels, which often do not
+leave a free navigable passage of twenty or thirty feet. The eastern
+part of the cataract of Maypures is much more dangerous than the
+western; and therefore the Indian pilots prefer the left bank of the
+river to conduct the boats down or up. Unfortunately, in the season of
+low waters, this bank remains partly dry, and recourse must be had to
+the process of portage; that is, the boats are obliged to be dragged
+on cylinders, or round logs.
+
+To command a comprehensive view of these stupendous scenes, the
+spectator must be stationed on the little mountain of Manimi, a
+granitic ridge, which rises from the savannah, north of the church of
+the mission, and is itself only a continuation of the ridges of which
+the raudalito of Manimi is composed. We often visited this mountain,
+for we were never weary of gazing on this astonishing spectacle. From
+the summit of the rock is descried a sheet of foam, extending the
+length of a whole mile. Enormous masses of stone, black as iron, issue
+from its bosom. Some are paps grouped in pairs, like basaltic hills;
+others resemble towers, fortified castles, and ruined buildings. Their
+gloomy tint contrasts with the silvery splendour of the foam. Every
+rock, every islet is covered with vigorous trees, collected in
+clusters. At the foot of those paps, far as the eye can reach, a thick
+vapour is suspended over the river, and through this whitish fog the
+tops of the lofty palm-trees shoot up. What name shall we give to
+these majestic plants? I suppose them to be the vadgiai, a new species
+of the genus Oreodoxa, the trunk of which is more than eighty feet
+high. The feathery leaves of this palm-tree have a brilliant lustre,
+and rise almost straight toward the sky. At every hour of the day the
+sheet of foam displays different aspects. Sometimes the hilly islands
+and the palm-trees project their broad shadows; sometimes the rays of
+the setting sun are refracted in the cloud that hangs over the
+cataract, and coloured arcs are formed which vanish and appear
+alternately.
+
+Such is the character of the landscape discovered from the top of the
+mountain of Manimi, which no traveller has yet described. I do not
+hesitate to repeat, that neither time, nor the view of the
+Cordilleras, nor any abode in the temperate valleys of Mexico, has
+effaced from my mind the powerful impression of the aspect of the
+cataracts. When I read a description of those places in India that are
+embellished by running waters and a vigorous vegetation, my
+imagination retraces a sea of foam and palm-trees, the tops of which
+rise above a stratum of vapour. The majestic scenes of nature, like
+the sublime works of poetry and the arts, leave remembrances that are
+incessantly awakening, and which, through the whole of life, mingle
+with all our feelings of what is grand and beautiful.
+
+The calm of the atmosphere, and the tumultuous movement of the waters,
+produce a contrast peculiar to this zone. Here no breath of wind ever
+agitates the foliage, no cloud veils the splendour of the azure vault
+of heaven; a great mass of light is diffused in the air, on the earth
+strewn with plants with glossy leaves, and on the bed of the river,
+which extends as far as the eye can reach. This appearance surprises
+the traveller born in the north of Europe. The idea of wild scenery,
+of a torrent rushing from rock to rock, is linked in his imagination
+with that of a climate where the noise of the tempest is mingled with
+the sound of the cataract; and where, in a gloomy and misty day,
+sweeping clouds seem to descend into the valley, and to rest upon the
+tops of the pines. The landscape of the tropics in the low regions of
+the continents has a peculiar physiognomy, something of greatness and
+repose, which it preserves even where one of the elements is
+struggling with invincible obstacles. Near the equator, hurricanes and
+tempests belong to islands only, to deserts destitute of plants, and
+to those spots where parts of the atmosphere repose upon surfaces from
+which the radiation of heat is very unequal.
+
+The mountain of Manimi forms the eastern limit of a plain which
+furnishes for the history of vegetation, that is, for its progressive
+development in bare and desert places, the same phenomena which we
+have described above in speaking of the raudal of Atures. During the
+rainy season, the waters heap vegetable earth upon the granitic rock,
+the bare shelves of which extend horizontally. These islands of mould,
+decorated with beautiful and odoriferous plants, resemble the blocks
+of granite covered with flowers, which the inhabitants of the Alps
+call gardens or courtils, and which pierce the glaciers of
+Switzerland.
+
+In a place where we had bathed the day before, at the foot of the rock
+of Manimi, the Indians killed a serpent seven feet and a half long.
+The Macos called it a camudu. Its back displayed, upon a yellow
+ground, transverse bands, partly black, and partly inclining to a
+brown green: under the belly the bands were blue, and united in
+rhombic spots. This animal, which is not venomous, is said by the
+natives to attain more than fifteen feet in length. I thought at
+first, that the camudu was a boa; but I saw with surprise, that the
+scales beneath the tail were divided into two rows. It was therefore a
+viper (coluber); perhaps a python of the New Continent: I say perhaps,
+for great naturalists appear to admit that all the pythons belong to
+the Old, and all the boas to the New World. As the boa of Pliny was a
+serpent of Africa and of the south of Europe, it would have been well
+if the boas of America had been named pythons, and the pythons of
+India been called boas. The first notions of an enormous reptile
+capable of seizing man, and even the great quadrupeds, came to us from
+India and the coast of Guinea. However indifferent names may be, we
+can scarcely admit the idea, that the hemisphere in which Virgil
+described the agonies of Laocoon (a fable which the Greeks of Asia
+borrowed from much more southern nations) does not possess the
+boa-constrictor. I will not augment the confusion of zoological
+nomenclature by proposing new changes, and shall confine myself to
+observing that at least the missionaries and the latinized Indians of
+the missions, if not the planters of Guiana, clearly distinguish the
+traga-venados (real boas, with simple anal plates) from the culebras
+de agua, or water-snakes, like the camudu (pythons with double anal
+scales). The traga-venados have no transverse bands on the back, but a
+chain of rhombic or hexagonal spots. Some species prefer the driest
+places; others love the water, as the pythons, or culebras de agua.
+
+Advancing towards the west, we find the hills or islets in the
+deserted branch of the Orinoco crowned with the same palm-trees that
+rise on the rocks of the cataracts. One of these hills, called Keri,
+is celebrated in the country on account of a white spot which shines
+from afar, and in which the natives profess to see the image of the
+full moon. I could not climb this steep rock, but I believe the white
+spot to be a large nodule of quartz, formed by the union of several of
+those veins so common in granites passing into gneiss. Opposite Keri,
+or the Rock of the Moon, on the twin mountain Ouivitari, which is an
+islet in the midst of the cataracts, the Indians point out with
+mysterious awe a similar white spot. It has the form of a disc; and
+they say this is the image of the sun (Camosi). Perhaps the
+geographical situation of these two objects has contributed to their
+having received these names. Keri is on the side of the setting,
+Camosi on that of the rising sun. Languages being the most ancient
+historical monuments of nations, some learned men have been singularly
+struck by the analogy between the American word camosi and camosch,
+which seems to have signified originally, the sun, in one of the
+Semitic dialects. This analogy has given rise to hypotheses which
+appear to me at least very problematical. The god of the Moabites,
+Chemosh, or Camosch, who has so wearied the patience of the learned;
+Apollo Chomens, cited by Strabo and by Ammianus Marcellinus;
+Belphegor; Amun or Hamon; and Adonis: all, without doubt, represent
+the sun in the winter solstice; but what can we conclude from a
+solitary and fortuitous resemblance of sounds in languages that have
+nothing besides in common?
+
+The Maypure tongue is still spoken at Atures, although the mission is
+inhabited only by Guahibos and Macos. At Maypures the Guareken and
+Pareni tongues only are now spoken. From the Rio Anaveni, which falls
+into the Orinoco north of Atures, as far as beyond Jao, and to the
+mouth of the Guaviare (between the fourth and sixth degrees of
+latitude), we everywhere find rivers, the termination of which, veni,*
+(* Anaveni, Mataveni, Maraveni, etc.) recalls to mind the extent to
+which the Maypure tongue heretofore prevailed. Veni, or weni,
+signifies water, or a river. The words camosi and keri, which we have
+just cited, are of the idiom of the Pareni Indians,* (* Or Parenas,
+who must not be confounded either with the Paravenes of the Rio Caura
+(Caulin page 69), or with the Parecas, whose language belongs to the
+great family of the Tamanac tongues. A young Indian of Maypures, who
+called himself a Paragini, answered my questions almost in the same
+words that M. Bonpland heard from a Pareni. I have indicated the
+differences in the table, see below.) who, I think I have heard from
+the natives, lived originally on the banks of the Mataveni.* (* South
+of the Rio Zama. We slept in the open air near the mouth of the
+Mataveni on the 28th day of May, in our return from the Rio Negro.)
+The Abbe Gili considers the Pareni as a simple dialect of the Maypure.
+This question cannot be solved by a comparison of the roots merely.
+Being totally ignorant of the grammatical structure of the Pareni, I
+can raise but feeble doubts against the opinion of the Italian
+missionary. The Pareni is perhaps a mixture of two tongues that belong
+to different families; like the Maquiritari, which is composed of the
+Maypure and the Caribbee; or, to cite an example better known, the
+modern Persian, which is allied at the same time to the Sanscrit and
+to the Semitic tongues. The following are Pareni words, which I
+carefully compared with Maypure words.*
+
+TABLE OF PARENI AND MAYPURE WORDS COMPARED.
+
+COLUMN 1 : WORD.
+
+COLUMN 2 : PARENI WORD.
+
+COLUMN 3 : MAYPURE WORD. (* The words of the Maypure language have
+been taken from the works of Gili and Hervas. I collected the words
+placed between parentheses from a young Maco Indian, who understood
+the Maypure language.)
+
+The sun : Camosi : Kie (Kiepurig).
+The moon : Keri : Kejapi (Cagijapi).
+A star : Ouipo : Urrupu.
+The devil : Amethami : Vasuri.
+Water : Oneui (ut) : Oueni.
+Fire : Casi : Catti.
+Lightning : Eno : Eno-ima.* (* I am ignorant of what ima signifies in
+this compound word. Eno means in Maypure the sky and thunder. Ina
+signifies mother.)
+The head : Ossipo : Nuchibucu.* (* The syllables no and nu, joined to
+the words that designate parts of the body, might have been
+suppressed; they answer to the possessive pronoun my.)
+The hair : Nomao.
+The eyes : Nopurizi : Nupuriki.
+The nose : Nosivi : Nukirri.
+The mouth : Nonoma : Nunumacu.
+The teeth : Nasi : Nati.
+The tongue : Notate : Nuare.
+The ear : Notasine : Nuakini.
+The cheek : Nocaco.
+The neck : Nono : Noinu.
+The arm : Nocano : Nuana.
+The hand : Nucavi : Nucapi.
+The breast : Notoroni.
+The back : Notoli.
+The thigh : Nocazo.
+The nipples : Nocini.
+The foot : Nocizi : Nukii.
+The toes : Nociziriani.
+The calf of the leg : Nocavua.
+A crocodile : Cazuiti : Amana.
+A fish : Cimasi : Timaki.
+Maize : Cana : Jomuki.
+Plantain : Paratana (Teot)* : Arata.
+(* We may be surprised to find the word teot denote the eminently
+nutritive substance that supplies the place of corn (the gift of a
+beneficent divinity), and on which the subsistence of man within the
+tropics depends. I may here mention, that the word Teo, or Teot, which
+in Aztec signifies God (Teotl, properly Teo, for tl is only a
+termination), is found in the language of the Betoi of the Rio Meta.
+The name of the moon, in this language so remarkable for the
+complication of its grammatical structure, is Teo-ro. The name of the
+sun is Teo-umasoi. The particle ro designates a woman, umasoi a man.
+Among the Betoi, the Maypures, and so many other nations of both
+continents, the moon is believed to be the wife of the sun. But what
+is this root Teo? It appears to me very doubtful, that Teo-ro should
+signify God-woman, for Memelu is the name of the All-powerful Being in
+the Betoi langnage.)
+Cacao : Cacavua* (* Has this word been introduced from a communication
+with Europeans? It is almost identical with the Mexican (Aztec) word
+cacava.).
+Tobacco : Jema : Jema.
+Pimento : (Pumake).
+Mimosa inga : (Caraba).
+Cecropia peltata : (Jocovi).
+Agaric : (Cajuli).
+Agaric : Puziana (Pagiana) : Papeta (Popetas).
+Agaric : Sinapa (Achinafe) : Avanume (Avanome).
+Agaric : Meteuba (Meuteufafa) : Apekiva (Pejiiveji).
+Agaric : Puriana vacavi : (Jaliva).
+Agaric : Puriana vacavi uschanite.
+Agaric : Puriassima vacavi : (Javiji).
+
+This comparison seems to prove that the analogies observed in the
+roots of the Pareni and the Maypure tongues are not to be neglected;
+they are, however, scarcely more frequent than those that have been
+observed between the Maypure of the Upper Orinoco and the language of
+the Moxos, which is spoken on the banks of the Marmora, from 15 to 20
+degrees of south latitude. The Parenis have in their pronunciation the
+English th, or tsa of the Arabians, as I clearly heard in the word
+Amethami (devil, evil spirit). I need not again notice the origin of
+the word camosi. Solitary resemblances of sounds are as little proof
+of communication between nations as the dissimilitude of a few roots
+furnishes evidence against the affiliation of the German from the
+Persian and the Greek. It is remarkable, however, that the names of
+the sun and moon are sometimes found to be identical in languages, the
+grammatical construction of which is entirely different; I may cite as
+examples the Guarany and the Omagua,* languages of nations formerly
+very powerful. (* Sun and Moon, in Guarany, Quarasi and Jasi; in
+Omagua, Huarassi and Jase. I shall give, farther on, these same words
+in the principal languages of the old and new worlds. See note below.)
+It may be conceived that, with the worship of the stars and of the
+powers of nature, words which have a relation to these objects might
+pass from one idiom to another. I showed the constellation of the
+Southern Cross to a Pareni Indian, who covered the lantern while I was
+taking the circum-meridian heights of the stars; and he called it
+Bahumehi, a name which the caribe fish, or serra salme, also bears in
+Pareni. He was ignorant of the name of the belt of Orion; but a
+Poignave Indian,* who knew the constellations better, assured me that
+in his tongue the belt of Orion bore the name of Fuebot; he called the
+moon Zenquerot. (* At the Orinoco the Puignaves, or Poignaves, are
+distinguished from the Guipunaves (Uipunavi). The latter, on account
+of their language, are considered as belonging to the Maypure and
+Cabre nations; yet water is called in Poignave, as well as in Maypure,
+oueni.) These two words have a very peculiar character for words of
+American origin. As the names of the constellations may have been
+transmitted to immense distances from one nation to another, these
+Poignave words have fixed the attention of the learned, who have
+imagined they recognize the Phoenician and Moabite tongues in the word
+camosi of the Pareni. Fuebot and zenquerot seem to remind us of the
+Phoenician words mot (clay), ardod (oak-tree), ephod, etc. But what
+can we conclude from simple terminations which are most frequently
+foreign to the roots? In Hebrew the feminine plurals terminate also in
+oth. I noted entire phrases in Poignave; but the young man whom I
+interrogated spoke so quick that I could not seize the division of the
+words, and should have mixed them confusedly together had I attempted
+to write them down.* (* For a curious example of this, see the speech
+of Artabanes in Aristophanes (Acharn. act 1 scene 3) where a Greek has
+attempted to give a Persian oration. See also Gibbon's Roman Empire
+chapter 53 note 54, for a curious example of the way in which foreign
+languages have been disfigured when it has been attempted to represent
+them in a totally different tongue.)
+
+The Mission near the raudal of Maypures was very considerable in the
+time of the Jesuits, when it reckoned six hundred inhabitants, among
+whom were several families of whites. Under the government of the
+Fathers of the Observance the population was reduced to less than
+sixty. It must be observed that in this part of South America
+cultivation has been diminishing for half a century, while beyond the
+forests, in the provinces near the sea, we find villages that contain
+from two or three thousand Indians. The inhabitants of Maypures are a
+mild, temperate people, and distinguished by great cleanliness. The
+savages of the Orinoco for the most part have not that inordinate
+fondness for strong liquors which prevails in North America. It is
+true that the Ottomacs, the Jaruros, the Achaguas, and the Caribs, are
+often intoxicated by the immoderate use of chiza and many other
+fermented liquors, which they know how to prepare with cassava, maize,
+and the saccharine fruit of the palm-tree; but travellers have as
+usual generalized what belongs only to the manners of some tribes. We
+were frequently unable to prevail upon the Guahibos, or the
+Maco-Piroas, to taste brandy while they were labouring for us, and
+seemed exhausted by fatigue. It will require a longer residence of
+Europeans in these countries to spread there the vices that are
+already common among the Indians on the coast. In the huts of the
+natives of Maypures we found an appearance of order and neatness,
+rarely met with in the houses of the missionaries.
+
+These natives cultivate plantains and cassava, but no maize. Cassava,
+made into thin cakes, is the bread of the country. Like the greater
+part of the Indians of the Orinoco, the inhabitants of Maypures have
+beverages which may be considered nourishing; one of these, much
+celebrated in that country, is furnished by a palm-tree which grows
+wild in the vicinity of the mission on the banks of the Auvana. This
+tree is the seje: I estimated the number of flowers on one cluster at
+forty-four thousand; and that of the fruit, of which the greater part
+fall without ripening, at eight thousand. The fruit is a small fleshy
+drupe. It is immersed for a few minutes in boiling water, to separate
+the kernel from the parenchymatous part of the sarcocarp, which has a
+sweet taste, and is pounded and bruised in a large vessel filled with
+water. The infusion yields a yellowish liquor, which tastes like milk
+of almonds. Sometimes papelon (unrefined sugar) is added. The
+missionary told us that the natives become visibly fatter during the
+two or three months in which they drink this seje, into which they dip
+their cakes of cassava. The piaches, or Indian jugglers, go into the
+forests, and sound the botuto (the sacred trumpet) under the seje
+palm-trees, to force the tree, they say, to yield an ample produce the
+following year. The people pay for this operation, as the Mongols, the
+Arabs, and nations still nearer to us, pay the chamans, the marabouts,
+and other classes of priests, to drive away the white ants and the
+locusts by mystic words or prayers, or to procure a cessation of
+continued rain, and invert the order of the seasons.
+
+"I have a manufacture of pottery in my village," said Father Zea, when
+accompanying us on a visit to an Indian family, who were occupied in
+baking, by a fire of brushwood, in the open air, large earthen
+vessels, two feet and a half high. This branch of manufacture is
+peculiar to the various tribes of the great family of Maypures, and
+they appear to have followed it from time immemorial. In every part of
+the forests, far from any human habitation, on digging the earth,
+fragments of pottery and delf are found. The taste for this kind of
+manufacture seems to have been common heretofore to the natives of
+both North and South America. To the north of Mexico, on the banks of
+the Rio Gila, among the ruins of an Aztec city; in the United States,
+near the tumuli of the Miamis; in Florida, and in every place where
+any traces of ancient civilization are found, the soil covers
+fragments of painted pottery; and the extreme resemblance of the
+ornaments they display is striking. Savage nations, and those
+civilized people* (* The Hindoos, the Tibetians, the Chinese, the
+ancient Egyptians, the Aztecs, the Peruvians; with whom the tendency
+toward civilization in a body has prevented the free development of
+the faculties of individuals.) who are condemned by their political
+and religious institutions always to imitate themselves, strive, as if
+by instinct, to perpetuate the same forms, to preserve a peculiar type
+or style, and to follow the methods and processes which were employed
+by their ancestors. In North America, fragments of delf ware have been
+discovered in places where there exist lines of fortification, and the
+walls of towns constructed by some unknown nation, now entirely
+extinct. The paintings on these fragments have a great similitude to
+those which are executed in our days on earthenware by the natives of
+Louisiana and Florida. Thus too, the Indians of Maypures often painted
+before our eyes the same ornaments as those we had observed in the
+cavern of Ataruipe, on the vases containing human bones. They were
+grecques, meanders, and figures of crocodiles, of monkeys, and of a
+large quadruped which I could not recognize, though it had always the
+same squat form. I might hazard the hypothesis that it belongs to
+another country, and that the type had been brought thither in the
+great migration of the American nations from the north-west to the
+south and south-east; but I am rather inclined to believe that the
+figure is intended to represent a tapir, and that the deformed image
+of a native animal has become by degrees one of the types that has
+been preserved.
+
+The Maypures execute with the greatest skill grecques, or ornaments
+formed by straight lines variously combined, similar to those that we
+find on the vases of Magna Grecia, on the Mexican edifices at Mitla,
+and in the works of so many nations who, without communication with
+each other, find alike a sensible pleasure in the symmetric repetition
+of the same forms. Arabesques, meanders, and grecques, please our
+eyes, because the elements of which their series is composed, follow
+in rhythmic order. The eye finds in this order, in the periodical
+return of the same forms, what the ear distinguishes in the cadenced
+succession of sounds and concords. Can we then admit a doubt that the
+feeling of rhythm manifests itself in man at the first dawn of
+civilization, and in the rudest essays of poetry and song?
+
+Among the natives of Maypures, the making of pottery is an occupation
+principally confined to the women. They purify the clay by repeated
+washings, form it into cylinders, and mould the largest vases with
+their hands. The American Indian is unacquainted with the potter's
+wheel, which was familiar to the nations of the east in the remotest
+antiquity. We may be surprised that the missionaries have not
+introduced this simple and useful machine among the natives of the
+Orinoco, yet we must recollect that three centuries have not sufficed
+to make it known among the Indians of the peninsula of Araya, opposite
+the port of Cumana. The colours used by the Maypures are the oxides of
+iron and manganese, and particularly the yellow and red ochres that
+are found in the hollows of sandstone. Sometimes the fecula of the
+Bignonia chica is employed, after the pottery has been exposed to a
+feeble fire. This painting is covered with a varnish of algarobo,
+which is the transparent resin of the Hymenaea courbaril. The large
+vessels in which the chiza is preserved are called ciamacu, the
+smallest bear the name of mucra, from which word the Spaniards of the
+coast have framed murcura. Not only the Maypures, but also the
+Guaypunaves, the Caribs, the Ottomacs, and even the Guamos, are
+distinguished at the Orinoco as makers of painted pottery, and this
+manufacture extended formerly towards the banks of the Amazon.
+Orellana was struck with the painted ornaments on the ware of the
+Omaguas, who in his time were a populous commercial nation.
+
+The following facts throw some light on the history of American
+civilization. In the United States, west of the Allegheny mountains,
+particularly between the Ohio and the great lakes of Canada, on
+digging the earth, fragments of painted pottery, mingled with brass
+tools, are constantly found. This mixture may well surprise us in a
+country where, on the first arrival of Europeans, the natives were
+ignorant of the use of metals. In the forests of South America, which
+extend from the equator as far as the eighth degree of north latitude,
+from the foot of the Andes to the Atlantic, this painted pottery is
+discovered in the most desert places, but it is found accompanied by
+hatchets of jade and other hard stones, skilfully perforated. No
+metallic tools or ornaments have ever been discovered; though in the
+mountains on the shore, and at the back of the Cordilleras, the art of
+melting gold and copper, and of mixing the latter metal with tin to
+make cutting instruments, was known. How can we account for these
+contrasts between the temperate and the torrid zone? The Incas of Peru
+had pushed their conquests and their religious wars as far as the
+banks of the Napo and the Amazon, where their language extended over a
+small space of land; but the civilization of the Peruvians, of the
+inhabitants of Quito, and of the Muyscas of New Grenada, never appears
+to have had any sensible influence on the moral state of the nations
+of Guiana. It must be observed further, that in North America, between
+the Ohio, Miami, and the Lakes, an unknown people, whom systematic
+authors would make the descendants of the Toltecs and Aztecs,
+constructed walls of earth and sometimes of stone without mortar,*
+from ten to fifteen feet high, and seven or eight thousand feet long.
+(* Of siliceous limestone, at Pique, on the Great Miami; of sandstone
+at Creek Point, ten leagues from Chillakothe, where the wall is
+fifteen hundred toises long.) These singular circumvallations
+sometimes enclosed a hundred and fifty acres of ground. In the plains
+of the Orinoco, as in those of Marietta, the Miami, and the Ohio, the
+centre of an ancient civilization is found in the west on the back of
+the mountains; but the Orinoco, and the countries lying between that
+great river and the Amazon, appear never to have been inhabited by
+nations whose constructions have resisted the ravages of time. Though
+symbolical figures are found engraved on the hardest rocks, yet
+further south than eight degrees of latitude, no tumulus, no
+circumvallation, no dike of earth similar to those that exist farther
+north in the plains of Varinas and Canagua, has been found. Such is
+the contrast that may be observed between the eastern parts of North
+and South America, those parts which extend from the table-land of
+Cundinamarca* (* This is the ancient name of the empire of the Zaques,
+founded by Bochica or Idacanzas, the high priest of Iraca, in New
+Grenada.) and the mountains of Cayenne towards the Atlantic, and those
+which stretch from the Andes of New Spain towards the Alleghenies.
+Nations advanced in civilization, of which we discover traces on the
+banks of lake Teguyo and in the Casas grandes of the Rio Gila, might
+have sent some tribes eastward into the open countries of the Missouri
+and the Ohio, where the climate differs little from that of New
+Mexico; but in South America, where the great flux of nations has
+continued from north to south, those who had long enjoyed the mild
+temperature of the back of the equinoctial Cordilleras no doubt
+dreaded a descent into burning plains bristled with forests, and
+inundated by the periodical swellings of rivers. It is easy to
+conceive how much the force of vegetation, and the nature of the soil
+and climate, within the torrid zone, embarrassed the natives in regard
+to migration in numerous bodies, prevented settlements requiring an
+extensive space, and perpetuated the misery and barbarism of solitary
+hordes.
+
+The feeble civilization introduced in our days by the Spanish monks
+pursues a retrograde course. Father Gili relates that, at the time of
+the expedition to the boundaries, agriculture began to make some
+progress on the banks of the Orinoco; and that cattle, especially
+goats, had multiplied considerably at Maypures. We found no goats,
+either in the mission or in any other village of the Orinoco; they had
+all been devoured by the tigers. The black and white breeds of pigs
+only, the latter of which are called French pigs (puercos franceses),
+because they are believed to have come from the Caribbee Islands, have
+resisted the pursuit of wild beasts. We saw with much pleasure
+guacamayas, or tame macaws, round the huts of the Indians, and flying
+to the fields like our pigeons. This bird is the largest and most
+majestic species of parrot with naked cheeks that we found in our
+travels. It is called in Marativitan, cahuei. Including the tail, it
+is two feet three inches long. We had observed it also on the banks of
+the Atabapo, the Temi, and the Rio Negro. The flesh of the cahuei,
+which is frequently eaten, is black and somewhat tough. These macaws,
+whose plumage glows with vivid tints of purple, blue, and yellow, are
+a great ornament to the Indian farm-yards; they do not yield in beauty
+to the peacock, the golden pheasant, the pauxi, or the alector. The
+practice of rearing parrots, birds of a family so different from the
+gallinaceous tribes, was remarked by Columbus. When he discovered
+America he saw macaws, or large parrots, which served as food to the
+natives of the Caribbee Islands, instead of fowls.
+
+A majestic tree, more than sixty feet high, which the planters call
+fruta de burro, grows in the vicinity of the little village of
+Maypures. It is a new species of the unona, and has the stateliness of
+the Uvaria zeylanica of Aublet. Its branches are straight, and rise in
+a pyramid, nearly like the poplar of the Mississippi, erroneously
+called the Lombardy poplar. The tree is celebrated for its aromatic
+fruit, the infusion of which is a powerful febrifuge. The poor
+missionaries of the Orinoco, who are afflicted with tertian fevers
+during a great part of the year, seldom travel without a little bag
+filled with frutas de burro. I have already observed that between the
+tropics, the use of aromatics, for instance very strong coffee, the
+Croton cascarilla, or the pericarp of the Unona xylopioides, is
+generally preferred to that of the astringent bark of cinchona, or of
+Bonplandia trifolatia, which is the Angostura bark. The people of
+America have the most inveterate prejudice against the employment of
+different kinds of cinchona; and in the very countries where this
+valuable remedy grows, they try (to use their own phrase) to cut off
+the fever, by infusions of Scoparia dulcis, and hot lemonade prepared
+with sugar and the small wild lime, the rind of which is equally oily
+and aromatic.
+
+The weather was unfavourable for astronomical observations. I
+obtained, however, on the 20th of April, a good series of
+corresponding altitudes of the sun, according to which the chronometer
+gave 70 degrees 37 minutes 33 seconds for the longitude of the mission
+of Maypures; the latitude was found, by a star observed towards the
+north, to be 5 degrees 13 minutes 57 seconds; and by a star observed
+towards the south, 5 degrees 13 minutes 7 seconds. The error of the
+most recent maps is half a degree of longitude and half a degree of
+latitude. It would be difficult to relate the trouble and torments
+which these nocturnal observations cost us. Nowhere is a denser cloud
+of mosquitos to be found. It formed, as it were, a particular stratum
+some feet above the ground, and it thickened as we brought lights to
+illumine our artificial horizon. The inhabitants of Maypures, for the
+most part, quit the village to sleep in the islets amid the cataracts,
+where the number of insects is less; others make a fire of brushwood
+in their huts, and suspend their hammocks in the midst of the smoke.
+
+We spent two days and a half in the little village of Maypures, on the
+banks of the great Upper Cataract, and on the 21st April we embarked
+in the canoe we had obtained from the missionary of Carichana. It was
+much damaged by the shoals it had struck against, and the carelessness
+of the Indians; but still greater dangers awaited it. It was to be
+dragged over land, across an isthmus of thirty-six thousand feet; from
+the Rio Tuamini to the Rio Negro, to go up by the Cassiquiare to the
+Orinoco, and to repass the two raudales.
+
+When the traveller has passed the Great Cataracts, he feels as if he
+were in a new world, and had overstepped the barriers which nature
+seems to have raised between the civilized countries of the coast and
+the savage and unknown interior. Towards the east, in the bluish
+distance, we saw for the last time the high chain of the Cunavami
+mountains. Its long, horizontal ridge reminded us of the Mesa of the
+Brigantine, near Cumana; but it terminates by a truncated summit. The
+Peak of Calitamini (the name given to this summit) glows at sunset as
+with a reddish fire. This appearance is every day the same. No one
+ever approached this mountain, the height of which does not exceed six
+hundred toises. I believe this splendour, commonly reddish but
+sometimes silvery, to be a reflection produced by large plates of
+talc, or by gneiss passing into mica-slate. The whole of this country
+contains granitic rocks, on which here and there, in little plains, an
+argillaceous grit-stone immediately reposes, containing fragments of
+quartz and of brown iron-ore.
+
+In going to the embarcadero, we caught on the trunk of a hevea* (* One
+of those trees whose milk yields caoutchouc.) a new species of
+tree-frog, remarkable for its beautiful colours; it had a yellow
+belly, the back and head of a fine velvety purple, and a very narrow
+stripe of white from the point of the nose to the hinder extremities.
+This frog was two inches long, and allied to the Rana tinctoria, the
+blood of which, it is asserted, introduced into the skin of a parrot,
+in places where the feathers have been plucked out, occasions the
+growth of frizzled feathers of a yellow or red colour. The Indians
+showed us on the way, what is no doubt very curious in that country,
+traces of cartwheels in the rock. They spoke, as of an unknown animal,
+of those beasts with large horns, which, at the time of the expedition
+to the boundaries, drew the boats through the valley of Keri, from the
+Rio Toparo to the Rio Cameji, to avoid the cataracts, and save the
+trouble of unloading the merchandize. I believe these poor inhabitants
+of Maypures would now be as much astonished at the sight of an ox of
+the Spanish breed, as the Romans were at the sight of the Lucanian
+oxen, as they called the elephants of the army of Pyrrhus.
+
+We embarked at Puerto de Arriba, and passed the Raudal de Cameji with
+some difficulty. This passage is reputed to be dangerous when the
+water is very high; but we found the surface of the river beyond the
+raudal as smooth as glass. We passed the night in a rocky island
+called Piedra Raton, which is three-quarters of a league long, and
+displays that singular aspect of rising vegetation, those clusters of
+shrubs, scattered over a bare and rocky soil, of which we have often
+spoken.
+
+On the 22nd of April we departed an hour and a half before sunrise.
+The morning was humid but delicious; not a breath of wind was felt;
+for south of Atures and Maypures a perpetual calm prevails. On the
+banks of the Rio Negro and the Cassiquiare, at the foot of Cerro
+Duida, and at the mission of Santa Barbara, we never heard that
+rustling of the leaves which has such a peculiar charm in very hot
+climates. The windings of rivers, the shelter of mountains, the
+thickness of the forests, and the almost continual rains, at one or
+two degrees of latitude north of the equator, contribute no doubt to
+this phenomenon, which is peculiar to the missions of the Orinoco.
+
+In that part of the valley of the Amazon which is south of the
+equator, but at the same distance from it, as the places just
+mentioned, a strong wind always rises two hours after mid-day. This
+wind blows constantly against the stream, and is felt only in the bed
+of the river. Below San Borja it is an easterly wind; at Tomependa I
+found it between north and north-north-east; it is still the same
+breeze, the wind of the rotation of the globe, but modified by slight
+local circumstances. By favour of this general breeze you may go up
+the Amazon under sail, from Grand Para as far as Tefe, a distance of
+seven hundred and fifty leagues. In the province of Jaen de
+Bracamoros, at the foot of the western declivity of the Cordilleras,
+this Atlantic breeze rises sometimes to a tempest.
+
+It is highly probable that the great salubrity of the Amazon is owing
+to this constant breeze. In the stagnant air of the Upper Orinoco the
+chemical affinities act more powerfully, and more deleterious miasmata
+are formed. The insalubrity of the climate would be the same on the
+woody banks of the Amazon, if that river, running like the Niger from
+west to east, did not follow in its immense length the same direction,
+which is that of the trade-winds. The valley of the Amazon is closed
+only at its western extremity, where it approaches the Cordilleras of
+the Andes. Towards the east, where the sea-breeze strikes the New
+Continent, the shore is raised but a few feet above the level of the
+Atlantic. The Upper Orinoco first runs from east to west, and then
+from north to south. Where its course is nearly parallel to that of
+the Amazon, a very hilly country (the group of the mountains of Parima
+and of Dutch and French Guiana) separates it from the Atlantic, and
+prevents the wind of rotation from reaching Esmeralda. This wind
+begins to be powerfully felt only from the confluence of the Apure,
+where the Lower Orinoco runs from west to east in a vast plain open
+towards the Atlantic, and therefore the climate of this part of the
+river is less noxious than that of the Upper Orinoco.
+
+In order to add a third point of comparison, I may mention the valley
+of the Rio Magdalena, which, like the Amazon, has one direction only,
+but unfortunately, instead of being that of the breeze, it is from
+south to north. Situated in the region of the trade-winds, the Rio
+Magdalena has the stagnant air of the Upper Orinoco. From the canal of
+Mahates as far as Honda, particularly south of the town of Mompox, we
+never felt the wind blow but at the approach of the evening storms.
+When, on the contrary, you proceed up the river beyond Honda, you find
+the atmosphere often agitated. The strong winds that are ingulfed in
+the valley of Neiva are noted for their excessive heat. We may be at
+first surprised to perceive that the calm ceases as we approach the
+lofty mountains in the upper course of the river, but this
+astonishment ends when we recollect that the dry and burning winds of
+the Llanos de Neiva are the effect of descending currents. The columns
+of cold air rush from the top of the Nevados of Quindiu and of
+Guanacas into the valley, driving before them the lower strata of the
+atmosphere. Everywhere the unequal heating of the soil, and the
+proximity of mountains covered with perpetual snow, cause partial
+currents within the tropics, as well as in the temperate zone. The
+violent winds of Neiva are not the effect of a repercussion of the
+trade-winds; they rise where those winds cannot penetrate; and if the
+mountains of the Upper Orinoco, the tops of which are generally
+crowned with trees, were more elevated, they would produce the same
+impetuous movements in the atmosphere as we observe in the Cordilleras
+of Peru, of Abyssinia, and of Thibet. The intimate connection that
+exists between the direction of rivers, the height and disposition of
+the adjacent mountains, the movements of the atmosphere, and the
+salubrity of the climate, are subjects well worthy of attention. The
+study of the surface and the inequalities of the soil would indeed be
+irksome and useless were it not connected with more general
+considerations.
+
+At the distance of six miles from the island of Piedra Raton we
+passed, first, on the east, the mouth of the Rio Sipapo, called Tipapu
+by the Indians; and then, on the west, the mouth of the Rio Vichada.
+Near the latter are some rocks covered by the water, that form a small
+cascade or raudalito. The Rio Sipapo, which Father Gili went up in
+1757, and which he says is twice as broad as the Tiber, comes from a
+considerable chain of mountains, which in its southern part bears the
+name of the river, and joins the group of Calitamini and of Cunavami.
+Next to the Peak of Duida, which rises above the mission of Esmeralda,
+the Cerros of Sipapo appeared to me the most lofty of the whole
+Cordillera of Parima. They form an immense wall of rocks, shooting up
+abruptly from the plain, its craggy ridge of running from
+south-south-east to north-north-west. I believe these crags, these
+indentations, which equally occur in the sandstone of Montserrat in
+Catalonia,* (* From them the name of Montserrat is derived, Monte
+Serrato signifying a mountain ridged or jagged like a saw.) are owing
+to blocks of granite heaped together. The Cerros de Sipapo wear a
+different aspect every hour of the day. At sunrise the thick
+vegetation with which these mountains are clothed is tinged with that
+dark green inclining to brown, which is peculiar to a region where
+trees with coriaceous leaves prevail. Broad and strong shadows are
+projected on the neighbouring plain, and form a contrast with the
+vivid light diffused over the ground, in the air, and on the surface
+of the waters. But towards noon, when the sun reaches its zenith,
+these strong shadows gradually disappear, and the whole group is
+veiled by an aerial vapour of a much deeper azure than that of the
+lower regions of the celestial vault. These vapours, circulating
+around the rocky ridge, soften its outline, temper the effects of the
+light, and give the landscape that aspect of calmness and repose which
+in nature, as in the works of Claude Lorraine and Poussin, arises from
+the harmony of forms and colours.
+
+Cruzero, the powerful chief of the Guaypunaves, long resided behind
+the mountains of Sipapo, after having quitted with his warlike horde
+the plains between the Rio Inirida and the Chamochiquini. The Indians
+told us that the forests which cover the Sipapo abound in the climbing
+plant called vehuco de maimure. This species of liana is celebrated
+among the Indians, and serves for making baskets and weaving mats. The
+forests of Sipapo are altogether unknown, and there the missionaries
+place the nation of the Rayas,* whose mouths are believed to be in
+their navels.
+
+(* Rays, on account of the pretended analogy with the fish of this
+name, the mouth of which seems as if forced downwards below the body.
+This singular legend has been spread far and wide over the earth.
+Shakespeare has described Othello as recounting marvellous tales:
+
+"of cannibals that do each other eat:
+Of Anthropophagi, and men whose heads
+Do grow beneath their shoulders.")
+
+An old Indian, whom we met at Carichana, and who boasted of having
+often eaten human flesh, had seen these acephali "with his own eyes."
+These absurd fables are spread as far as the Llanos, where you are not
+always permitted to doubt the existence of the Raya Indians. In every
+zone intolerance accompanies credulity; and it might be said that the
+fictions of ancient geographers had passed from one hemisphere to the
+other, did we not know that the most fantastic productions of the
+imagination, like the works of nature, furnish everywhere a certain
+analogy of aspect and of form.
+
+We landed at the mouth of the Rio Vichada or Visata to examine the
+plants of that part of the country. The scenery is very singular. The
+forest is thin, and an innumerable quantity of small rocks rise from
+the plain. These form massy prisms, ruined pillars, and solitary
+towers fifteen or twenty feet high. Some are shaded by the trees of
+the forest, others have their summits crowned with palms. These rocks
+are of granite passing into gneiss. At the confluence of the Vichada
+the rocks of granite, and what is still more remarkable, the soil
+itself, are covered with moss and lichens. These latter resemble the
+Cladonia pyxidata and the Lichen rangiferinus, so common in the north
+of Europe. We could scarcely persuade ourselves that we were elevated
+less than one hundred toises above the level of the sea, in the fifth
+degree of latitude, in the centre of the torrid zone, which has so
+long been thought to be destitute of cryptogamous plants. The mean
+temperature of this shady and humid spot probably exceeds twenty-six
+degrees of the centigrade thermometer. Reflecting on the small
+quantity of rain which had hitherto fallen, we were surprised at the
+beautiful verdure of the forests. This peculiarity characterises the
+valley of the Upper Orinoco; on the coast of Caracas, and in the
+Llanos, the trees in winter (in the season called summer in South
+America, north of the equator) are stripped of their leaves, and the
+ground is covered only with yellow and withered grass. Between the
+solitary rocks just described arise some high plants of columnar
+cactus (Cactus septemangularis), a very rare appearance south of the
+cataracts of Atures and Maypures.
+
+Amid this picturesque scene M. Bonpland was fortunate enough to find
+several specimens of Laurus cinnamomoides, a very aromatic species of
+cinnamon, known at the Orinoco by the names of varimacu and of
+canelilla.* (* The diminutive of the Spanish word canela, which
+signifies cinnamon.) This valuable production is found also in the
+valley of the Rio Caura, as well as near Esmeralda, and eastward of
+the Great Cataracts. The Jesuit Francisco de Olmo appears to have been
+the first who discovered the canelilla, which he did in the country of
+the Piaroas, near the sources of the Cataniapo. The missionary Gili,
+who did not advance so far as the regions I am now describing, seems
+to confound the varimacu, or guarimacu, with the myristica, or
+nutmeg-tree of America. These barks and aromatic fruits, the cinnamon,
+the nutmeg, the Myrtus pimenta, and the Laurus pucheri, would have
+become important objects of trade, if Europe, at the period of the
+discovery of the New World, had not already been accustomed to the
+spices and aromatics of India. The cinnamon of the Orinoco, and that
+of the Andaquies missions, are, however, less aromatic than the
+cinnamon of Ceylon, and would still be so even if dried and prepared
+by similar processes.
+
+Every hemisphere produces plants of a different species; and it is not
+by the diversity of climates that we can attempt to explain why
+equinoctial Africa has no laurels, and the New World no heaths; why
+calceolariae are found wild only in the southern hemisphere; why the
+birds of the East Indies glow with colours less splendid than those of
+the hot parts of America; finally, why the tiger is peculiar to Asia,
+and the ornithorynchus to Australia. In the vegetable as well as in
+the animal kingdom, the causes of the distribution of the species are
+among the mysteries which natural philosophy cannot solve. The
+attempts made to explain the distribution of various species on the
+globe by the sole influence of climate, take their date from a period
+when physical geography was still in its infancy; when, recurring
+incessantly to pretended contrasts between the two worlds, it was
+imagined that the whole of Africa and of America resembled the deserts
+of Egypt and the marshes of Cayenne. At present, when men judge of the
+state of things not from one type arbitrarily chosen, but from
+positive knowledge, it is ascertained that the two continents, in
+their immense extent, contain countries that are altogether analogous.
+There are regions of America as barren and burning as the interior of
+Africa. Those islands which produce the spices of India are scarcely
+remarkable for their dryness; and it is not on account of the humidity
+of the climate, as has been affirmed in recent works, that the New
+Continent is deprived of those fine species of lauriniae and
+myristicae, which are found united in one little corner of the earth
+in the archipelago of India. For some years past cinnamon has been
+cultivated with success in several parts of the New Continent; and a
+zone that produces the coumarouna, the vanilla, the pucheri, the
+pine-apple, the pimento, the balsam of tolu, the Myroxylon peruvianum,
+the croton, the citroma, the pejoa, the incienso of the Silla of
+Caracas, the quereme, the pancratium, and so many majestic liliaceous
+plants, cannot be considered as destitute of aromatics. Besides, a dry
+air favours the development of the aromatic or exciting properties,
+only in certain species of plants. The most inveterate poisons are
+produced in the most humid zone of America; and it is precisely under
+the influence of the long rains of the tropics that the American
+pimento (Capsicum baccatum), the fruit of which is often as caustic
+and fiery as Indian pepper, vegetates best. From all these
+considerations it follows, first, that the New Continent possesses
+spices, aromatics, and very active vegetable poisons, peculiar to
+itself, and differing specifically from those of the Old World;
+secondly, that the primitive distribution of species in the torrid
+zone cannot be explained by the influence of climate solely, or by the
+distribution of temperature, which we observe in the present state of
+our planet; but that this difference of climates leads us to perceive
+why a given type of organization develops itself more vigorously in
+such or such local circumstances. We can conceive that a small number
+of the families of plants, for instance the musaceae and the palms,
+cannot belong to very cold regions, on account of their internal
+structure, and the importance of certain organs; but we cannot explain
+why no one of the family of the Melastomaceae vegetates north of the
+parallel of the thirtieth degree of latitude, or why no rose-tree
+belongs to the southern hemisphere. Analogy of climates is often found
+in the two continents, without identity of productions.
+
+The Rio Vichada, which has a small raudal at its confluence with the
+Orinoco, appeared to me, next to the Meta and the Guaviare, to be the
+most considerable river coming from the west. During the last forty
+years no European has navigated the Vichada. I could learn nothing of
+its sources; they rise, I believe, with those of the Tomo, in the
+plains that extend to the south of Casimena. Fugitive Indians of Santa
+Rosalia de Cabapuna, a village situate on the banks of the Meta, have
+arrived even recently, by the Rio Vichada, at the cataract of
+Maypures; which sufficiently proves that the sources of this river are
+not very distant from the Meta. Father Gumilla has preserved the names
+of several German and Spanish Jesuits, who in 1734 fell victims to
+their zeal for religion, by the hands of the Caribs on the now desert
+banks of the Vichada.
+
+Having passed the Cano Pirajavi on the east, and then a small river on
+the west, which issues, as the Indians say, from a lake called Nao, we
+rested for the night on the shore of the Orinoco, at the mouth of the
+Zama, a very considerable river, but as little known as the Vichada.
+Notwithstanding the black waters of the Zama, we suffered greatly from
+insects. The night was beautiful, without a breath of wind in the
+lower regions of the atmosphere, but towards two in the morning we saw
+thick clouds crossing the zenith rapidly from east to west. When,
+declining toward the horizon, they traversed the great nebulae of
+Sagittarius and the Ship, they appeared of a dark blue. The light of
+the nebulae is never more splendid than when they are in part covered
+by sweeping clouds. We observe the same phenomenon in Europe in the
+Milky Way, in the aurora borealis when it beams with a silvery light;
+and at the rising and setting of the sun in that part of the sky that
+is whitened* from causes which philosophers have not yet sufficiently
+explained. (* The dawn: in French aube (alba, albente coelo.))
+
+The vast tract of country lying between the Meta, the Vichada, and the
+Guaviare, is altogether unknown a league from the banks; but it is
+believed to be inhabited by wild Indians of the tribe of Chiricoas,
+who fortunately build no boats. Formerly, when the Caribs, and their
+enemies the Cabres, traversed these regions with their little fleets
+of rafts and canoes, it would have been imprudent to have passed the
+night near the mouth of a river running from the west. The little
+settlements of the Europeans having now caused the independent Indians
+to retire from the banks of the Upper Orinoco, the solitude of these
+regions is such, that from Carichana to Javita, and from Esmeralda to
+San Fernando de Atabapo, during a course of one hundred and eighty
+leagues, we did not meet a single boat.
+
+At the mouth of the Rio Zama we approach a class of rivers, that
+merits great attention. The Zama, the Mataveni, the Atabapo, the
+Tuamini, the Temi, and the Guainia, are aguas negras, that is, their
+waters, seen in a large body, appear brown like coffee, or of a
+greenish black. These waters, notwithstanding, are most beautiful,
+clear, and agreeable to the taste. I have observed above, that the
+crocodiles, and, if not the zancudos, at least the mosquitos,
+generally shun the black waters. The people assert too, that these
+waters do not colour the rocks; and that the white rivers have black
+borders, while the black rivers have white. In fact, the shores of the
+Guainia, known to Europeans by the name of the Rio Negro, frequently
+exhibit masses of quartz issuing from granite, and of a dazzling
+whiteness. The waters of the Mataveni, when examined in a glass, are
+pretty white; those of the Atabapo retain a slight tinge of
+yellowish-brown. When the least breath of wind agitates the surface of
+these black rivers they appear of a fine grass-green, like the lakes
+of Switzerland. In the shade, the Zama, the Atabapo, and the Guainia,
+are as dark as coffee-grounds. These phenomena are so striking, that
+the Indians everywhere distinguish the waters by the terms black and
+white. The former have often served me for an artificial horizon; they
+reflect the image of the stars with admirable clearness.
+
+The colour of the waters of springs, rivers, and lakes, ranks among
+those physical problems which it is difficult, if not impossible, to
+solve by direct experiments. The tints of reflected light are
+generally very different from the tints of transmitted light;
+particularly when the transmission takes place through a great portion
+of fluid. If there were no absorption of rays, the transmitted light
+would be of a colour corresponding with that of the reflected light;
+and in general we judge imperfectly of transmitted light, by filling
+with water a shallow glass with a narrow aperture. In a river, the
+colour of the reflected light comes to us always from the interior
+strata of the fluid, and not from the upper stratum.
+
+Some celebrated naturalists, who have examined the purest waters of
+the glaciers, and those which flow from mountains covered with
+perpetual snow, where the earth is destitute of the relics of
+vegetation, have thought that the proper colour of water might be
+blue, or green. Nothing, in fact, proves, that water is by nature
+white; and we must always admit the presence of a colouring principle,
+when water viewed by reflection is coloured. In the rivers that
+contain a colouring principle, that principle is generally so little
+in quantity, that it eludes all chemical research. The tints of the
+ocean seem often to depend neither on the nature of the bottom, nor on
+the reflection of the sky on the clouds. Sir Humphrey Davy was of
+opinion that the tints of different seas may very likely be owing to
+different proportions of iodine.
+
+On consulting the geographers of antiquity, we find that the Greeks
+had noticed the blue waters of Thermopylae, the red waters of Joppa,
+and the black waters of the hot-baths of Astyra, opposite Lesbos. Some
+rivers, the Rhone for instance, near Geneva, have a decidedly blue
+colour. It is said, that the snow-waters of the Alps are sometimes of
+a dark emerald green. Several lakes of Savoy and of Peru have a brown
+colour approaching black. Most of these phenomena of coloration are
+observed in waters that are believed to be the purest; and it is
+rather from reasonings founded on analogy, than from any direct
+analysis, that we may throw any light on so uncertain a matter. In the
+vast system of rivers near the mouth of the Rio Zama, a fact which
+appears to me remarkable is, that the black waters are principally
+restricted to the equatorial regions. They begin about five degrees of
+north latitude; and abound thence to beyond the equator as far as
+about two degrees of south latitude. The mouth of the Rio Negro is
+indeed in the latitude of 3 degrees 9 minutes; but in this interval
+the black and white waters are so singularly mingled in the forests
+and the savannahs, that we know not to what cause the coloration must
+be attributed. The waters of the Cassiquiare, which fall into the Rio
+Negro, are as white as those of the Orinoco, from which it issues. Of
+two tributary streams of the Cassiquiare very near each other, the
+Siapa and the Pacimony, one is white, the other black.
+
+When the Indians are interrogated respecting the causes of these
+strange colorations, they answer, as questions in natural philosophy
+or physiology are sometimes answered in Europe, by repeating the fact
+in other terms. If you address yourself to the missionaries, they
+reply, as if they had the most convincing proofs of the fact, that the
+waters are coloured by washing the roots of the sarsaparilla. The
+Smilaceae no doubt abound on the banks of the Rio Negro, the Pacimony,
+and the Cababury; their roots, macerated in the water, yield an
+extractive matter, that is brown, bitter, and mucilaginous; but how
+many tufts of smilax have we seen in places, where the waters were
+entirely white. In the marshy forest which we traversed, to convey our
+canoe from the Rio Tuamini to the Cano Pimichin and the Rio Negro,
+why, in the same soil, did we ford alternately rivulets of black and
+white water? Why did we find no river white near its springs, and
+black in the lower part of its course? I know not whether the Rio
+Negro preserves its yellowish brown colour as far as its mouth,
+notwithstanding the great quantity of white water it receives from the
+Cassiquiare and the Rio Blanco.
+
+Although, on account of the abundance of rain, vegetation is more
+vigorous close to the equator than eight or ten degrees north or
+south, it cannot be affirmed, that the rivers with black waters rise
+principally in the most shady and thickest forests. On the contrary, a
+great number of the aguas negras come from the open savannahs that
+extend from the Meta beyond the Guaviare towards the Caqueta. In a
+journey which I made with Senor Montufar from the port of Guayaquil to
+the Bodegas de Babaojo, at the period of the great inundations, I was
+struck by the analogy of colour displayed by the vast savannahs of the
+Invernadero del Garzal and of the Lagartero, as well as by the Rio
+Negro and the Atabapo. These savannahs, partly inundated during three
+months, are composed of paspalum, eriochloa, and several species of
+cyperaceae. We sailed on waters that were from four to five feet deep;
+their temperature was by day from 33 to 34 degrees of the centigrade
+thermometer; they exhaled a strong smell of sulphuretted hydrogen, to
+which no doubt some rotten plants of arum and heliconia, that swam on
+the surface of the pools, contributed. The waters of the Lagartero
+were of a golden yellow by transmitted, and coffee-brown by reflected
+light. They are no doubt coloured by a carburet of hydrogen. An
+analogous phenomenon is observed in the dunghill-waters prepared by
+our gardeners, and in the waters that issue from bogs. May we not also
+admit, that it is a mixture of carbon and hydrogen, an extractive
+vegetable matter, that colours the black rivers, the Atabapo, the
+Zama, the Mataveni, and the Guainia? The frequency of the equatorial
+rains contributes no doubt to this coloration by filtration through a
+thick mass of grasses. I suggest these ideas only in the form of a
+doubt. The colouring principle seems to be in little abundance; for I
+observed that the waters of the Guainia or Rio Negro, when subjected
+to ebullition, do not become brown like other fluids charged with
+carburets of hydrogen.
+
+It is also very remarkable, that this phenomenon of black waters,
+which might be supposed to belong only to the low regions of the
+torrid zone, is found also, though rarely, on the table-lands of the
+Andes. The town of Cuenca in the kingdom of Quito, is surrounded by
+three small rivers, the Machangara, the Rio del Matadero, and the
+Yanuncai; of which the two former are white, and the waters of the
+last are black (aguas negras). These waters, like those of the
+Atabapo, are of a coffee-colour by reflection, and pale yellow by
+transmission. They are very clear, and the inhabitants of Cuenca, who
+drink them in preference to any other, attribute their colour to the
+sarsaparilla, which it is said grows abundantly on the banks of the
+Rio Yanuncai.
+
+We left the mouth of the Zama at five in the morning of the 23rd of
+April. The river continued to be skirted on both sides by a thick
+forest. The mountains on the east seemed gradually to retire farther
+back. We passed first the mouth of the Rio Mataveni, and afterward an
+islet of a very singular form; a square granitic rock that rises in
+the middle of the water. It is called by the missionaries El
+Castillito, or the Little Castle. Black bands seem to indicate, that
+the highest swellings of the Orinoco do not rise at this place above
+eight feet; and that the great swellings observed lower down are owing
+to the tributary streams which flow into it north of the raudales of
+Atures and Maypures. We passed the night on the right bank opposite
+the mouth of the Rio Siucurivapu, near a rock called Aricagua. During
+the night an innumerable quantity of bats issued from the clefts of
+the rock, and hovered around our hammocks.
+
+On the 24th a violent rain obliged us early to return to our boat. We
+departed at two o'clock, after having lost some books, which we could
+not find in the darkness of the night, on the rock of Aricagua. The
+river runs straight from south to north; its banks are low, and shaded
+on both sides by thick forests. We passed the mouths of the Ucata, the
+Arapa, and the Caranaveni. About four in the afternoon we landed at
+the Conucos de Siquita, the Indian plantations of the mission of San
+Fernando. The good people wished to detain us among them, but we
+continued to go up against the current, which ran at the rate of five
+feet a second, according to a measurement I made by observing the time
+that a floating body took to go down a given distance. We entered the
+mouth of the Guaviare on a dark night, passed the point where the Rio
+Atabapo joins the Guaviare, and arrived at the mission after midnight.
+We were lodged as usual at the Convent, that is, in the house of the
+missionary, who, though much surprised at our unexpected visit,
+nevertheless received us with the kindest hospitality.
+
+NOTE.
+
+If, in the philosophical study of the structure of languages, the
+analogy of a few roots acquires value only when they can be
+geographically connected together, neither is the want of resemblance
+in roots any very strong proof against the common origin of nations.
+In the different dialects of the Totonac language (that of one of the
+most ancient tribes of Mexico) the sun and the moon have names which
+custom has rendered entirely different. This difference is found among
+the Caribs between the language of men and women; a phenomenon that
+probably arises from the circumstance that, among prisoners, men were
+oftener put to death than women. Females introduced by degrees words
+of a foreign language into the Caribbee; and, as the girls followed
+the occupations of the women much more than the boys, a language was
+formed peculiar to the women. I shall record in this note the names of
+the sun and moon in a great number of American and Asiatic idioms,
+again reminding the reader of the uncertainty of all judgments founded
+merely on the comparison of solitary words.
+
+TABLE OF NAMES OF THE SUN AND THE MOON.
+
+COLUMN 1 : LANGUAGE.
+
+COLUMN 2 : NAME OF THE SUN.
+
+COLUMN 3 : NAME OF THE MOON.
+
+IN THE NEW WORLD:
+
+Eastern Esquimaux (Greenland) : Ajut, kaumat, sakanach : Anningat,
+kaumei, tatcok.
+
+Western Esquimaux (Kadjak) : Tschingugak, madschak : Igaluk, tangeik.
+
+Ojibbeway : Kissis : Debicot.
+
+Delaware : Natatane : Keyshocof.
+
+Nootka : Opulszthl : Omulszthl.
+
+Otomi : Hindi : Zana.
+
+Aztec or Mexican : Tonatiuh : Meztli.
+
+Cora : Taica : Maitsaca.
+
+Huasteca : Aquicha : Aytz.
+
+Muysca : Zuhe (sua) : Chia.
+
+Yaruro : ditto : Goppe.
+
+Caribbee and Tamanac : Veiou (hueiou) : Nouno (nonum).
+
+Maypure : Kie : Kejapi.
+
+Lule : Inni : Allit.
+
+Vilela : Olo : Copi.
+
+Moxo : Sachi : Cohe.
+
+Chiquito : Suus : Copi.
+
+Guarani : Quarasi : Jasi.
+
+Tupi (Brasil) : Coaracy : Iacy.
+
+Peruvian (Quichua) : Inti : Quilla.
+
+Araucan (Chili) : Antu : Cuyen.
+
+IN THE OLD WORLD:
+
+Mongol : Nara (naran) : Sara (saran).
+
+Mantchou : Choun : Bia.
+
+Tschaghatai : Koun : Ay.
+
+Ossete (of Caucasus) : Khourr : Mai.
+
+Tibetan : Niyma : Rdjawa.
+
+Chinese : Jy : Yue.
+
+Japanese : Fi : Tsouki.
+
+Sanscrit : Surya, aryama, mitra, aditya, arka, hamsa : Tschandra,
+tschandrama, soma, masi.
+
+Persian : Chor, chorschid, afitab : Mah.
+
+Zend : Houere.
+
+Pehlvi : Schemschia, zabzoba, kokma : Kokma.
+
+Phoenician : Schemesih.
+
+Hebrew : Schemesch : Yarea.
+
+Aramean or Chaldean : Schimscha : Yarha.
+
+Syrian : Schemscho : Yarho.
+
+Arabic : Schams : Kamar.
+
+Ethiopian : Tzabay : Warha.
+
+The American words are written according to the Spanish orthography. I
+would not change the orthography of the Nootka word onulszth, taken
+from Cook's Voyages, to show how much Volney's idea of introducing an
+uniform notation of sounds is worthy of attention, if not applied to
+the languages of the East written without vowels. In onulszth there
+are four signs for one single consonant. We have already seen that
+American nations, speaking languages of a very different structure,
+call the sun by the same name; that the moon is sometimes called
+sleeping sun, sun of night, light of night; and that sometimes the two
+orbs have the same denomination. These examples are taken from the
+Guarany, the Omagua, Shawanese, Miami, Maco, and Ojibbeway idioms.
+Thus in the Old World, the sun and moon are denoted in Arabic by
+niryn, the luminaries; thus, in Persian, the most common words, afitab
+and chorschid, are compounds. By the migration of tribes from Asia to
+America, and from America to Asia, a certain number of roots have
+passed from one language into others; and these roots have been
+transported, like the fragments of a shipwreck, far from the coast,
+into the islands. (Sun, in New England, kone; in Tschagatai, koun; in
+Yakout, kouini. Star, in Huastec, ot; in Mongol, oddon; in Aztec,
+citlal, citl; in Persian, sitareh. House, in Aztec, calli; in Wogoul,
+kualla or kolla. Water, in Aztec, atel (itels, a river, in Vilela); in
+Mongol, Tscheremiss, and Tschouvass, atl, atelch, etel, or idel.
+Stone, in Caribbee, tebou; in the Lesgian of Caucasus, teb; in Aztec,
+tepetl; in Turkish, tepe. Food, in Quichua, micunnan; in Malay,
+macannon. Boat, in Haitian, canoa; in Ayno, cahani; in Greenlandish,
+kayak; in Turkish, kayik; in Samoyiede, kayouk; in the Germanic
+tongues, kahn.) But we must distinguish from these foreign elements
+what belongs fundamentally to the American idioms themselves. Such is
+the effect of time, and communication among nations, that the mixture
+with an heterogenous language has not only an influence upon roots,
+but most frequently ends by modifying and denaturalizing grammatical
+forms. "When a language resists a regular analysis," observes William
+von Humboldt, in his considerations on the Mexican, Cora, Totonac, and
+Tarahumar tongues, "we may suspect some mixture, some foreign
+influence; for the faculties of man, which are, as we may say,
+reflected in the structure of languages, and in their grammatical
+forms, act constantly in a regular and uniform manner."
+
+
+CHAPTER 2.22.
+
+SAN FERNANDO DE ATABAPO.
+SAN BALTHASAR.
+THE RIVERS TEMI AND TUAMINI.
+JAVITA.
+PORTAGE FROM THE TUAMINI TO THE RIO NEGRO.
+
+During the night, we had left, almost unperceived, the waters of the
+Orinoco; and at sunrise found ourselves as if transported to a new
+country, on the banks of a river the name of which we had scarcely
+ever heard pronounced, and which was to conduct us, by the portage of
+Pimichin, to the Rio Negro, on the frontiers of Brazil. "You will go
+up," said the president of the missions, who resides at San Fernando,
+"first the Atabapo, then the Temi, and finally, the Tuamini. When the
+force of the current of black waters hinders you from advancing, you
+will be conducted out of the bed of the river through forests, which
+you will find inundated. Two monks only are settled in those desert
+places, between the Orinoco and the Rio Negro; but at Javita you will
+be furnished with the means of having your canoe drawn over land in
+the course of four days to Cano Pimichin. If it be not broken to
+pieces you will descend the Rio Negro without any obstacle (from
+north-west to south-east) as far as the little fort of San Carlos; you
+will go up the Cassiquiare (from south to north), and then return to
+San Fernando in a month, descending the Upper Orinoco from east to
+west." Such was the plan traced for our passage, and we carried it
+into effect without danger, though not without some suffering, in the
+space of thirty-three days. The Orinoco runs from its source, or at
+least from Esmeralda, as far as San Fernando de Atabapo, from east to
+west; from San Fernando, (where the junction of the Guaviare and the
+Atabapo takes place,) as far as the mouth of the Rio Apure, it flows
+from south to north, forming the Great Cataracts; and from the mouth
+of the Apure as far as Angostura and the coast of the Atlantic its
+direction is from west to east. In the first part of its course, where
+the river flows from east to west, it forms that celebrated
+bifurcation so often disputed by geographers, of which I was the first
+enabled to determine the situation by astronomical observations. One
+arm of the Orinoco, (the Cassiquiare,) running from north to south,
+falls into the Guainia, or Rio Negro, which, in its turn, joins the
+Maranon, or river Amazon. The most natural way, therefore, to go from
+Angostura to Grand Para, would be to ascend the Orinoco as far as
+Esmeralda, and then to go down the Cassiquiare, the Rio Negro, and the
+Amazon; but, as the Rio Negro in the upper part of its course
+approaches very near the sources of some rivers that fall into the
+Orinoco near San Fernando de Atabapo (where the Orinoco abruptly
+changes its direction from east to west to take that from south to
+north), the passage up that part of the river between San Fernando and
+Esmeralda, in order to reach the Rio Negro, may be avoided. Leaving
+the Orinoco near the mission of San Fernando, the traveller proceeds
+up the little black rivers (the Atabapo, the Temi, and the Tuamini),
+and the boats are carried across an isthmus six thousand toises broad,
+to the banks of a stream (the Cano Pimichin) which flows into the Rio
+Negro. This was the course which we took.
+
+The road from San Carlos to San Fernando de Atabapo is far more
+disagreeable, and is half as long again by the Cassiquiare as by
+Javita and the Cano Pimichin. In this region I determined, by means of
+a chronometer by Berthoud, and by the meridional heights of stars, the
+situation of San Balthasar de Atabapo, Javita, San Carlos del Rio
+Negro, the rock Culimacavi, and Esmeralda. When no roads exist save
+tortuous and intertwining rivers, when little villages are hidden amid
+thick forests, and when, in a country entirely flat, no mountain, no
+elevated object is visible from two points at once, it is only in the
+sky that we can read where we are upon the earth.
+
+San Fernando de Atabapo stands near the confluence of three great
+rivers; the Orinoco, the Guaviare, and the Atabapo. Its situation is
+similar to that of Saint Louis or of New Madrid, at the junction of
+the Mississippi with the Missouri and the Ohio. In proportion as the
+activity of commerce increases in these countries traversed by immense
+rivers, the towns situated at their confluence will necessarily become
+bustling ports, depots of merchandise, and centre points of
+civilization. Father Gumilla confesses, that in his time no person had
+any knowledge of the course of the Orinoco above the mouth of the
+Guaviare.
+
+D'Anville, in the first edition of his great map of South America,
+laid down the Rio Negro as an arm of the Orinoco, that branched off
+from the principal body of the river between the mouths of the Meta
+and the Vichada, near the cataract of Atures. That great geographer
+was entirely ignorant of the existence of the Cassiquiare and the
+Atabapo; and he makes the Orinoco or Rio Paragua, the Japura, and the
+Putumayo, take their rise from three branchings of the Caqueta. The
+expedition of the boundaries, commanded by Iturriaga and Solano,
+corrected these errors. Solano, who was the geographical engineer of
+this expedition, advanced in 1756 as far as the mouth of the Guaviare,
+after having passed the Great Cataracts. He found that, to continue to
+go up the Orinoco, he must direct his course towards the east; and
+that the river received, at the point of its great inflection, in
+latitude 4 degrees 4 minutes, the waters of the Guaviare, which two
+miles higher had received those of the Atabapo. Interested in
+approaching the Portuguese possessions as near as possible, Solano
+resolved to proceed onward to the south. At the confluence of the
+Atabapo and the Guaviare he found an Indian settlement of the warlike
+nation of the Guaypunaves. He gained their favour by presents, and
+with their aid founded the mission of San Fernando, to which he gave
+the appellation of villa, or town.
+
+To make known the political importance of this Mission, we must
+recollect what was at that period the balance of power between the
+petty Indian tribes of Guiana. The banks of the Lower Orinoco had been
+long ensanguined by the obstinate struggle between two powerful
+nations, the Cabres and the Caribs. The latter, whose principal abode
+since the close of the seventeenth century has been between the
+sources of the Carony, the Essequibo, the Orinoco, and the Rio Parima,
+once not only held sway as far as the Great Cataracts, but made
+incursions also into the Upper Orinoco, employing portages between the
+Paruspa* (* The Rio Paruspa falls into the Rio Paragua, and the latter
+into the Rio Carony, which is one of the tributary streams of the
+Lower Orinoco. There is also an ancient portage of the Caribs between
+the Paruspa and the Rio Chavaro, which flows into the Rio Caura above
+the mouth of the Erevato. In going up the Erevato you reach the
+savannahs that are traversed by the Rio Manipiare above the tributary
+streams of the Ventuari. The Caribs in their distant excursions
+sometimes passed from the Rio Caura to the Ventuari, thence to the
+Padamo, and then by the Upper Orinoco to the Atacavi, which, westward
+of Manuteso, takes the name of the Atabapo.) and the Caura, the
+Erevato and the Ventuari, the Conorichite and the Atacavi. None knew
+better than the Caribs the intertwinings of the rivers, the proximity
+of the tributary streams, and the roads by which distances might be
+diminished. The Caribs had vanquished and almost exterminated the
+Cabres. Having made themselves masters of the Lower Orinoco, they met
+with resistance from the Guaypunaves, who had founded their dominion
+on the Upper Orinoco; and who, together with the Cabres, the
+Manitivitanos, and the Parenis, are the greatest cannibals of these
+countries. They originally inhabited the banks of the great river
+Inirida, at its confluence with the Chamochiquini, and the hilly
+country of Mabicore. About the year 1744, their chief, or as the
+natives call him, their king (apoto), was named Macapu. He was a man
+no less distinguished by his intelligence than his valour; had led a
+part of the nation to the banks of the Atabapo; and when the Jesuit
+Roman made his memorable expedition from the Orinoco to the Rio Negro,
+Macapu suffered that missionary to take with him some families of the
+Guaypunaves to settle them at Uruana, and near the cataract of
+Maypures. This people are connected by their language with the great
+branch of the Maypure nations. They are more industrious, we might
+also say more civilized, than the other nations of the Upper Orinoco.
+The missionaries relate, that the Guaypunaves, at the time of their
+sway in those countries, were generally clothed, and had considerable
+villages. After the death of Macapu, the command devolved on another
+warrior, Cuseru, called by the Spaniards El capitan Cusero. He
+established lines of defence on the banks of the Inirida, with a kind
+of little fort, constructed of earth and timber. The piles were more
+than sixteen feet high, and surrounded both the house of the apoto and
+a magazine of bows and arrows. These structures, remarkable in a
+country in other respects so wild, have been described by Father
+Forneri.
+
+The Marepizanas and the Manitivitanos were the preponderant nations on
+the banks of the Rio Negro. The former had for its chiefs, about the
+year 1750, two warriors called Imu and Cajamu. The king of the
+Manitivitanos was Cocuy, famous for his cruelty. The chiefs of the
+Guaypunaves and the Manitivitanos fought with small bodies of two or
+three hundred men; but in their protracted struggles they destroyed
+the missions, in some of which the poor monks had only fifteen or
+twenty Spanish soldiers at their disposal. When the expedition of
+Iturriaga and Solano arrived at the Orinoco, the missions had no
+longer to fear the incursions of the Caribs. Cuseru, the chief of the
+Guaypunaves, had fixed his dwelling behind the granitic mountains of
+Sipapo. He was the friend of the Jesuits; but other nations of the
+Upper Orinoco and the Rio Negro, led by Imu, Cajamu, and Cocuy,
+penetrated from time to time to the north of the Great Cataracts. They
+had other motives for fighting than that of hatred; they hunted men,
+as was formerly the custom of the Caribs, and is still the practice in
+Africa. Sometimes they furnished slaves (poitos) to the Dutch (in
+their language, Paranaquiri--inhabitants of the sea); sometimes they
+sold them to the Portuguese (Iaranavi--sons of musicians).* (* The
+savage tribes designate every commercial nation of Europe by surnames,
+the origin of which appears altogether accidental. The Spaniards were
+called clothed men, Pongheme or Uavemi, by way of distinction.) In
+America, as in Africa, the cupidity of the Europeans has produced the
+same evils, by exciting the natives to make war, in order to procure
+slaves. Everywhere the contact of nations, widely different from each
+other in the scale of civilization, leads to the abuse of physical
+strength, and of intellectual preponderance. The Phoenicians and
+Carthaginians formerly sought slaves in Europe. Europe now presses in
+her turn both on the countries whence she gathered the first germs of
+science, and on those where she now almost involuntarily spreads them
+by carrying thither the produce of her industry.
+
+I have faithfully recorded what I could collect on the state of these
+countries, where the vanquished nations have become gradually extinct,
+leaving no other signs of their existence than a few words of their
+language, mixed with that of the conquerors. In the north, beyond the
+cataracts, the preponderant nations were at first the Caribs and the
+Cabres; towards the south, on the Upper Orinoco, the Guaypunaves; and
+on the Rio Negro, the Marepizanos and the Manitivitanos. The long
+resistance which the Cabres, united under a valiant chief, had made to
+the Caribs, became fatal to the latter subsequently to the year 1720.
+They at first vanquished their enemies near the mouth of the Rio
+Caura; and a great number of Caribs perished in a precipitate flight,
+between the rapids of Torno and the Isla del Infierno. The prisoners
+were devoured; and, by one of those refinements of cunning and cruelty
+which are common to the savage nations of both North and South
+America, the Cabres spared the life of one Carib, whom they forced to
+climb up a tree to witness this barbarous spectacle, and carry back
+the tidings to the vanquished. The triumph of Tep, the chief of the
+Cabres, was but of short duration. The Caribs returned in such great
+numbers that only a feeble remnant of the Cabres was left on the banks
+of the Cuchivero.
+
+Cocuy and Cuseru were carrying on a war of extermination on the Upper
+Orinoco when Solano arrived at the mouth of the Guaviare. The former
+had embraced the cause of the Portuguese; the latter was a friend of
+the Jesuits, and gave them warning whenever the Manitivitanos were
+marching against the christian establishments of Atures and Carichana.
+Cuseru became a christian only a few days before his death; but in
+battle he had for some time worn on his left hip a crucifix, given him
+by the missionaries, and which he believed rendered him invulnerable.
+We were told an anecdote that paints the violence of his character. He
+had married the daughter of an Indian chief of the Rio Temi. In a
+paroxysm of rage against his father-in-law, he declared to his wife
+that he was going to fight against him. She reminded him of the
+courage and singular strength of her father; when Cuseru, without
+uttering a single word, took a poisoned arrow, and plunged it into her
+bosom. The arrival of a small body of Spaniards in 1756, under the
+order of Solano, awakened suspicion in this chief of the Guaypunaves.
+He was on the point of attempting a contest with them, when the
+Jesuits made him sensible that it would be his interest to remain at
+peace with the Christians. Whilst dining at the table of the Spanish
+general, Cuseru was allured by promises, and the prediction of the
+approaching fall of his enemies. From being a king he became the mayor
+of a village; and consented to settle with his people at the new
+mission of San Fernando de Atabapo. Such is most frequently the end of
+those chiefs whom travellers and missionaries style Indian princes.
+"In my mission," says the honest father Gili "I had five reyecillos,
+or petty kings, those of the Tamanacs, the Avarigotes, the Parecas,
+the Quaquas, and the Maypures. At church I placed them in file on the
+same bench; but I took care to give the first place to Monaiti, king
+of the Tamanacs, because he had helped me to found the village; and he
+seemed quite proud of this precedency."
+
+When Cuseru, the chief of the Guaypunaves, saw the Spanish troops pass
+the cataracts, he advised Don Jose Solano to wait a whole year before
+he formed a settlement on the Atabapo; predicting the misfortunes
+which were not slow to arrive. "Let me labour with my people in
+clearing the ground," said Cuseru to the Jesuits; I will plant
+cassava, and you will find hereafter wherewith to feed all these men."
+Solano, impatient to advance, refused to listen to the counsel of the
+Indian chief, and the new inhabitants of San Fernando had to suffer
+all the evils of scarcity. Canoes were sent at a great expense to New
+Grenada, by the Meta and the Vichada, in search of flour. The
+provision arrived too late, and many Spaniards and Indians perished of
+those diseases which are produced in every climate by want and moral
+dejection.
+
+Some traces of cultivation are still found at San Fernando. Every
+Indian has a small plantation of cacao-trees, which produce abundantly
+in the fifth year; but they cease to bear fruit sooner than in the
+valleys of Aragua. There are some savannahs and good pasturage round
+San Fernando, but hardly seven or eight cows are to be found, the
+remains of a considerable herd which was brought into these countries
+at the expedition for settling the boundaries. The Indians are a
+little more civilized here than in the rest of the missions, and we
+found to our surprise a blacksmith of the native race.
+
+In the mission of San Fernando, a tree which gives a peculiar
+physiognomy to the landscape, is the piritu or pirijao palm. Its
+trunk, armed with thorns, is more than sixty feet high; its leaves are
+pinnated, very thin, undulated, and frizzled towards the points. The
+fruits of this tree are very extraordinary; every cluster contains
+from fifty to eighty; they are yellow like apples, grow purple in
+proportion as they ripen, two or three inches thick, and generally,
+from abortion, without a kernel. Among the eighty or ninety species of
+palm-trees peculiar to the New Continent, which I have enumerated in
+the Nova Genera Plantarum Aequinoctialum, there are none in which the
+sarcocarp is developed in a manner so extraordinary. The fruit of the
+pirijao furnishes a farinaceous substance, as yellow as the yolk of an
+egg, slightly saccharine, and extremely nutritious. It is eaten like
+plantains or potatoes, boiled or roasted in the ashes, and affords a
+wholesome and agreeable aliment. The Indians and the missionaries are
+unwearied in their praises of this noble palm-tree, which might be
+called the peach-palm. We found it cultivated in abundance at San
+Fernando, San Balthasar, Santa Barbara, and wherever we advanced
+towards the south or the east along the banks of the Atabapo and the
+Upper Orinoco. In those wild regions we are involuntarily reminded of
+the assertion of Linnaeus, that the country of palm-trees was the
+first abode of our species, and that man is essentially palmivorous.*
+(* Homo HABITAT intra tropicos, vescitur palmis, lotophagus;
+HOSPITATUR extra tropicos sub novercante Cerere, carnivorus. Man
+DWELLS NATURALLY within the tropics, and lives on the fruits of the
+palm-tree; he EXISTS in other parts of the world, and there makes
+shift to feed on corn and flesh. Syst. Nat. volume 1 page 24.) On
+examining the provision accumulated in the huts of the Indians, we
+perceive that their subsistence during several months of the year
+depends as much on the farinaceous fruit of the pirijao, as on the
+cassava and plantain. The tree bears fruit but once a year, but to the
+amount of three clusters, consequently from one hundred and fifty to
+two hundred fruits.
+
+San Fernando de Atabapo, San Carlos, and San Francisco Solano, are the
+most considerable settlements among the missions of the Upper Orinoco.
+At San Fernando, as well as in the neighbouring villages of San
+Balthasar and Javita, the abodes of the priests are neatly-built
+houses, covered by lianas, and surrounded by gardens. The tall trunks
+of the pirijao palms were the most beautiful ornaments of these
+plantations. In our walks, the president of the mission gave us an
+animated account of his incursions on the Rio Guaviare. He related to
+us how much these journeys, undertaken "for the conquest of souls;"
+are desired by the Indians of the missions. All, even women and old
+men, take part in them. Under the pretext of recovering neophytes who
+have deserted the village, children above eight or ten years of age
+are carried off, and distributed among the Indians of the missions as
+serfs, or poitos. According to the astronomical observations I took on
+the banks of the Atabapo, and on the western declivity of the
+Cordillera of the Andes, near the Paramo de la suma Paz, the distance
+is one hundred and seven leagues only from San Fernando to the first
+villages of the provinces of Caguan and San Juan de los Llanos. I was
+assured also by some Indians, who dwelt formerly to the west of the
+island of Amanaveni, beyond the confluence of the Rio Supavi, that
+going in a boat on the Guaviare (in the manner of the savages) beyond
+the strait (angostura) and the principal cataract, they met, at three
+days' distance, bearded and clothed men, who came in search of the
+eggs of the terekay turtle. This meeting alarmed the Indians so much,
+that they fled precipitately, redescending the Guaviare. It is
+probable, that these bearded white men came from the villages of Aroma
+and San Martin, the Rio Guaviare being formed by the union of the
+rivers Ariari and Guayavero. We must not be surprised that the
+missionaries of the Orinoco and the Atabapo little suspect how near
+they live to the missionaries of Mocoa, Rio Fragua, and Caguan. In
+these desert countries, the real distances can be known only by
+observations of the longitude. It was in consequence of astronomical
+data, and the information I gathered in the convents of Popayan and of
+Pasto, to the west of the Cordillera of the Andes, that I formed an
+accurate idea of the respective situations of the christian
+settlements on the Atabapo, the Guayavero, and the Caqueta.* (* The
+Caqueta bears, lower down, the name of the Yupura.)
+
+Everything changes on entering the Rio Atabapo; the constitution of
+the atmosphere, the colour of the waters, and the form of the trees
+that cover the shore. You no longer suffer during the day the torment
+of mosquitos; and the long-legged gnats (zancudos) become rare during
+the night. Beyond the mission of San Fernando these nocturnal insects
+disappear altogether. The water of the Orinoco is turbid, and loaded
+with earthy matter; and in the coves, from the accumulation of dead
+crocodiles and other putrescent substances, it diffuses a musky and
+faint smell. We were sometimes obliged to strain this water through a
+linen cloth before we drank it. The water of the Atabapo, on the
+contrary, is pure, agreeable to the taste, without any trace of smell,
+brownish by reflected, and of a pale yellow by transmitted light. The
+people call it light, in opposition to the heavy and turbid waters of
+the Orinoco. Its temperature is generally two degrees, and when you
+approach the mouth of the Rio Temi, three degrees, cooler than the
+temperature of the Upper Orinoco. After having been compelled during a
+whole year to drink water at 27 or 28 degrees, a lowering of a few
+degrees in the temperature produces a very agreeable sensation. I
+think this lowering of the temperature may be attributed to the river
+being less broad, and without the sandy beach, the heat of which, at
+the Orinoco, is by day more than 50 degrees, and also to the thick
+shade of the forests which are traversed by the Atabapo, the Temi, the
+Tuamini, and the Guainia, or Rio Negro.
+
+The extreme purity of the black waters is proved by their limpidity,
+their transparency, and the clearness with which they reflect the
+images and colours of surrounding objects. The smallest fish are
+visible in them at a depth of twenty or thirty feet; and most commonly
+the bottom of the river may be distinguished, which is not a yellowish
+or brownish mud, like the colour of the water, but a quartzose and
+granitic sand of dazzling whiteness. Nothing can be compared to the
+beauty of the banks of the Atabapo. Loaded with plants, among which
+rise the palms with feathery leaves; the banks are reflected in the
+waters, and this reflex verdure seems to have the same vivid hue as
+that which clothes the real vegetation. The surface of the fluid is
+homogeneous, smooth, and destitute of that mixture of suspended sand
+and decomposed organic matter, which roughens and streaks the surface
+of less limpid rivers.
+
+On quitting the Orinoco, several small rapids must be passed, but
+without any appearance of danger. Amid these raudalitos, according to
+the opinion of the missionaries, the Rio Atabapo falls into the
+Orinoco. I am however disposed to think that the Atabapo falls into
+the Guaviare. The Rio Guaviare, which is much wider than the Atabapo,
+has white waters, and in the aspect of its banks, its fishing-birds,
+its fish, and the great crocodiles which live in it, resembles the
+Orinoco much more than that part of the Atabapo which comes from the
+Esmeralda. When a river springs from the junction of two other rivers,
+nearly alike in size, it is difficult to judge which of the two
+confluent streams must be regarded as its source. The Indians of San
+Fernando affirm that the Orinoco rises from two rivers, the Guaviare
+and the Rio Paragua. They give this latter name to the Upper Orinoco,
+from San Fernando and Santa Barbara to beyond the Esmeralda, and they
+say that the Cassiquiare is not an arm of the Orinoco, but of the Rio
+Paragua. It matters but little whether or not the name of Orinoco be
+given to the Rio Paragua, provided we trace the course of these rivers
+as it is in nature, and do not separate by a chain of mountains, (as
+was done previously to my travels,) rivers that communicate together,
+and form one system. When we would give the name of a large river to
+one of the two branches by which it is formed, it should be applied to
+that branch which furnishes most water. Now, at the two seasons of the
+year when I saw the Guaviare and the Upper Orinoco or Rio Paragua
+(between the Esmeralda and San Fernando), it appeared to me that the
+latter was not so large as the Guaviare. Similar doubts have been
+entertained by geographers respecting the junction of the Upper
+Mississippi with the Missouri and the Ohio, the junction of the
+Maranon with the Guallaga and the Ucayale, and the junction of the
+Indus with the Chunab (Hydaspes of Cashmere) and the Gurra, or
+Sutlej.* (* The Hydaspes is properly a tributary stream of the Chunab
+or Acesines. The Sutlej or Hysudrus forms, together with the Beyah or
+*** Gurra. These are the beautiful regions of the *** celebrated from
+the time of Alexander to the ***) To avoid embroiling farther a
+nomenclature of rivers so arbitrarily fixed, I will not propose new
+denominations. I shall continue, with Father Caulin and the Spanish
+geographers, to call the river Esmeralda the Orinoco, or Upper
+Orinoco; but I must observe that if the Orinoco, from San Fernando de
+Atabapo as far as the delta which it forms opposite the island of
+Trinidad, were regarded as the continuance of the Rio Guaviare, and if
+that part of the Upper Orinoco between the Esmeralda and the mission
+of San Fernando were considered a tributary stream, the Orinoco would
+preserve, from the savannahs of San Juan de los Llanos and the eastern
+declivity of the Andes to its mouth, a more uniform and natural
+direction, that from south-west to north-east.
+
+The Rio Paragua, or that part of the Orinoco east of the mouth of the
+Guaviare, has clearer, more transparent, and purer water than the part
+of the Orinoco below San Fernando. The waters of the Guaviare, on the
+contrary, are white and turbid; they have the same taste, according to
+the Indians (whose organs of sense are extremely delicate and well
+practised), as the waters of the Orinoco near the Great Cataracts.
+"Bring me the waters of three or four great rivers of these
+countries," an old Indian of the mission of Javita said to us; "on
+tasting each of them I will tell you, without fear of mistake, whence
+it was taken; whether it comes from a white or black river; the
+Orinoco or the Atabapo, the Paragua or the Guaviare." The great
+crocodiles and porpoises (toninas) which are alike common in the Rio
+Guaviare and the Lower Orinoco, are entirely wanting, as we were told,
+in the Rio Paragua (or Upper Orinoco, between San Fernando and the
+Esmeralda). These are very remarkable differences in the nature of the
+waters, and the distribution of animals. The Indians do not fail to
+mention them, when they would prove to travellers that the Upper
+Orinoco, to the east of San Fernando, is a distinct river which falls
+into the Orinoco, and that the real origin of the latter must be
+sought in the sources of the Guaviare.
+
+The astronomical observations made in the night of the 25th of April
+did not give me the latitude with satisfactory precision. The latitude
+of the mission of San Fernando appeared to me to be 4 degrees 2
+minutes 48 seconds. In Father Caulin's map, founded on the
+observations of Solano made in 1756, it is 4 degrees 1 minute. This
+agreement proves the justness of a result which, however, I could only
+deduce from altitudes considerably distant from the meridian. A good
+observation of the stars at Guapasoso gave me 4 degrees 2 minutes for
+San Fernando de Atabapo. I was able to fix the longitude with much
+more precision in my way to the Rio Negro, and in returning from that
+river. It is 70 degrees 30 minutes 46 seconds (or 4 degrees 0 minutes
+west of the meridian of Cumana).
+
+On the 26th of April we advanced only two or three leagues, and passed
+the night on a rock near the Indian plantations or conucos of
+Guapasoso. The river losing itself by its inundations in the forests,
+and its real banks being unseen, the traveller can venture to land
+only where a rock or a small table-land rises above the water. The
+granite of those countries, owing to the position of the thin laminae
+of black mica, sometimes resembles graphic granite; but most
+frequently (and this determines the age of its formation) it passes
+into a real gneiss. Its beds, very regularly stratified, run from
+south-west to north-east, as in the Cordillera on the shore of
+Caracas. The dip of the granite-gneiss is 70 degrees north-west. It is
+traversed by an infinite number of veins of quartz, which are
+singularly transparent, and three or four, and sometimes fifteen
+inches thick. I found no cavity (druse), no crystallized substance,
+not even rock-crystal; and no trace of pyrites, or any other metallic
+substance. I enter into these particulars on account of the chimerical
+ideas that have been spread ever since the sixteenth century, after
+the voyages of Berreo and Raleigh,* "on the immense riches of the
+great and fine empire of Guiana." (* Raleigh's work bears the high
+sounding title of The Discovery of the large, rich, and beautiful
+Empire of Guiana, London 1596. See also Raleghi admiranda Descriptio
+Regni Guianae, auri abundantissimi, Hondius Noribergae 1599.)
+
+The river Atabapo presents throughout a peculiar aspect; you see
+nothing of its real banks formed by flat lands eight or ten feet high;
+they are concealed by a row of palms, and small trees with slender
+trunks, the roots of which are bathed by the waters. There are many
+crocodiles from the point where you quit the Orinoco to the mission of
+San Fernando, and their presence indicates that this part of the river
+belongs to the Rio Guaviare and not to the Atabapo. In the real bed of
+the latter river, above the mission of San Fernando, there are no
+crocodiles: we find there some bavas, a great many fresh-water
+dolphins, but no manatees. We also seek in vain on these banks for the
+thick-nosed tapir, the araguato, or great howling monkey, the zamuro,
+or Vultur aura, and the crested pheasant, known by the name of
+guacharaca. Enormous water-snakes, in shape resembling the boa, are
+unfortunately very common, and are dangerous to Indians who bathe. We
+saw them almost from the first day we embarked, swimming by the side
+of our canoe; they were at most twelve or fourteen feet long. The
+jaguars of the banks of the Atabapo and the Temi are large and well
+fed; they are said, however, to be less daring than the jaguars of the
+Orinoco.
+
+The night of the 27th was beautiful; dark clouds passed from time to
+time over the zenith with extreme rapidity. Not a breath of wind was
+felt in the lower strata of the atmosphere; the breeze was at the
+height of a thousand toises. I dwell upon this peculiarity; for the
+movement we saw was not produced by the counter-currents (from west to
+east) which are sometimes thought to be observed in the torrid zone on
+the loftiest mountains of the Cordilleras; it was the effect of a real
+breeze, an east wind. We left the conucos of Guapasoso at two o'clock;
+and continued to ascend the river toward the south, finding it (or
+rather that part of its bed which is free from trees) growing more and
+more narrow. It began to rain toward sunrise. In these forests, which
+are less inhabited by animals than those of the Orinoco, we no longer
+heard the howlings of the monkeys. The dolphins, or toninas, sported
+by the side of our boat. According to the relation of Mr. Colebrooke,
+the Delphinus gangeticus, which is the fresh-water porpoise of the Old
+World, in like manner accompanies the boats that go up towards
+Benares; but from Benares to the point where the Ganges receives the
+salt waters is only two hundred leagues, while from the Atabapo to the
+mouth of the Orinoco is more than three hundred and twenty.
+
+About noon we passed the mouth of the little river Ipurichapano on the
+east, and afterwards the granitic rock, known by the name of Piedra
+del Tigre. Between the fourth and fifth degrees of latitude, a little
+to the south of the mountains of Sipapo, we reach the southern
+extremity of that chain of cataracts, which I proposed, in a memoir
+published in 1800, to call the Chain of Parima. At 4 degrees 20
+minutes it stretches from the right bank of the Orinoco toward the
+east and east-south-east. The whole of the land extending from the
+mountains of the Parima towards the river Amazon, which is traversed
+by the Atabapo, the Cassiquiare, and the Rio Negro, is an immense
+plain, covered partly with forests, and partly with grass. Small rocks
+rise here and there like castles. We regretted that we had not stopped
+to rest near the Piedra del Tigre; for on going up the Atabapo we had
+great difficulty to find a spot of dry ground, open and spacious
+enough to light a fire, and place our instrument and our hammocks.
+
+On the 28th of April, it rained hard after sunset, and we were afraid
+that our collections would be damaged. The poor missionary had his fit
+of tertian fever, and besought us to re-embark immediately after
+midnight. We passed at day-break the Piedra and the Raudalitos* (* The
+rock and little cascades.) of Guarinuma. The rock is on the east bank;
+it is a shelf of granite, covered with psora, cladonia, and other
+lichens. I could have fancied myself transported to the north of
+Europe, to the ridge of the mountains of gneiss and granite between
+Freiberg and Marienberg in Saxony. The cladonias appeared to me to be
+identical with the Lichen rangiferinus, the L. pixidatus, and the L.
+polymorphus of Linnaeus. After having passed the rapids of Guarinuma,
+the Indians showed us in the middle of the forest, on our right, the
+ruins of the mission of Mendaxari, which has been long abandoned. On
+the east bank of the river, near the little rock of Kemarumo, in the
+midst of Indian plantations, a gigantic bombax* (* Bombax ceiba.)
+attracted our curiosity. We landed to measure it; the height was
+nearly one hundred and twenty feet, and the diameter between fourteen
+and fifteen. This enormous specimen of vegetation surprised us the
+more, as we had till then seen on the banks of the Atabapo only small
+trees with slender trunks, which from afar resembled young
+cherry-trees. The Indians assured that these small trees do not form a
+very extensive group. They are checked in their growth by the
+inundations of the river; while the dry grounds near the Atabapo, the
+Temi, and the Tuamini, furnish excellent timber for building. These
+forests do not stretch indefinitely to the east and west, toward the
+Cassiquiare and the Guaviare; they are bounded by the open savannahs
+of Manuteso, and the Rio Inirida. We found it difficult in the evening
+to stem the current, and we passed the night in a wood a little above
+Mendaxari; which is another granitic rock traversed by a stratum of
+quartz. We found in it a group of fine crystals of black schorl.
+
+On the 29th, the air was cooler. We had no zancudos, but the sky was
+constantly clouded, and without stars. I began to regret the Lower
+Orinoco. We still advanced but slowly from the force of the current,
+and we stopped a great part of the day to seek for plants. It was
+night when we arrived at the mission of San Balthasar, or, as the
+monks style it, the mission of la divina Pastora de Balthasar de
+Atabapo. We were lodged with a Catalonian missionary, a lively and
+agreeable man, who displayed in these wild countries the activity that
+characterises his nation. He had planted a garden, where the fig-tree
+of Europe was found in company with the persea, and the lemon-tree
+with the mammee. The village was built with that regularity which, in
+the north of Germany, and in protestant America, we find in the
+hamlets of the Moravian brethren; and the Indian plantations seemed
+better cultivated than elsewhere. Here we saw for the first time that
+white and fungous substance which I have made known by the name of
+dapicho and zapis.* (* These two words belong to the Poimisano and
+Paragini tongues.) We immediately perceived that it was analogous to
+india-rubber; but, as the Indians made us understand by signs, that it
+was found underground, we were inclined to think, till we arrived at
+the mission of Javita, that the dapicho was a fossil caoutchouc,
+though different from the elastic bitumen of Derbyshire. A Pomisano
+Indian, seated by the fire in the hut of the missionary, was employed
+in reducing the dapicho into black caoutchouc. He had spitted several
+bits on a slender stick, and was roasting them like meat. The dapicho
+blackens in proportion as it grows soft, and becomes elastic. The
+resinous and aromatic smell which filled the hut, seemed to indicate
+that this coloration is the effect of the decomposition of a carburet
+of hydrogen, and that the carbon appears in proportion as the hydrogen
+burns at a low heat. The Indian beat the softened and blackened mass
+with a piece of brazil-wood, formed at one end like a club; he then
+kneaded the dapicho into balls of three or four inches in diameter,
+and let it cool. These balls exactly resemble the caoutchouc of the
+shops, but their surface remains in general slightly viscous. They are
+used at San Balthasar in the Indian game of tennis, which is
+celebrated among the inhabitants of Uruana and Encaramada; they are
+also cut into cylinders, to be used as corks, and are far preferable
+to those made of the bark of the cork-tree.
+
+This use of caoutchouc appeared to us the more worthy notice, as we
+had been often embarrassed by the want of European corks. The great
+utility of cork is fully understood in countries where trade has not
+supplied this bark in plenty. Equinoctial America nowhere produces,
+not even on the back of the Andes, an oak resembling the Quercus
+suber; and neither the light wood of the bombax, the ochroma, and
+other malvaceous plants, nor the rhachis of maize, of which the
+natives make use, can well supply the place of our corks. The
+missionary showed us, before the Casa de los Solteros (the house where
+the young unmarried men reside), a drum, which was a hollow cylinder
+of wood, two feet long and eighteen inches thick. This drum was beaten
+with great masses of dapicho, which served as drumsticks; it had
+openings which could be stopped by the hand at will, to vary the
+sounds, and was fixed on two light supports. Savage notions love noisy
+music; the drum and the botuto, or trumpet of baked earth, in which a
+tube of three or four feet long communicates with several barrels, are
+indispensable instruments among the Indians for their grand pieces of
+music.
+
+The night of the 30th of April was sufficiently fine for observing the
+meridian heights of x of the Southern Cross, and the two large stars
+in the feet of the Centaur. I found the latitude of San Balthasar 3
+degrees 14 minutes 23 seconds. Horary angles of the sun gave 70
+degrees 14 minutes 21 seconds for the longitude by the chronometer.
+The dip of the magnetic needle was 27.8 degrees (cent div). We left
+the mission at a late hour in the morning, and continued to go up the
+Atabapo for five miles; then, instead of following that river to its
+source in the east, where it bears the name of Atacavi, we entered the
+Rio Temi. Before we reached its confluence, a granitic eminence on the
+western bank, near the mouth of the Guasacavi, fixed our attention: it
+is called Piedra de la Guahiba (Rock of the Guahiba woman), or the
+Piedra de la Madre (Mother's Rock.) We inquired the cause of so
+singular a denomination. Father Zea could not satisfy our curiosity;
+but some weeks after, another missionary, one of the predecessors of
+that ecclesiastic, whom we found settled at San Fernando as president
+of the missions, related to us an event which excited in our minds the
+most painful feelings. If, in these solitary scenes, man scarcely
+leaves behind him any trace of his existence, it is doubly humiliating
+for a European to see perpetuated by so imperishable a monument of
+nature as a rock, the remembrance of the moral degradation of our
+species, and the contrast between the virtue of a savage, and the
+barbarism of civilized man!
+
+In 1797 the missionary of San Fernando had led his Indians to the
+banks of the Rio Guaviare, on one of those hostile incursions which
+are prohibited alike by religion and the Spanish laws. They found in
+an Indian hut a Guahiba woman with her three children (two of whom
+were still infants), occupied in preparing the flour of cassava.
+Resistance was impossible; the father was gone to fish, and the mother
+tried in vain to flee with her children. Scarcely had she reached the
+savannah when she was seized by the Indians of the mission, who hunt
+human beings, like the Whites and the Negroes in Africa. The mother
+and her children were bound, and dragged to the bank of the river. The
+monk, seated in his boat, waited the issue of an expedition of which
+he shared not the danger. Had the mother made too violent a resistance
+the Indians would have killed her, for everything is permitted for the
+sake of the conquest of souls (la conquista espirituel), and it is
+particularly desirable to capture children, who may be treated in the
+Mission as poitos, or slaves of the Christians. The prisoners were
+carried to San Fernando, in the hope that the mother would be unable
+to find her way back to her home by land. Separated from her other
+children who had accompanied their father on the day in which she had
+been carried off, the unhappy woman showed signs of the deepest
+despair. She attempted to take back to her home the children who had
+been seized by the missionary; and she fled with them repeatedly from
+the village of San Fernando. But the Indians never failed to recapture
+her; and the missionary, after having caused her to be mercilessly
+beaten, took the cruel resolution of separating the mother from the
+two children who had been carried off with her. She was conveyed alone
+to the missions of the Rio Negro, going up the Atabapo. Slightly
+bound, she was seated at the bow of the boat, ignorant of the fate
+that awaited her; but she judged by the direction of the sun, that she
+was removing farther and farther from her hut and her native country.
+She succeeded in breaking her bonds, threw herself into the water, and
+swam to the left bank of the Atabapo. The current carried her to a
+shelf of rock, which bears her name to this day. She landed and took
+shelter in the woods, but the president of the missions ordered the
+Indians to row to the shore, and follow the traces of the Guahiba. In
+the evening she was brought back. Stretched upon the rock (la Piedra
+de la Madre) a cruel punishment was inflicted on her with those straps
+of manatee leather, which serve for whips in that country, and with
+which the alcaldes are always furnished. This unhappy woman, her hands
+tied behind her back with strong stalks of mavacure, was then dragged
+to the mission of Javita.
+
+She was there thrown into one of the caravanserais, called las Casas
+del Rey. It was the rainy season, and the night was profoundly dark.
+Forests till then believed to be impenetrable separated the mission of
+Javita from that of San Fernando, which was twenty-five leagues
+distant in a straight line. No other route is known than that by the
+rivers; no man ever attempted to go by land from one village to
+another. But such difficulties could not deter a mother, separated
+from her children. The Guahiba was carelessly guarded in the
+caravanserai. Her arms being wounded, the Indians of Javita had
+loosened her bonds, unknown to the missionary and the alcaldes. Having
+succeeded by the help of her teeth in breaking them entirely, she
+disappeared during the night; and at the fourth sunrise was seen at
+the mission of San Fernando, hovering around the hut where her
+children were confined. "What that woman performed," added the
+missionary, who gave us this sad narrative, "the most robust Indian
+would not have ventured to undertake!" She traversed the woods at a
+season when the sky is constantly covered with clouds, and the sun
+during whole days appears but for a few minutes. Did the course of the
+waters direct her way? The inundations of the rivers forced her to go
+far from the banks of the main stream, through the midst of woods
+where the movement of the water is almost imperceptible. How often
+must she have been stopped by the thorny lianas, that form a network
+around the trunks they entwine! How often must she have swum across
+the rivulets that run into the Atabapo! This unfortunate woman was
+asked how she had sustained herself during four days. She said that,
+exhausted with fatigue, she could find no other nourishment than those
+great black ants called vachacos, which climb the trees in long bands,
+to suspend on them their resinous nests. We pressed the missionary to
+tell us whether the Guahiba had peacefully enjoyed the happiness of
+remaining with her children; and if any repentance had followed this
+excess of cruelty. He would not satisfy our curiosity; but at our
+return from the Rio Negro we learned that the Indian mother was again
+separated from her children, and sent to one of the missions of the
+Upper Orinoco. There she died, refusing all kind of nourishment, as
+savages frequently do in great calamities.
+
+Such is the remembrance annexed to this fatal rock, the Piedra de la
+Madre. In this relation of my travels I feel no desire to dwell on
+pictures of individual suffering--evils which are frequent wherever
+there are masters and slaves, civilized Europeans living with people
+in a state of barbarism, and priests exercising the plenitude of
+arbitrary power over men ignorant and without defence. In describing
+the countries through which I passed, I generally confine myself to
+pointing out what is imperfect, or fatal to humanity, in their civil
+or religious institutions. If I have dwelt longer on the Rock of the
+Guahiba, it was to record an affecting instance of maternal tenderness
+in a race of people so long calumniated; and because I thought some
+benefit might accrue from publishing a fact, which I had from the
+monks of San Francisco, and which proves how much the system of the
+missions calls for the care of the legislator.
+
+Above the mouth of the Guasucavi we entered the Rio Temi, the course
+of which is from south to north. Had we continued to ascend the
+Atabapo, we should have turned to east-south-east, going farther from
+the banks of the Guainia or Rio Negro. The Temi is only eighty or
+ninety toises broad, but in any other country than Guiana it would be
+a considerable river. The country exhibits the uniform aspect of
+forests covering ground perfectly flat. The fine pirijao palm, with
+its fruit like peaches, and a new species of bache, or mauritia, its
+trunk bristled with thorns, rise amid smaller trees, the vegetation of
+which appears to be retarded by the continuance of the inundations.
+The Mauritia aculeata is called by the Indians juria or cauvaja; its
+leaves are in the form of a fan, and they bend towards the ground. At
+the centre of every leaf, no doubt from the effect of some disease of
+the parenchyma, concentric circles of alternate blue and yellow
+appear, the yellow prevailing towards the middle. We were singularly
+struck by this appearance; the leaves, coloured like the peacock's
+tail, are supported by short and very thick trunks. The thorns are not
+slender and long like those of the corozo and other thorny palm-trees;
+but on the contrary, very woody, short, and broad at the base, like
+the thorns of the Hura crepitans. On the banks of the Atabapo and the
+Temi, this palm-tree is distributed in groups of twelve or fifteen
+stems, close together, and looking as if they rose from the same root.
+These trees resemble in their appearance, form, and scarcity of
+leaves, the fan-palms and palmettos of the Old World. We remarked that
+some plants of the juria were entirely destitute of fruit, and others
+exhibited a considerable quantity; this circumstance seems to indicate
+a palm-tree of separate sexes.
+
+Wherever the Rio Temi forms coves, the forest is inundated to the
+extent of more than half a square league. To avoid the sinuosities of
+the river and shorten the passage, the navigation is here performed in
+a very extraordinary manner. The Indians made us leave the bed of the
+river; and we proceeded southward across the forest, through paths
+(sendas), that is, through open channels of four or five feet broad.
+The depth of the water seldom exceeds half a fathom. These sendas are
+formed in the inundated forest like paths on dry ground. The Indians,
+in going from one mission to another, pass with their boats as much as
+possible by the same way; but the communications not being frequent,
+the force of vegetation sometimes produces unexpected obstacles. An
+Indian, furnished with a machete (a great knife, the blade of which is
+fourteen inches long), stood at the head of our boat, employed
+continually in chopping off the branches that crossed each other from
+the two sides of the channel. In the thickest part of the forest we
+were astonished by an extraordinary noise. On beating the bushes, a
+shoal of toninas (fresh-water dolphins) four feet long, surrounded our
+boat. These animals had concealed themselves beneath the branches of a
+fromager, or Bombax ceiba. They fled across the forest, throwing out
+those spouts of compressed air and water which have given them in
+every language the name of blowers. How singular was this spectacle in
+an inland spot, three or four hundred leagues from the mouths of the
+Orinoco and the Amazon! I am aware that the pleuronectes (dabs) of the
+Atlantic go up the Loire as far as Orleans; but I am, nevertheless, of
+opinion that the dolphins of the Temi, like those of the Ganges, and
+like the skate (raia) of the Orinoco, are of a species essentially
+different from the dolphins and skates of the ocean. In the immense
+rivers of South America, and the great lakes of North America, nature
+seems to repeat several pelagic forms. The Nile has no porpoises:*
+those of the sea go up the Delta no farther than Biana and Metonbis
+towards Selamoun. (* Those dolphins that enter the mouth of the Nile,
+did not escape the observation of the ancients. In a bust in syenite,
+preserved in the museum at Paris, the sculptor has represented them
+half concealed in the undulatory beard of the god of the river.)
+
+At five in the evening we regained with some difficulty the bed of the
+river. Our canoe remained fast for some minutes between two trunks of
+trees; and it was no sooner disengaged than we reached a spot where
+several paths, or small channels, crossed each other, so that the
+pilot was puzzled to distinguish the most open path. We navigated
+through a forest so thick that we could guide ourselves neither by the
+sun nor by the stars. We were again struck during this day by the want
+of arborescent ferns in that country; they diminish visibly from the
+sixth degree of north latitude, while the palm-trees augment
+prodigiously towards the equator. Fern-trees belong to a climate less
+hot, and a soil but little mountainous. It is only where there are
+mountains that these majestic plants descend towards the plains; they
+seem to avoid perfectly flat grounds, as those through which run the
+Cassiquiare, the Temi, Inirida, and the Rio Negro. We passed in the
+night near a rock, called the Piedra de Astor by the missionaries. The
+ground from the mouth of the Guaviare constantly displays the same
+geological formation. It is a vast granitic plain, in which from
+league to league the rock pierces the soil, and forms, not hillocks,
+but small masses, that resemble pillars or ruined buildings.
+
+On the 1st of May the Indians chose to depart long before sunrise. We
+were stirring before them, however, because I waited (though vainly)
+for a star ready to pass the meridian. In those humid regions covered
+with forests, the nights became more obscure in proportion as we drew
+nearer to the Rio Negro and the interior of Brazil. We remained in the
+bed of the river till daybreak, being afraid of losing ourselves among
+the trees. At sunrise we again entered the inundated forest, to avoid
+the force of the current. On reaching the junction of the Temi with
+another little river, the Tuamini, the waters of which are equally
+black, we proceeded along the latter to the south-west. This direction
+led us near the mission of Javita, which is founded on the banks of
+the Tuamini; and at this christian settlement we were to find the aid
+necessary for transporting our canoe by land to the Rio Negro. We did
+not arrive at San Antonio de Javita till near eleven in the morning.
+An accident, unimportant in itself, but which shows the excessive
+timidity of the little sagoins detained us some time at the mouth of
+the Tuamini. The noise of the blowers had frightened our monkeys, and
+one of them fell into the water. Animals of this species, perhaps on
+account of their extreme meagreness, swim badly; and consequently it
+was saved with some difficulty.
+
+At Javita we had the pleasure of finding a very intelligent and
+obliging monk, at whose mission we were forced to remain four or five
+days, the time required for transporting our boat across the portage
+of Pimichin. This delay enabled us to visit the surrounding country,
+as also to relieve ourselves from an annoyance which we had suffered
+for two days. We felt an extraordinary irritation on the joints of our
+fingers, and on the backs of our hands. The missionary told us it was
+caused by the aradores,* (* Literally the ploughers.) which get under
+the skin. We could distinguish with a lens nothing but streaks, or
+parallel and whitish furrows. It is the form of these furrows, that
+has obtained for the insect the name of ploughman. A mulatto woman was
+sent for, who professed to be thoroughly acquainted with all the
+little insects that burrow in the human skin; the chego, the nuche,
+the coya, and the arador; she was the curandera, or surgeon of the
+place. She promised to extirpate, one by one, the insects which caused
+this smarting irritation. Having heated at a lamp the point a little
+bit of hard wood, she dug with it into the furrows that marked the
+skin. After long examination, she announced with the pedantic gravity
+peculiar to the mulatto race, that an arador was found. I saw a little
+round bag, which I suspected to be the egg of an acarus. I was to find
+relief when the mulatto woman had succeeded in taking out three or
+four of these aradores. Having the skin of both hands filled with
+acari, I had not the patience to wait the end of an operation, which
+had already lasted till late at night. The next day an Indian of
+Javita cured us radically, and with surprising promptitude. He brought
+us the branch of a shrub, called uzao, with small leaves like those of
+cassia, very coriaceous and glossy. He made a cold infusion of the
+bark of this shrub, which had a bluish colour, and the taste of
+liquorice. When beaten, it yields a great deal of froth. The
+irritation of the aradores ceased by using simple lotions of this
+uzao-water. We could not find this shrub in flower, or bearing fruit;
+it appears to belong to the family of the leguminous plants, the
+chemical properties of which are singularly varied. We dreaded so much
+the sufferings to which we had been exposed, that we constantly kept
+some branches of the uzao in our boat, till we reached San Carlos.
+This shrub grows in abundance on the banks of the Pimichin. Why has no
+remedy been discovered for the irritation produced by the sting of the
+zancudos, as well as for that occasioned by the aradores or
+microscopic acari?
+
+In 1755, before the expedition for fixing the boundaries, better known
+by the name of the expedition of Solano, the whole country between the
+missions of Javita and San Balthasar was regarded as dependent on
+Brazil. The Portuguese had advanced from the Rio Negro, by the portage
+of the Cano Pimichin, as far as the banks of the Temi. An Indian chief
+of the name of Javita, celebrated for his courage and his spirit of
+enterprise, was the ally of the Portuguese. He pushed his hostile
+incursions from the Rio Jupura, or Caqueta, one of the great tributary
+streams of the Amazon, by the rivers Uaupe and Xie, as far as the
+black waters of the Temi and the Tuamini, a distance of more than a
+hundred leagues. He was furnished with letters patent, which
+authorised him to bring the Indians from the forest, for the conquest
+of souls. He availed himself amply of this permission; but his
+incursions had an object which was not altogether spiritual, that of
+making slaves to sell to the Portuguese. When Solano, the second chief
+of the expedition of the boundaries, arrived at San Fernando de
+Atabapo, he had Javita seized, in one of his incursions to the banks
+of the Temi. He treated him with gentleness, and succeeded in gaining
+him over to the interests of the Spanish government by promises that
+were not fulfilled. The Portuguese, who had already formed some stable
+settlements in these countries, were driven back as far as the lower
+part of the Rio Negro; and the mission of San Antonio, of which the
+more usual name is Javita, so called after its Indian founder, was
+removed farther north of the sources of the Tuamini, to the spot where
+it is now established. This captain, Javita, was still living, at an
+advanced age, when we proceeded to the Rio Negro. He was an Indian of
+great vigour of mind and body. He spoke Spanish with facility, and
+preserved a certain influence over the neighbouring nations. As he
+attended us in all our herborizations, we obtained from his own mouth
+information so much the more useful, as the missionaries have great
+confidence in his veracity. He assured us that in his youth he had
+seen almost all the Indian tribes that inhabit the vast regions
+between the Upper Orinoco, the Rio Negro, the Inirida, and the Jupura,
+eat human flesh. The Daricavanas, the Puchirinavis, and the
+Manitivitanos, appeared to him to be the greatest cannibals among
+them. He believes that this abominable practice is with them the
+effect of a system of vengeance; they eat only enemies who are made
+prisoners in battle. The instances where, by a refinement of cruelty,
+the Indian eats his nearest relations, his wife, or an unfaithful
+mistress, are extremely rare. The strange custom of the Scythians and
+Massagetes, the Capanaguas of the Rio Ucayale, and the ancient
+inhabitants of the West Indian Islands, of honouring the dead by
+eating a part of their remains, is unknown on the banks of the
+Orinoco. In both continents this trait of manners belongs only to
+nations that hold in horror the flesh of a prisoner. The Indian of
+Hayti (Saint Domingo) would think himself wanting in regard to the
+memory of a relation, if he did not throw into his drink a small
+portion of the body of the deceased, after having dried it like one of
+the mummies of the Guanches, and reduced it to powder. This gives us
+just occasion to repeat with an eastern poet, "of all animals man is
+the most fantastic in his manners, and the most disorderly in his
+propensities."
+
+The climate of the mission of San Antonio de Javita is extremely
+rainy. When you have passed the latitude of three degrees north, and
+approach the equator, you have seldom an opportunity of observing the
+sun or the stars. It rains almost the whole year, and the sky is
+constantly cloudy. As the breeze is not felt in these immense forests
+of Guiana, and the refluent polar currents do not penetrate them, the
+column of air which reposes on this wooded zone is not renewed by
+dryer strata. It is saturated with vapours which are condensed into
+equatorial rains. The missionary assured us that it often rains here
+four or five months without cessation.
+
+The temperature of Javita is cooler than that of Maypures, but
+considerably hotter than that of the Guainia or Rio Negro. The
+centigrade thermometer kept up in the day to twenty-six or
+twenty-seven degrees; and in the night to twenty-one degrees.
+
+From the 30th of April to the 11th of May, I had not been able to see
+any star in the meridian so as to determine the latitude of places. I
+watched whole nights in order to make use of the method of double
+altitudes; but all my efforts were useless. The fogs of the north of
+Europe are not more constant than those of the equatorial regions of
+Guiana. On the 4th of May, I saw the sun for some minutes; and found
+by the chronometer and the horary angles the longitude of Javita to be
+70 degrees 22 minutes, or 1 degree 15 minutes farther west than the
+longitude of the junction of the Apure with the Orinoco. This result
+is interesting for laying down on our maps the unknown country lying
+between the Xie and the sources of the Issana, situated on the same
+meridian with the mission of Javita.
+
+The Indians of Javita, whose number amounts to one hundred and sixty,
+now belong for the most part to the nations of the Poimisanos, the
+Echinavis, and the Paraganis. They are employed in the construction of
+boats, formed of the trunks of sassafras, a large species of laurel,
+hollowed by means of fire and the hatchet. These trees are more than
+one hundred feet high; the wood is yellow, resinous, almost
+incorruptible in water, and has a very agreeable smell. We saw them at
+San Fernando, at Javita, and more particularly at Esmeralda, where
+most of the canoes of the Orinoco are constructed, because the
+adjacent forests furnish the largest trunks of sassafras.
+
+The forest between Javita and the Cano Pimichin, contains an immense
+quantity of gigantic trees, ocoteas, and laurels, the Amasonia
+arborea,* (* This is a new species of the genus taligalea of Aublet.
+On the same spot grow the Bignonia magnoliaefolia, B. jasminifolia,
+Solanum topiro, Justicia pectoralis, Faramea cymosa, Piper javitense,
+Scleria hirtella, Echites javitensis, Lindsea javitensis, and that
+curious plant of the family of the verbenaceae, which I have dedicated
+to the illustrious Leopold von Buch, in whose early labours I
+participated.) the Retiniphyllum secundiflorum, the curvana, the
+jacio, the iacifate, of which the wood is red like the brazilletto,
+the guamufate, with its fine leaves of calophyllum from seven to eight
+inches long, the Amyris carana, and the mani. All these trees (with
+the exception of our new genus Retiniphyllum) were more than one
+hundred or one hundred and ten feet high. As their trunks throw out
+branches only toward the summit, we had some trouble in procuring both
+leaves and flowers. The latter were frequently strewed upon the ground
+at the foot of the trees; but, the plants of different families being
+grouped together in these forests, and every tree being covered with
+lianas, we could not, with any degree of confidence, rely on the
+authority of the natives, when they assured us that a flower belonged
+to such or such a tree. Amid these riches of nature heborizations
+caused us more chagrin than satisfaction. What we could gather
+appeared to us of little interest, compared to what we could not
+reach. It rained unceasingly during several months, and M. Bonpland
+lost the greater part of the specimens which he had been compelled to
+dry by artificial heat. Our Indians distinguished the leaves better
+than the corollae or the fruit. Occupied in seeking timber for canoes,
+they are inattentive to flowers. "All those great trees bear neither
+flowers nor fruits," they repeated unceasingly. Like the botanists of
+antiquity, they denied what they had not taken the trouble to observe.
+They were tired with our questions, and exhausted our patience in
+return.
+
+We have already mentioned that the same chemical properties being
+sometimes found in the same organs of different families of plants,
+these families supply each other's places in various climates. Several
+species of palms* furnish the inhabitants of equinoctial America and
+Africa with the oil which we derive from the olive. (* In Africa, the
+elais or maba; in America the cocoa-tree. In the cocoa-tree it is the
+perisperm; and in the elais (as in the olive, and the oleineae in
+general) it is the sarcocarp, or the pulp of the pericarp, that yields
+oil. This difference, observed in the same family, appears to me very
+remarkable, though it is in no way contradictory to the results
+obtained by De Candolle in his ingenious researches on the chemical
+properties of plants. If our Alfonsia oleifera belong to the genus
+Elais (as Brown, with great reason believes), it follows, that in the
+same genus the oil is found in the sarcocarp and in the perisperm.)
+What the coniferae are to the temperate zone, the terebinthaceae and
+the guttiferae are to the torrid. In the forests of those burning
+climates, (where there is neither pine, thuya, taxodium, nor even a
+podocarpus,) resins, balsams, and aromatic gums, are furnished by the
+maronobea, the icica, and the amyris. The collecting of these gummy
+and resinous substances is a trade in the village of Javita. The most
+celebrated resin bears the name of mani; and of this we saw masses of
+several hundred-weight, resembling colophony and mastic. The tree
+called mani by the Paraginis, which M. Bonpland believes to be the
+Moronobaea coccinea, furnishes but a small quantity of the substance
+employed in the trade with Angostura. The greatest part comes from the
+mararo or caragna, which is an amyris. It is remarkable enough, that
+the name mani, which Aublet heard among the Galibis* of Cayenne, was
+again heard by us at Javita, three hundred leagues distant from French
+Guiana. (* The Galibis or Caribis (the r has been changed into l, as
+often happens) are of the great stock of the Carib nations. The
+products useful in commerce and in domestic life have received the
+same denomination in every part of America which this warlike and
+commercial people have overrun.) The moronobaea or symphonia of Javita
+yields a yellow resin; the caragna, a resin strongly odoriferous, and
+white as snow; the latter becomes yellow where it is adherent to the
+internal part of old bark.
+
+We went every day to see how our canoe advanced on the portages.
+Twenty-three Indians were employed in dragging it by land, placing
+branches of trees to serve as rollers. In this manner a small boat
+proceeds in a day or a day and a half, from the waters of the Tuamini
+to those of the Cano Pimichin, which flow into the Rio Negro. Our
+canoe being very large, and having to pass the cataracts a second
+time, it was necessary to avoid with particular care any friction on
+the bottom; consequently the passage occupied more than four days. It
+is only since 1795 that a road has been traced through the forest. By
+substituting a canal for this portage, as I proposed to the ministry
+of king Charles IV, the communication between the Rio Negro and
+Angostura, between the Spanish Orinoco and the Portuguese possessions
+on the Amazon, would be singularly facilitated.
+
+In this forest we at length obtained precise information respecting
+the pretended fossil caoutchouc, called dapicho by the Indians. The
+old chief Javita led us to the brink of a rivulet which runs into the
+Tuamini; and showed us that, after digging two or three feet deep, in
+a marshy soil, this substance was found between the roots of two trees
+known by the name of the jacio and the curvana. The first is the hevea
+of Aublet, or siphonia of the modern botanists, known to furnish the
+caoutchouc of commerce in Cayenne and Grand Para; the second has
+pinnate leaves, and its juice is milky, but very thin, and almost
+destitute of viscosity. The dapicho appears to be the result of an
+extravasation of the sap from the roots. This extravasation takes
+place more especially when the trees have attained a great age, and
+the interior of the trunk begins to decay. The bark and alburnum
+crack; and thus is effected naturally, what the art of man performs
+for the purpose of collecting the milky juices of the hevea, the
+castilloa, and the caoutchouc fig-tree. Aublet relates, that the
+Galibis and the Garipons of Cayenne begin by making a deep incision at
+the foot of the trunk, so as to penetrate into the wood; soon after
+they join with this horizontal notch others both perpendicular and
+oblique, reaching from the top of the trunk nearly to the roots. All
+these incisions conduct the milky juice towards one point, where the
+vase of clay is placed, in which the caoutchouc is to be deposited. We
+saw the Indians of Carichana operate nearly in the same manner.
+
+If, as I suppose, the accumulation and overflowing of the milk in the
+jacio and the curvana be a pathological phenomenon, it must sometimes
+take place at the extremity of the longest roots, for we found masses
+of dapicho two feet in diameter and four inches thick, eight feet
+distant from the trunks. Sometimes the Indians dig in vain at the foot
+of dead trees; at other times the dapicho is found beneath the hevea
+or jacio still green. The substance is white, corky, fragile, and
+resembles by its laminated structure and undulating edge, the Boletus
+ignarius. The dapicho perhaps takes a long time to form; it is
+probably a juice thickened by a particular disposition of the
+vegetable organs, diffused and coagulated in a humid soil secluded
+from the contact of light; it is caoutchouc in a particular state, I
+may almost say an etiolated caoutchouc. The humidity of the soil seems
+to account for the undulating form of the edges of the dapicho, and
+its division into layers.
+
+I often observed in Peru, that on pouring slowly the milky juice of
+the hevea, or the sap of the carica, into a large quantity of water,
+the coagulum forms undulating outlines. The dapicho is certainly not
+peculiar to the forest that extends from Javita to Pimichin, although
+that is the only spot where it has hitherto been found. I have no
+doubt, that on digging in French Guiana beneath the roots and the old
+trunks of the hevea, those enormous masses of corky caoutchouc,* which
+I have just described, would from time to time be found. (* Thus, at
+five or six inches depth, between the roots of the Hymenea courbaril,
+masses of the resin anime (erroneously called copal) are discovered,
+and are sometimes mistaken for amber in inland places. This phenomenon
+seems to throw some light on the origin of those large masses of amber
+which are picked up from time to time on the coast of Prussia.) As it
+is observed in Europe, that at the fall of the leaf the sap is
+conveyed towards the root, it would be curious to examine whether,
+within the tropics, the milky juices of the urticeae, the
+euphorbiaceae, and the apocyneae, descend also at certain seasons.
+Notwithstanding a great equality of temperature, the trees of the
+torrid zone follow a cycle of vegetation; they undergo changes
+periodically returning. The existence of the dapicho is more
+interesting to physiology than to vegetable chemistry. A
+yellowish-white caoutchouc is now to be found in the shops, which may
+be easily distinguished from the dapicho, because it is neither dry
+like cork, nor friable, but extremely elastic, glossy, and soapy. I
+lately saw considerable quantities of it in London. This caoutchouc,
+white, and greasy to the touch, is prepared in the East Indies. It
+exhales that animal and fetid smell which I have attributed in another
+place to a mixture of caseum and albumen.* (* The pellicles deposited
+by the milk of hevea, in contact with the atmospheric oxygen, become
+brown on exposure to the sun. If the dapicho grow black as it is
+softened before the fire, it is owing to a slight combustion, to a
+change in the proportion of its elements. I am surprised that some
+chemists consider the black caoutchouc of commerce, as being mixed
+with soot, blackened by the smoke to which it has been exposed.) When
+we reflect on the immense variety of plants in the equinoctial regions
+that are capable of furnishing caoutchouc, it is to be regretted that
+this substance, so eminently useful, is not found among us at a lower
+price. Without cultivating trees with a milky sap, a sufficient
+quantity of caoutchouc might be collected in the missions of the
+Orinoco alone for the consumption of civilized Europe.* (* We saw in
+Guiana, besides the jacio and the curvana, two other trees that yield
+caoutchouc in abundance; on the banks of the Atabapo the guamaqui with
+jatropha leaves, and at Maypures the cime.) In the kingdom of New
+Grenada some successful attempts have been made to make boots and
+shoes of this substance without a seam. Among the American nations,
+the Omaguas of the Amazon best understand how to manufacture
+caoutchouc.
+
+Four days had passed, and our canoe had not yet arrived at the
+landing-place of the Rio Pimichin. "You want for nothing in my
+mission," said Father Cereso; "you have plantains and fish; at night
+you are not stung by mosquitos; and the longer you stay, the better
+chance you will have of seeing the stars of my country. If your boat
+be destroyed in the portage, we will give you another; and I shall
+have had the satisfaction of passing some weeks con gente blanca y de
+razon." ("With white and rational people." European self-love usually
+opposes the gente de razon to the gente parda, or coloured people.)
+Notwithstanding our impatience, we listened with interest to the
+information given us by the worthy missionary. It confirmed all we had
+already heard of the moral state of the natives of those countries.
+They live, distributed in hordes of forty or fifty, under a family
+government; and they recognise a common chief (apoto, sibierene) only
+at times when they make war against their neighbours. The mistrust of
+these hordes towards one another is increased by the circumstance that
+those who live in the nearest neighbourhood speak languages altogether
+different. In the open plains, in the countries with savannahs, the
+tribes are fond of choosing their habitations from an affinity of
+origin, and a resemblance of manners and idioms. On the table-land of
+Tartary, as in North America, great families of nations have been
+seen, formed into several columns, extending their migrations across
+countries thinly-wooded, and easily traversed. Such were the journeys
+of the Toltec and Aztec race in the high plains of Mexico, from the
+sixth to the eleventh century of our era; such probably was also the
+movement of nations by which the petty tribes of Canada were grouped
+together. As the immense country between the equator and the eighth
+degree of north latitude forms one continuous forest, the hordes were
+there dispersed by following the branchings of the rivers, and the
+nature of the land compelled them to become more or less
+agriculturists. Such is the labyrinth of these rivers, that families
+settled themselves without knowing what race of men lived nearest the
+spot. In Spanish Guiana a mountain, or a forest half a league broad,
+sometimes separates hordes who could not meet in less than two days by
+navigating rivers. In open countries, or in a state of advanced
+civilization, communication by rivers contributes powerfully to
+generalize languages, manners, and political institutions; but in the
+impenetrable forests of the torrid zone, as in the first rude
+condition of our species, rivers increase the dismemberment of great
+nations, favour the transition of dialects into languages that appear
+to us radically distinct, and keep up national hatred and mistrust.
+Between the banks of the Caura and the Padamo everything bears the
+stamp of disunion and weakness. Men avoid, because they do not
+understand, each other; they mutually hate, because they mutually
+fear.
+
+When we examine attentively this wild part of America, we fancy
+ourselves transported to those primitive times when the earth was
+peopled by degrees, and we seem to be present at the birth of human
+societies. In the old world we see that pastoral life has prepared the
+hunting nations for agriculture. In the New World we seek in vain
+these progressive developments of civilization, these intervals of
+repose, these stages in the life of nations. The luxury of vegetation
+embarrasses the Indians in the chase; and in their rivers, resembling
+arms of the sea, the depth of the waters prevents fishing during whole
+months. Those species of ruminating animals, that constitute the
+wealth of the nations of the Old World, are wanting in the New. The
+bison and the musk-ox have never been reduced to a domestic state; the
+breeding of llamas and guanacos has not created the habits of pastoral
+life. In the temperate zone, on the banks of the Missouri, as well as
+on the tableland of New Mexico, the American is a hunter; but in the
+torrid zone, in the forests of Guiana, he cultivates cassava,
+plantains, and sometimes maize. Such is the admirable fertility of
+nature, that the field of the native is a little spot of land, to
+clear which requires only setting fire to the brambles; and putting a
+few seeds or slips into the ground is all the husbandry it demands. If
+we go back in thought to the most remote ages, in these thick forests
+we must always figure to ourselves nations deriving the greater part
+of their nourishment from the earth; but, as this earth produces
+abundance in a small space, and almost without toil, we may also
+imagine these nations often changing their dwellings along the banks
+of the same river. Even now the native of the Orinoco travels with his
+seeds; and transports his farm (conuco) as the Arab transports his
+tent, and changes his pasturage. The number of cultivated plants found
+wild amid the woods, proves the nomad habits of an agricultural
+people. Can we be surprised, that by these habits they lose almost all
+the advantages that result in the temperate zone from stationary
+culture, from the growth of corn, which requires extensive lands and
+the most assiduous labour?
+
+The nations of the Upper Orinoco, the Atabapo, and the Inirida, like
+the ancient Germans and the Persians, have no other worship than that
+of the powers of nature. They call the good principle Cachimana; it is
+the Manitou, the Great Spirit, that regulates the seasons, and favours
+the harvests. Along with Cachimana there is an evil principle,
+Iolokiamo, less powerful, but more artful, and in particular more
+active. The Indians of the forest, when they occasionally visit the
+missions, conceive with difficulty the idea of a temple or an image.
+"These good people," said the missionary, "like only processions in
+the open air. When I last celebrated the festival of San Antonio, the
+patron of my village, the Indians of Inirida were present at mass.
+'Your God,' said they to me, 'keeps himself shut up in a house, as if
+he were old and infirm; ours is in the forest, in the fields, and on
+the mountains of Sipapu, whence the rains come.'" Among the more
+numerous, and on this account less barbarous tribes, religious
+societies of a singular kind are formed. Some old Indians pretend to
+be better instructed than others on points regarding divinity; and to
+them is confided the famous botuto, of which I have spoken, and which
+is sounded under the palm-trees that they may bear abundance of fruit.
+On the banks of the Orinoco there exists no idol, as among all the
+nations who have remained faithful to the first worship of nature, but
+the botuto, the sacred trumpet, is an object of veneration. To be
+initiated into the mysteries of the botuto, it is requisite to be of
+pure morals, and to have lived single. The initiated are subjected to
+flagellations, fastings, and other painful exercises. There are but a
+small number of these sacred trumpets. The most anciently celebrated
+is that upon a hill near the confluence of the Tomo and the Guainia.
+It is pretended, that it is heard at once on the banks of the Tuamini,
+and at the mission of San Miguel de Davipe, a distance of ten leagues.
+Father Cereso assured us, that the Indians speak of the botuto of Tomo
+as an object of worship common to many surrounding tribes. Fruit and
+intoxicating liquors are placed beside the sacred trumpet. Sometimes
+the Great Spirit himself makes the botuto resound; sometimes he is
+content to manifest his will through him to whom the keeping of the
+instrument is entrusted. These juggleries being very ancient (from the
+fathers of our fathers, say the Indians), we must not be surprised
+that some unbelievers are already to be found; but they express their
+disbelief of the mysteries of the botuto only in whispers. Women are
+not permitted to see this marvellous instrument; and are excluded from
+all the ceremonies of this worship. If a woman have the misfortune to
+see the trumpet, she is put to death without mercy. The missionary
+related to us, that in 1798 he was happy enough to save a young girl,
+whom a jealous and vindictive lover accused of having followed, from a
+motive of curiosity, the Indians who sounded the botuto in the
+plantations. "They would not have murdered her publicly," said father
+Cesero, "but how was she to be protected from the fanaticism of the
+natives, in a country where it is so easy to give poison? The young
+girl told me of her fears, and I sent her to one of the missions of
+the Lower Orinoco." If the people of Guiana had remained masters of
+that vast country; if, without having been impeded by Christian
+settlements, they could follow freely the development of their
+barbarous institutions; the worship of the botuto would no doubt
+become of some political importance. That mysterious society of the
+initiated, those guardians of the sacred trumpet, would be transformed
+into a ruling caste of priests, and the oracle of Tomo would gradually
+form a link between the bordering nations.
+
+In the evening of the 4th of May we were informed, that an Indian, who
+had assisted in dragging our bark over the portage of Pimichin, had
+been stung by a viper. He was a tall strong man, and was brought to
+the mission in a very alarming state. He had dropped down senseless;
+and nausea, vertigo, and congestions in the head, had succeeded the
+fainting. The liana called vejeco de guaco,* which M. Mutis has
+rendered so celebrated, and which is the most certain remedy for the
+bite of venomous serpents, is yet unknown in these countries. (* This
+is a mikania, which was confounded for some time in Europe with the
+ayapana. De Candolle thinks that the guaco may be the Eupatorium
+satureiaefolium of Lamarck; but this Eupatorium differs by its lineary
+leaves, while the Mikania guaco has triangular, oval, and very large
+leaves.) A number of Indians hastened to the hut of the sick man, and
+he was cured by an infusion of raiz de mato. We cannot indicate with
+certainty what plant furnishes this antidote; but I am inclined to
+think, that the raiz de mato is an apocynea, perhaps the Cerbera
+thevetia, called by the inhabitants of Cumana lingua de mato or
+contra-culebra, and which they also use against the bite of serpents.
+A genus nearly allied to the cerbera* (* Ophioxylon serpentinum.) is
+employed in India for the same purpose. It is common enough to find in
+the same family of plants vegetable poisons, and antidotes against the
+venom of reptiles. Many tonics and narcotics are antidotes more or
+less active; and we find these in families very different* from each
+other, in the aristolochiae, the apocyneae, the gentianae, the
+polygalae, the solaneae, the compositae, the malvaceae, the
+drymyrhizeae, and, which is still more surprising, even in the
+palm-trees. (* I shall mention as examples of these nine families;
+Aristolochia anguicida, Cerbera thevetia, Ophoiorhiza mungos, Polygala
+senega, Nicotiana tabacum, (One of the remedies most used in Spanish
+America). Mikanua guaco, Hibiscus abelmoschus (the seeds of which are
+very active), Lanpujum rumphii, and Kunthia montana (Cana de la
+Vibora).)
+
+In the hut of the Indian who had been so dangerously bitten by the
+viper, we found balls two or three inches in diameter, of an earthy
+and impure salt called chivi, which is prepared with great care by the
+natives. At Maypures a conferva is burnt, which is left by the Orinoco
+on the neighbouring rocks, when, after high swellings, it again enters
+its bed. At Javita a salt is fabricated by the incineration of the
+spadix and fruit of the palm-tree seje or chimu. This fine palm-tree,
+which abounds on the banks of the Auvana, near the cataract of
+Guarinumo, and between Javita and the Cano Pimichin, appears to be a
+new species of cocoa-tree. It may be recollected, that the fluid
+contained in the fruit of the common cocoa-tree is often saline, even
+when the tree grows far from the sea shore. At Madagascar salt is
+extracted from the sap of a palm-tree called ciro. Besides the spadix
+and the fruit of the seje palm, the Indians of Javita lixiviate also
+the ashes of the famous liana called cupana, which is a new species of
+the genus paullinia, consequently a very different plant from the
+cupania of Linnaeus. I may here mention, that a missionary seldom
+travels without being provided with some prepared seeds of the cupana.
+This preparation requires great care. The Indians scrape the seeds,
+mix them with flour of cassava, envelope the mass in plantain leaves,
+and set it to ferment in water, till it acquires a saffron-yellow
+colour. This yellow paste dried in the sun, and diluted in water, is
+taken in the morning as a kind of tea. The beverage is bitter and
+stomachic, but it appeared to me to have a very disagreeable taste.
+
+On the banks of the Niger, and in a great part of the interior of
+Africa, where salt is extremely rare, it is said of a rich man, "he is
+so fortunate as to eat salt at his meals." This good fortune is not
+too common in the interior of Guiana. The whites only, particularly
+the soldiers of the little fort of San Carlos, know how to procure
+pure salt, either from the coast of Caracas, or from Chita* by the Rio
+Meta. (* North of Morocote, at the eastern declivity of the Cordillera
+of New Grenada. The salt of the coasts, which the Indians call
+yuquira, costs two piastres the almuda at San Carlos.) Here, as
+throughout America, the Indians eat little meat, and consume scarcely
+any salt. The chivi of Javita is a mixture of muriate of potash and of
+soda, of caustic lime, and of several other earthy salts. The Indians
+dissolve a few particles in water, fill with this solution a leaf of
+heliconia folded in a conical form, and let drop a little, as from the
+extremity of a filter, on their food.
+
+On the 5th of May we set off, to follow on foot our canoe, which had
+at length arrived, by the portage, at the Cano Pimichin. We had to
+ford a great number of streams; and these passages require some
+caution on account of the vipers with which the marshes abound. The
+Indians pointed out to us on the moist clay the traces of the little
+black bears so common on the banks of the Temi. They differ at least
+in size from the Ursus americanus. The missionaries call them osso
+carnicero, to distinguish them from the osso palmero or tamanoir
+(Myrmecophaga jubata), and from the osso hormigero, or anteater
+(tamandua). The flesh of these animals is good to eat; the first two
+defend themselves by rising on their hind feet. The tamanoir of Buffon
+is called uaraca by the Indians; it is irascible and courageous, which
+is extraordinary in an animal without teeth. We found, as we advanced,
+some vistas in the forest, which appeared to us the richer, as it
+became more accessible. We here gathered some new species of coffee
+(the American tribe, with flowers in panicles, forms probably a
+particular genus); the Galega piscatorum, of which the Indians make
+use, as they do of jacquinia, and of a composite plant of the Rio
+Temi, as a kind of barbasco, to intoxicate fish; and finally, the
+liana, known in those countries by the name of vejuco de mavacure,
+which yields the famous curare poison. It is neither a phyllanthus,
+nor a coriaria, as M. Willdenouw conjectured, but, as M. Kunth's
+researches show, very probably a strychnos. We shall have occasion,
+farther on, to speak of this venomous substance, which is an important
+object of trade among the savages.
+
+The trees of the forest of Pimichin have the gigantic height of from
+eighty to a hundred and twenty feet. In these burning climates the
+laurineae and amyris* (* The great white and red cedars of these
+countries are not the Cedrela odorata, but the Amyris altissima, which
+is an icica of Aublet.) furnish that fine timber for building, which,
+on the north-west coast of America, on mountains where the thermometer
+falls in winter to 20 degrees centigrade below zero, we find in the
+family of the coniferae. Such, in every zone, and in all the families
+of American plants, is the prodigious force of vegetation, that, in
+the latitude of fifty-seven degrees north, on the same isothermal line
+with St. Petersburgh and the Orkneys, the Pinus canadensis displays
+trunks one hundred and fifty feet high, and six feet in diameter.* (*
+Langsdorf informs us that the inhabitants of Norfolk Sound make boats
+of a single trunk, fifty feet long, four feet and a half broad, and
+three high at the sides. They contain thirty persons. These boats
+remind us of the canoes of the Rio Chagres in the isthmus of Panama,
+in the torrid zone. The Populus balsamifera also attains an immense
+height, on the mountains that border Norfolk Sound.) Towards night we
+arrived at a small farm, in the puerto or landing place of Pimichin.
+We were shown a cross near the road, which marked the spot where a
+poor capuchin missionary had been killed by wasps. I state this on the
+authority of the monks of Javita and the Indians. They talk much in
+these countries of wasps and venomous ants, but we saw neither one nor
+the other of these insects. It is well known that in the torrid zone
+slight stings often cause fits of fever almost as violent as those
+that with us accompany severe organic injuries. The death of this poor
+monk was probably the effect of fatigue and damp, rather than of the
+venom contained in the stings of wasps, which the Indians dread
+extremely. We must not confound the wasps of Javita with the melipones
+bees, called by the Spaniards angelitos (little angels) which covered
+our faces and hands on the summit of the Silla de Caracas.
+
+The landing place of Pimichin is surrounded by a small plantation of
+cacao-trees; they are very vigorous, and here, as on the banks of the
+Atabapo and the Guainia, they are loaded with flowers and fruits at
+all seasons. They begin to bear from the fourth year; on the coast of
+Caracas they do not bear till the sixth or eighth year. The soil of
+these countries is sandy, wherever it is not marshy; but the light
+lands of the Tuamini and Pimichin are extremely productive.* (* At
+Javita, an extent of fifty feet square, planted with Jatropha manihot
+(yucca) yields in two years, in the worst soil, a harvest of six
+tortas of cassava: the same extent on a middling soil yields in
+fourteen months a produce of nine tortas. In an excellent soil, around
+clumps of mauritia, there is every year from fifty feet square a
+produce of thirteen or fourteen tortas. A torta weighs three quarters
+of a pound, and three tortas cost generally in the province of Caracas
+one silver rial, or one-eighth of a piastre. These statements appear
+to me to be of some importance, when we wish to compare the nutritive
+matter which man can obtain from the same extent of soil, by covering
+it, in different climates, with bread-trees, plantains, jatropha,
+maize, potatoes, rice, and corn. The tardiness of the harvest of
+jatropha has, I believe, a beneficial influence on the manners of the
+natives, by fixing them to the soil, and compelling them to sojourn
+long on the same spot.) Around the conucos of Pimichin grows, in its
+wild state, the igua, a tree resembling the Caryocar nuciferum which
+is cultivated in Dutch and French Guiana, and which, with the
+almendron of Mariquita (Caryocar amygdaliferum), the juvia of the
+Esmeralda (Bertholletia excelsa), and the Geoffroea of the Amazon,
+yields the finest almonds of all South America. No commercial
+advantage is here made of the igua; but I saw vessels arrive on the
+coast of Terra Firma, that came from Demerara laden with the fruit of
+the Caryocar tomentosum, which is the Pekea tuberculosa of Aublet.
+These trees reach a hundred feet in height, and present, by the beauty
+of their corolla, and the multitude of their stamens, a magnificent
+appearance. I should weary the reader by continuing the enumeration of
+the vegetable wonders which these vast forests contain. Their variety
+depends on the coexistence of such a great number of families in a
+small space of ground, on the stimulating power of light and heat, and
+on the perfect elaboration of the juices that circulate in these
+gigantic plants.
+
+We passed the night in a hut lately abandoned by an Indian family, who
+had left behind them their fishing-tackle, pottery, nets made of the
+petioles of palm-trees; in short, all that composes the household
+furniture of that careless race of men, little attached to property. A
+great store of mani (a mixture of the resin of the moronoboea and the
+Amyris carana) was accumulated round the house. This is used by the
+Indians here, as at Cayenne, to pitch their canoes, and fix the bony
+spines of the ray at the points of their arrows. We found in the same
+place jars filled with a vegetable milk, which serves as a varnish,
+and is celebrated in the missions by the name of leche para pintar
+(milk for painting). They coat with this viscous juice those articles
+of furniture to which they wish to give a fine white colour. It
+thickens by the contact of the air, without growing yellow, and it
+appears singularly glossy. We have already mentioned that the
+caoutchouc is the oily part, the butter of all vegetable milk. It is,
+no doubt, a particular modification of caoutchouc that forms this
+coagulum, this white and glossy skin, that seems as if covered with
+copal varnish. If different colours could be given to this milky
+varnish, a very expeditious method would be found of painting and
+varnishing our carriages by one process. The more we study vegetable
+chemistry in the torrid zone, the more we shall discover, in remote
+spots, and half-prepared in the organs of plants, products which we
+believe belong only to the animal kingdom, or which we obtain by
+processes which are often tedious and difficult. Already we have found
+the wax that coats the palm-tree of the Andes of Quindiu, the silk of
+the palm-tree of Mocoa, the nourishing milk of the palo de vaca, the
+butter-tree of Africa, and the caseous substances obtained from the
+almost animalized sap of the Carica papaya. These discoveries will be
+multiplied, when, as the political state of the world seems now to
+indicate, European civilization shall flow in a great measure toward
+the equinoctial regions of the New Continent.
+
+The marshy tract between Javita and the embarcadero of Pimichin is
+infested with great numbers of vipers. Before we took possession of
+the deserted hut, the Indians killed two great mapanare serpents.* (*
+This name is given in the Spanish colonies to very different species.
+The Coluber mapanare of the province of Caracas has one hundred and
+forty-two ventral plates, and thirty-eight double caudal scales. The
+Coluber mapanare of the Rio Magdalena has two hundred and eight
+ventral plates, and sixty-four double caudal scales.) These grow to
+four or five feet long. They appeared to me to be the same species as
+those I saw in the Rio Magdalena. This serpent is a beautiful animal,
+but extremely venomous, white on the belly, and spotted with brown and
+red on the back. As the inside of the hut was filled with grass, and
+we were lying on the ground, there being no means of suspending our
+hammocks, we were not without inquietude during the night. In the
+morning a large viper was found on lifting the jaguar-skin upon which
+one of our domestics had slept. The Indians say that these reptiles,
+slow in their movements when they are not pursued, creep near a man
+because they are fond of heat. In fact, on the banks of the Magdalena
+a serpent entered the bed of one of our fellow-travellers, and
+remained there a part of the night, without injuring him. Without
+wishing to take up the defence of vipers and rattlesnakes, I believe
+it may be affirmed that, if these venomous animals had such a
+disposition for offence as is supposed, the human species would
+certainly not have withstood their numbers in some parts of America;
+for instance, on the banks of the Orinoco and the humid mountains of
+Choco.
+
+We embarked on the 8th of May at sunrise, after having carefully
+examined the bottom of our canoe. It had become thinner, but had
+received no crack in the portage. We reckoned that it would still bear
+the voyage of three hundred leagues, which we had yet to perform, in
+going down the Rio Negro, ascending the Cassiquiare, and redescending
+the Orinoco as far as Angostura. The Pimichin, which is called a
+rivulet (cano) is tolerably broad; but small trees that love the water
+narrow the bed so much that there remains open a channel of only
+fifteen or twenty toises. Next to the Rio Chagres this river is one of
+the most celebrated in America for the number of its windings: it is
+said to have eighty-five, which greatly lengthen it. They often form
+right angles, and occur every two or three leagues. To determine the
+difference of longitude between the landing-place and the point where
+we were to enter the Rio Negro, I took by the compass the course of
+the Cano Pimichin, and noted the time during which we followed the
+same direction. The velocity of the current was only 2.4 feet in a
+second; but our canoe made by rowing 4.6 feet. The embarcadero of the
+Pimichin appeared to me to be eleven thousand toises west of its
+mouth, and 0 degrees 2 minutes west of the mission of Javita. This
+Cano is navigable during the whole year, and has but one raudal, which
+is somewhat difficult to go up; its banks are low, but rocky. After
+having followed the windings of the Pimichin for four hours and a half
+we at length entered the Rio Negro.
+
+The morning was cool and beautiful. We had now been confined
+thirty-six days in a narrow boat, so unsteady that it would have been
+overset by any person rising imprudently from his seat, without
+warning the rowers. We had suffered severely from the sting of
+insects, but we had withstood the insalubrity of the climate; we had
+passed without accident the great number of waterfalls and bars, which
+impede the navigation of the rivers, and often render it more
+dangerous than long voyages by sea. After all we had endured, it may
+be conceived that we felt no little satisfaction in having reached the
+tributary streams of the Amazon, having passed the isthmus that
+separates two great systems of rivers, and in being sure of having
+fulfilled the most important object of our journey, namely, to
+determine astronomically the course of that arm of the Orinoco which
+falls into the Rio Negro, and of which the existence has been
+alternately proved and denied during half a century. In proportion as
+we draw near to an object we have long had in view, its interest seems
+to augment. The uninhabited banks of the Cassiquiare, covered with
+forests, without memorials of times past, then occupied my
+imagination, as do now the banks of the Euphrates, or the Oxus,
+celebrated in the annals of civilized nations. In that interior part
+of the New Continent one may almost accustom oneself to regard men as
+not being essential to the order of nature. The earth is loaded with
+plants, and nothing impedes their free development. An immense layer
+of mould manifests the uninterrupted action of organic powers.
+Crocodiles and boas are masters of the river; the jaguar, the peccary,
+the dante, and the monkeys traverse the forest without fear and
+without danger; there they dwell as in an ancient inheritance. This
+aspect of animated nature, in which man is nothing, has something in
+it strange and sad. To this we reconcile ourselves with difficulty on
+the ocean, and amid the sands of Africa; though in scenes where
+nothing recalls to mind our fields, our woods, and our streams, we are
+less astonished at the vast solitude through which we pass. Here, in a
+fertile country, adorned with eternal verdure, we seek in vain the
+traces of the power of man; we seem to be transported into a world
+different from that which gave us birth. These impressions are the
+more powerful in proportion as they are of long duration. A soldier,
+who had spent his whole life in the missions of the Upper Orinoco,
+slept with us on the bank of the river. He was an intelligent man,
+who, during a calm and serene night, pressed me with questions on the
+magnitude of the stars, on the inhabitants of the moon, on a thousand
+subjects of which I was as ignorant as himself. Being unable by my
+answers to satisfy his curiosity, he said to me in a firm tone of the
+most positive conviction: "with respect to men, I believe there are no
+more up there than you would have found if you had gone by land from
+Javita to Cassiquiare. I think I see in the stars, as here, a plain
+covered with grass, and a forest (mucho monte) traversed by a river."
+In citing these words I paint the impression produced by the
+monotonous aspect of those solitary regions. May this monotony not be
+found to extend to the journal of our navigation, and weary the reader
+accustomed to the description of the scenes and historical memorials
+of the old continent!
+
+
+CHAPTER 2.23.
+
+THE RIO NEGRO.
+BOUNDARIES OF BRAZIL.
+THE CASSIQUIARE.
+BIFURCATION OF THE ORINOCO.
+
+The Rio Negro, compared to the Amazon, the Rio de la Plata, or the
+Orinoco, is but a river of the second order. Its possession has been
+for ages of great political importance to the Spanish Government,
+because it is capable of furnishing a rival power, Portugal, with an
+easy passage into the missions of Guiana, and thereby disturbing the
+Capitania general of Caracas in its southern limits. Three hundred
+years have been spent in vain territorial disputes. According to the
+difference of times, and the degree of civilization among the natives,
+resource has been had sometimes to the authority of the Pope, and
+sometimes the support of astronomy; and the disputants being generally
+more interested in prolonging than in terminating the struggle, the
+nautical sciences and the geography of the New Continent, have alone
+gained by this interminable litigation. When the affairs of Paraguay,
+and the possession of the colony of Del Sacramento, became of great
+importance to the courts of Madrid and Lisbon, commissioners of the
+boundaries were sent to the Orinoco, the Amazon, and the Rio Plata.
+
+The little that was known, up to the end of the last century, of the
+astronomical geography of the interior of the New Continent, was owing
+to these estimable and laborious men, the French and Spanish
+academicians, who measured a meridian line at Quito, and to officers
+who went from Valparaiso to Buenos Ayres to join the expedition of
+Malaspina. Those persons who know the inaccuracy of the maps of South
+America, and have seen those uncultivated lands between the Jupura and
+the Rio Negro, the Madeira and the Ucayale, the Rio Branco and the
+coasts of Cayenne, which up to our own days have been gravely disputed
+in Europe, can be not a little surprised at the perseverance with
+which the possession of a few square leagues is litigated. These
+disputed grounds are generally separated from the cultivated part of
+the colonies by deserts, the extent of which is unknown. In the
+celebrated conferences of Puente de Caya the question was agitated,
+whether, in fixing the line of demarcation three hundred and seventy
+Spanish leagues to the west of the Cape Verde Islands, the pope meant
+that the first meridian should be reckoned from the centre of the
+island of St. Nicholas, or (as the court of Portugal asserted) from
+the western extremity of the little island of St. Antonio. In the year
+1754, the time of the expedition of Iturriaga and Solano, negociations
+were entered into respecting the possession of the then desert banks
+of the Tuamini, and of a marshy tract which we crossed in one evening
+going from Javita to Cano Pimichin. The Spanish commissioners very
+recently would have placed the divisional line at the point where the
+Apoporis falls into the Jupura, while the Portuguese astronomers
+carried it back as far as Salto Grande.
+
+The Rio Negro and the Jupuro are two tributary streams of the Amazon,
+and may be compared in length to the Danube. The upper parts belong to
+the Spaniards, while the lower are occupied by the Portuguese. The
+Christian settlements are very numerous from Mocoa to the mouth of the
+Caguan; while on the Lower Jupura the Portuguese have founded only a
+few villages. On the Rio Negro, on the contrary, the Spaniards have
+not been able to rival their neighbours. Steppes and forests nearly
+desert separate, at a distance of one hundred and sixty leagues, the
+cultivated part of the coast from the four missions of Marsa, Tomo,
+Davipe, and San Carlos, which are all that the Spanish Franciscans
+could establish along the Rio Negro. Among the Portuguese of Brazil
+the military system, that of presides and capitanes pobladores, has
+prevailed over the government of the missionaries. Grand Para is no
+doubt far distant from the mouth of the Rio Negro: but the facility of
+navigation on the Amazon, which runs like an immense canal in one
+direction from west to east, has enabled the Portuguese population to
+extend itself rapidly along the river. The banks of the Lower Maranon,
+from Vistoza as far as Serpa, as well as those of the Rio Negro from
+Fort da Bara to San Jose da Maravitanos, are embellished by rich
+cultivation, and by a great number of large villages and towns.
+
+These local considerations are combined with others, suggested by the
+moral position of nations. The north-west coast of America furnishes
+to this day no other stable settlements but Russian and Spanish
+colonies. Before the inhabitants of the United States, in their
+progressive movement from east to west, could reach the shore between
+the latitude 41 and 50 degrees, which long separated the Spanish monks
+and the Siberian hunters,* the latter had established themselves south
+of the Columbia River. (* The hunters connected with military posts,
+and dependent on the Russian Company, of which the principal
+shareholders live at Irkutsk. In 1804 the little fortress (krepost) at
+the bay of Jakutal was still six hundred leagues distant from the most
+northern Mexican possessions.) Thus in New California the Franciscan
+missionaries, men estimable for their morals, and their agricultural
+activity, learnt with astonishment, that Greek priests had arrived in
+their neighbourhood; and that two nations, who inhabit the eastern and
+western extremities of Europe, were become neighbours on a coast of
+America opposite to China. In Guiana circumstances were very
+different: the Spaniards found on their frontiers those very
+Portuguese, who, by their language, and their municipal institutions,
+form with them one of the most noble remains of Roman Europe; but whom
+mistrust, founded on unequal strength, and too great proximity, has
+converted into an often hostile, and always rival power.
+
+If two nations adjacent to each other in Europe, the Spaniards and the
+Portuguese, have alike become neighbours in the New Continent, they
+are indebted for that circumstance to the spirit of enterprise and
+active courage which both displayed at the period of their military
+glory and political greatness. The Castilian language is now spoken in
+North and South America throughout an extent of more than one thousand
+nine hundred leagues in length; if, however, we consider South America
+apart, we there find the Portuguese language spread over a larger
+space of ground, and spoken by a smaller number of individuals than
+the Castilian. It would seem as if the bond that so closely connects
+the fine languages of Camoens and Lope de Vega, had served only to
+separate two nations, who have become neighbours against their will.
+National hatred is not modified solely by a diversity of origin, of
+manners, and of progress in civilization; whenever it is powerful, it
+must be considered as the effect of geographical situation, and the
+conflicting interests thence resulting. Nations detest each other the
+less, in proportion as they are distant; and when, their languages
+being radically different, they do not even attempt to combine
+together. Travellers who have passed through New California, the
+interior provinces of Mexico, and the northern frontiers of Brazil,
+have been struck by these shades in the moral dispositions of
+bordering nations.
+
+When I was in the Spanish Rio Negro, the divergent politics of the
+courts of Lisbon and Madrid had augmented that system of mistrust
+which, even in calmer times, the commanders of petty neighbouring
+forts love to encourage. Boats went up from Barcelos as far as the
+Spanish missions, but the communications were of rare occurrence. A
+commandant with sixteen or eighteen soldiers wearied the garrison by
+measures of safety, which were dictated by the important state of
+affairs; if he were attacked, he hoped to surround the enemy. When we
+spoke of the indifference with which the Portuguese government
+doubtless regarded the four little villages founded by the monks of
+Saint Francisco, on the Upper Guainia, the inhabitants were hurt by
+the motives which we alleged with the view to give them confidence. A
+people who have preserved in vigour, through the revolutions of ages,
+a national hatred, like occasions of giving it vent. The mind delights
+in everything impassioned, in the consciousness of an energetic
+feeling, in the affections, and in rival hatreds that are founded on
+antiquated prejudices. Whatever constitutes the individuality of
+nations flows from the mother-country to the most remote colonies; and
+national antipathies are not effaced where the influence of the same
+languages ceases. We know, from the interesting narrative of
+Krusenstern's voyage, that the hatred of two fugitive sailors, one a
+Frenchman and the other an Englishman, was the cause of a long war
+between the inhabitants of the Marquesas Islands. On the banks of the
+Amazon and the Rio Negro, the Indians of the neighbouring Portuguese
+and Spanish villages detest each other. These poor people speak only
+the native tongues; they are ignorant of what passes on the other bank
+of the ocean, beyond the great salt-pool; but the gowns of their
+missionaries are of a different colour, and this displeases them
+extremely.
+
+I have stopped to paint the effects of national animosities, which
+wise statesmen have endeavoured to calm, but have been unable entirely
+to set at rest. This rivalry has contributed to the imperfection of
+the geographical knowledge hitherto obtained respecting the tributary
+rivers of the Amazon. When the communications of the natives are
+impeded, and one nation is established near the mouth, and another in
+the upper part of the same river, it is difficult for persons who
+attempt to construct maps to acquire precise information. The
+periodical inundations, and still more the portages, by which boats
+are passed from one stream to another, the sources of which are in the
+same neighbourhood, have led to erroneous ideas of the bifurcations
+and branchings of rivers. The Indians of the Portuguese missions, for
+instance, enter (as I was informed upon the spot) the Spanish Rio
+Negro on one side by the Rio Guainia and the Rio Tomo; and the Upper
+Orinoco on the other, by the portages between the Cababuri, the
+Pacimoni, the Idapa, and the Macava, to gather the aromatic seeds of
+the puchero laurel beyond the Esmeralda. The Indians, I repeat, are
+excellent geographers; they outflank the enemy, notwithstanding the
+limits traced upon the maps, in spite of the forts and the
+estacamentos; and when the missionaries see them arrive from such
+distances, and in different seasons, they begin to frame hypotheses of
+supposed communications of rivers. Each party has an interest in
+concealing what it knows with certainty; and that love of the
+mysterious, so general among the ignorant, contributes to perpetuate
+the doubt. It may also be observed that the various Indian nations,
+who frequent this labyrinth of rivers, give them names entirely
+different; and that these names are disguised and lengthened by
+terminations that signify water, great water, and current. How often
+have I been perplexed by the necessity of settling the synonyms of
+rivers, when I have sent for the most intelligent natives, to
+interrogate them, through an interpreter, respecting the number of
+tributary streams, the sources of the rivers, and the portages. Three
+or four languages being spoken in the same mission, it is difficult to
+make the witnesses agree. Our maps are loaded with names arbitrarily
+shortened or perverted. To examine how far they may be accurate, we
+must be guided by the geographical situation of the confluent rivers,
+I might almost say by a certain etymological tact. The Rio Uaupe, or
+Uapes of the Portuguese maps, is the Guapue of the Spanish maps, and
+the Ucayari of the natives. The Anava of the old geographers is the
+Anauahu of Arrowsmith, and the Uanauhau or Guanauhu of the Indians.
+The desire of leaving no void in the maps, in order to give them an
+appearance of accuracy, has caused rivers to be created, to which
+names have been applied that have not been recognized as synonymous.
+It is only lately that travellers in America, in Persia, and in the
+Indies, have felt the importance of being correct in the denomination
+of places. When we read the travels of Sir Walter Raleigh, it is
+difficult indeed to recognise in the lake of Mrecabo, the laguna of
+Maracaybo, and in the Marquis Paraco the name of Pizarro, the
+destroyer of the empire of the Incas.
+
+The great tributary streams of the Amazon are designated by the
+missionaries by different names in their upper and lower course. The
+Iza is called, higher up, Putumayo, the Jupura towards its source
+bears the name of Caqueta. The researches made in the missions of the
+Andaquies on the real origin of the Rio Negro have been the more
+fruitless because the Indian name of the river was unknown. I heard it
+called Guainia at Javita, Maroa, and San Carlos. Southey, in his
+history of Brazil, says expressly that the Rio Negro, in the lower
+part of its course, is called Guiani, or Curana, by the natives; in
+the upper part, Ueneya. It is the word Gueneya, instead of Guainia;
+for the Indians of those countries say indifferently Guaranacua or
+Ouaranacua, Guarapo or Uarapo.
+
+The sources of the Rio Negro have long been an object of contention
+among geographers. The interest we feel in this question is not merely
+that which attaches to the origin of all great rivers, but is
+connected with a crowd of other questions, that comprehend the
+supposed bifurcations of the Caqueta, the communications between the
+Rio Negro and the Orinoco, and the local fable of El Dorado, formerly
+called Enim, or the empire of the Grand Paytiti. When we study with
+care the ancient maps of these countries, and the history of their
+geographical errors, we see how by degrees the fable of El Dorado has
+been transported towards the west with the sources of the Orinoco. It
+was at first fixed on the eastern declivity of the Andes, to the
+south-west of the Rio Negro. The valiant Philip de Urre sought for the
+great city of Manoa by traversing the Guaviare. Even now the Indians
+of San Jose de Maravitanos relate that, on sailing to the north-east
+for fifteen days, on the Guape or Uaupe, you reach a famous laguna de
+oro, surrounded by mountains, and so large that the opposite shore
+cannot be discerned. A ferocious nation, the Guanes, do not permit the
+collecting of the gold of a sandy plain that surrounds the lake.
+Father Acunha places the lake Manoa, or Yenefiti, between the Jupura
+and the Rio Negro. Some Manoa Indians brought Father Fritz, in 1687,
+several slips of beaten gold. This nation, the name of which is still
+known on the banks of the Urarira, between Lamalongo and Moreira,
+dwelt on the Yurubesh. La Condamine is right in saying that this
+Mesopotamia, between the Caqueta, the Rio Negro, the Yurubesh, and the
+Iquiare, was the first scene of El Dorado. But where shall we find the
+names of Yurubesh and Iquiare, given by the Fathers Acunha and Fritz?
+I think I recognise them in the rivers Urubaxi and Iguari,* on some
+manuscript Portuguese maps which I possess. (* It may be written
+Urubaji. The j and the x were the same as the German ch to Father
+Fritz. The Urubaxi, or Hyurubaxi (Yurubesh), falls into the Rio Negro
+near Santa Isabella; the Iguari (Iquiare?) runs into the Issana, which
+is also a tributary of the Rio Negro.) I have long and assiduously
+studied the geography of South America, north of the Amazon, from
+ancient maps and unpublished materials. Desirous that my work should
+preserve the character of a scientific performance, I ought not to
+hesitate about treating of subjects on which I flatter myself that I
+can throw some light; namely, on the questions respecting the sources
+of the Rio Negro and the Orinoco, the communication between these
+rivers and the Amazon, and the problem of the auriferous soil, which
+has cost the inhabitants of the New World so much suffering and so
+much blood.
+
+In the distribution of the waters circulating on the surface of the
+globe, as well as in the structure of organic bodies, nature has
+pursued a much less complicated plan than has been believed by those
+who have suffered themselves to be guided by vague conceptions and a
+taste for the marvellous. We find, too, that all anomalies, all the
+exceptions to the laws of hydrography, which the interior of America
+displays, are merely apparent; that the course of running waters
+furnishes phenomena equally extraordinary in the old world, but that
+these phenomena, from their littleness, have less struck the
+imagination of travellers. When immense rivers may be considered as
+composed of several parallel furrows of unequal depth; when these
+rivers are not enclosed in valleys; and when the interior of the great
+continent is as flat as the shores of the sea with us; the
+ramifications, the bifurcations, and the interlacings in the form of
+net-work, must be infinitely multiplied. From what we know of the
+equilibrium of the seas, I cannot think that the New World issued from
+the waters later than the Old, and that organic life is there younger,
+or more recent; but without admitting oppositions between the two
+hemispheres of the same planet, we may conceive that in the hemisphere
+most abundant in waters the different systems of rivers required more
+time to separate themselves from one another, and establish their
+complete independence. The deposits of mud, which are formed wherever
+the running waters lose somewhat of their swiftness, contribute, no
+doubt, to raise the beds of the great confluent streams, and augment
+their inundations; but at length these deposits entirely obstruct the
+branches of the rivers and the narrow channels that connect the
+neighbouring streams. The substances washed down by rain-waters form
+by their accumulation new bars, isthmuses of deposited earth, and
+points of division that did not before exist. It hence results that
+these natural channels of communication are by degrees divided into
+two tributary streams, and from the effect of a transverse rising,
+acquire two opposite slopes; a part of their waters is turned back
+towards the principal recipient, and a buttress rises between the two
+parallel basins, which occasions all traces of their ancient
+communication to disappear. From this period the bifurcations no
+longer connect different systems of rivers; and, where they continue
+to take place at the time of great inundations, we see that the waters
+diverge from the principal recipient only to enter it again after a
+longer or shorter circuit. The limits, which at first appeared vague
+and uncertain, begin to be fixed; and in the lapse of ages, from the
+action of whatever is moveable on the surface of the globe, from that
+of the waters, the deposits, and the sands, the basins of rivers
+separate, as great lakes are subdivided, and as inland seas lose their
+ancient communications.* (* The geological constitution of the soil
+seems to indicate that, notwithstanding the actual difference of level
+in their waters, the Black Sea, the Caspian, and lake Aral,
+communicated with each other in an era anterior to historic times. The
+overflowing of the Aral into the Caspian Sea seems even to be partly
+of a more recent date, and independent of the bifurcation of the Gihon
+(Oxus), on which one of the most learned geographers of our day, M.
+Ritter, has thrown new light.)
+
+The certainty acquired by geographers since the sixteenth century, of
+the existence of several bifurcations, and the mutual dependence of
+various systems of rivers in South America, have led them to admit an
+intimate connection between the five great tributary streams of the
+Orinoco and the Amazon; the Guaviare, the Inirida, the Rio Negro, the
+Caqueta or Hyapura, and the Putumayo or Iza.
+
+The Meta, the Guaviare, the Caqueta, and the Putumayo, are the only
+great rivers that rise immediately from the eastern declivity of the
+Andes of Santa Fe, Popayan, and Pasto. The Vichada, the Zama, the
+Inirida, the Rio Negro, the Uaupe, and the Apoporis, which are marked
+in our maps as extending westward as far as the mountains, take rise
+at a great distance from them, either in the savannahs between the
+Meta and the Guaviare, or in the mountainous country which, according
+to the information given me by the natives, begins at four or five
+days' journey westward of the missions of Javita and Maroa, and
+extends through the Sierra Tuhuny, beyond the Xie, towards the banks
+of the Issana.
+
+It is remarkable that this ridge of the Cordilleras, which contains
+the sources of so many majestic rivers (the Meta, the Guaviare, the
+Caqueta, and the Putumayo), is as little covered with snow as the
+mountains of Abyssinia from which flow the waters of the Blue Nile;
+but, on the contrary, on going up the tributary streams which furrow
+the plains, a volcano as found still in activity, before you reach the
+Cordillera of the Andes. This phenomenon was discovered by the
+Franciscan monks, who go down from Ceja by the Rio Fragua to Caqueta.
+A solitary hill, emitting smoke night and day, is found on the
+north-east of the mission of Santa Rosa, and west of the Puerto del
+Pescado. This is the effect of a lateral action of the volcanoes of
+Popayan and Pasto; as Guacamayo and Sangay, situated also at the foot
+of the eastern declivity of the Andes, are the effect of a lateral
+action produced by the system of the volcanoes of Quito. After having
+closely inspected the banks of the Orinoco and the Rio Negro, where
+the granite everywhere pierces the soil; when we reflect on the total
+absence of volcanoes in Brazil, Guiana, on the coast of Venezuela, and
+perhaps in all that part of the continent lying eastward of the Andes;
+we contemplate with interest the three burning volcanoes situated near
+the sources of the Caqueta, the Napo, and the Rio de Macas or Morona.
+
+The little group of mountains with which we became acquainted at the
+sources of the Guainia, is remarkable from its being isolated in the
+plain that extends to the south-west of the Orinoco. Its situation
+with regard to longitude might lead to the belief that it stretches
+into a ridge, which forms first the strait (angostura) of the
+Guaviare, and then the great cataracts (saltos, cachoeiras) of the
+Uaupe and the Jupura. Does this ground, composed probably of primitive
+rocks, like that which I examined more to the east, contain
+disseminated gold? Are there any gold-washings more to the south,
+toward the Uaupe, on the Iquiare (Iguiari, Iguari), and on the
+Yurubesh (Yurubach, Urubaxi)? It was there that Philip von Huten first
+sought El Dorado, and with a handful of men fought the battle of
+Omaguas, so celebrated in the sixteenth century. In separating what is
+fabulous from the narratives of the Conquistadores, we cannot fail to
+recognize in the names preserved on the same spots a certain basis of
+historic truth. We follow the expedition of Huten beyond the Guaviare
+and the Caqeta; we find in the Guaypes, governed by the cacique of
+Macatoa, the inhabitants of the river of Uaupe, which also bears the
+name of Guape, or Guapue; we call to mind, that Father Acunha calls
+the Iquiari (Quiquiare) a gold river; and that fifty years later
+Father Fritz, a missionary of great veracity, received, in the mission
+of Yurimaguas, the Manaos (Manoas), adorned with plates of beaten
+gold, coming from the country between the Uaupe and the Caqueta, or
+Jupura. The rivers that rise on the eastern declivity of the Andes
+(for instance the Napo) carry along with them a great deal of gold,
+even when their sources are found in trachytic soils. Why may there
+not be an alluvial auriferous soil to the east of the Cordilleras, as
+there is to the west, in the Sonoro, at Choco, and at Barbacoas? I am
+far from wishing to exaggerate the riches of this soil; but I do not
+think myself authorized to deny the existence of precious metals in
+the primitive mountains of Guiana, merely because in our journey
+through that country we saw no metallic veins. It is somewhat
+remarkable that the natives of the Orinoco have a name in their
+languages for gold (carucuru in Caribbee, caricuri in Tamanac, cavitta
+in Maypure), while the word they use to denote silver, prata, is
+manifestly borrowed from the Spanish.* (* The Parecas say, instead of
+prata, rata. It is the Castilian word plata ill-pronounced. Near the
+Yurubesh there is another inconsiderable tributary stream of the Rio
+Negro, the Curicur-iari. It is easy to recognize in this name the
+Caribbee word carucur, gold. The Caribs extended their incursions from
+the mouth of the Orinoco south-west toward the Rio Negro; and it was
+this restless people who carried the fable of El Dorado, by the same
+way, but in an opposite direction (from south-west to north-east),
+from the Mesopotamia between the Rio Negro and the Jupura to the
+sources of the Rio Branco.) The notions collected by Acunha, Father
+Fritz, and La Condamine, on the gold-washings south and north of the
+river Uaupe, agree with what I learnt of the auriferous soil of those
+countries. However great we may suppose the communications that took
+place between the nations of the Orinoco before the arrival of
+Europeans, they certainly did not draw their gold from the eastern
+declivity of the Cordilleras. This declivity is poor in mines,
+particularly in mines anciently worked; it is almost entirely composed
+of volcanic rocks in the provinces of Popayan, Pasto, and Quito. The
+gold of Guiana probably came from the country east of the Andes. In
+our days a lump of gold has been found in a ravine near the mission of
+Encaramada, and we must not be surprised if, since Europeans settled
+in these wild spots, we hear less of the plates of gold, gold-dust,
+and amulets of jade-stone, which could heretofore be obtained from the
+Caribs and other wandering nations by barter. The precious metals,
+never very abundant on the banks of the Orinoco, the Rio Negro, and
+the Amazon, disappeared almost entirely when the system of the
+missions caused the distant communications between the natives to
+cease.
+
+The banks of the Upper Guainia in general abound much less in
+fishing-birds than those of Cassiquiare, the Meta, and the Arauca,
+where ornithologists would find sufficient to enrich immensely the
+collections of Europe. This scarcity of animals arises, no doubt, from
+the want of shoals and flat shores, as well as from the quality of the
+black waters, which (on account of their very purity) furnish less
+aliment to aquatic insects and fish. However, the Indians of these
+countries, during two periods of the year, feed on birds of passage,
+which repose in their long migrations on the waters of the Rio Negro.
+When the Orinoco begins to swell* after the vernal equinox, an
+innumerable quantity of ducks (patos careteros) remove from the eighth
+to the third degree of north latitude, to the first and fourth degree
+of south latitude, towards the south-south-east. (* The swellings of
+the Nile take place much later than those of the Orinoco; after the
+summer solstice, below Syene; and at Cairo in the beginning of July.
+The Nile begins to sink near that city generally about the 15th of
+October, and continues sinking till the 20th of May.) These animals
+then abandon the valley of the Orinoco, no doubt because the
+increasing depth of waters, and the inundations of the shores, prevent
+them from catching fish, insects, and aquatic worms. They are killed
+by thousands in their passage across the Rio Negro. When they go
+towards the equator they are very fat and savoury; but in the month of
+September, when the Orinoco decreases and returns into its bed, the
+ducks, warned either by the voices of the most experienced birds of
+passage, or by that internal feeling which, not knowing how to define,
+we call instinct, return from the Amazon and the Rio Branco towards
+the north. At this period they are too lean to tempt the appetite of
+the Indians of the Rio Negro, and escape pursuit more easily from
+being accompanied by a species of herons (gavanes) which are excellent
+eating. Thus the Indians eat ducks in March, and herons in September.
+We could not learn what becomes of the gavanes during the swellings of
+the Orinoco, and why they do not accompany the patos careteros in
+their migration from the Orinoco to the Rio Branco. These regular
+migrations of birds from one part of the tropics towards another, in a
+zone which is during the whole year of the same temperature, are very
+extraordinary phenomena. The southern coasts of the West India Islands
+receive also every year, at the period of the inundations of the great
+rivers of Terra Firma, numerous flights of the fishing-birds of the
+Orinoco, and of its tributary streams. We must presume that the
+variations of drought and humidity in the equinoctial zone have the
+same influence as the great changes of temperature in our climates, on
+the habits of animals. The heat of summer, and the pursuit of insects,
+call the humming-birds into the northern parts of the United States,
+and into Canada as far as the parallels of Paris and Berlin: in the
+same manner a greater facility for fishing draws the web-footed and
+long-legged birds from the north to the south, from the Orinoco
+towards the Amazon. Nothing is more marvellous, and nothing is yet
+known less clearly in a geographical point of view, than the
+direction, extent, and term of the migrations of birds.
+
+After having entered the Rio Negro by the Pimichin, and passed the
+small cataract at the confluence of the two rivers, we discovered, at
+the distance of a quarter of a league, the mission of Maroa. This
+village, containing one hundred and fifty Indians, presented an
+appearance of ease and prosperity. We purchased some fine specimens of
+the toucan alive; a courageous bird, the intelligence of which is
+developed like that of our domestic ravens. We passed on the right,
+above Maroa, first the mouth of the Aquio* (Aqui, Aaqui, Ake, of the
+most recent maps.), then that of the Tomo.* (* Tomui, Temujo, Tomon.)
+On the banks of the latter river dwell the Cheruvichahenas, some
+families of whom I have seen at San Francisco Solano. The Tomo lies
+near the Rio Guaicia (Xie), and the mission of Tomo receives by that
+way fugitive Indians from the Lower Guainia. We did not enter the
+mission, but Father Zea related to us with a smile, that the Indians
+of Tomo and Maroa had been one day in full insurrection, because an
+attempt was made to force them to dance the famous dance of the
+devils. The missionary had taken a fancy to have the ceremonies by
+which the piaches (who are at once priests, physicians, and conjurors)
+evoke the evil spirit Iolokiamo, represented in a burlesque manner. He
+thought that the dance of the devils would be an excellent means of
+proving to the neophytes that Iolokiamo had no longer any power over
+them. Some young Indians, confiding in the promises of the missionary,
+consented to act the devils, and were already decorated with black and
+yellow plumes, and jaguar-skins with long sweeping tails. The place
+where the church stands was surrounded by the soldiers who are
+distributed in the missions, in order to add more effect to the
+counsels of the monks; and those Indians who were not entirely
+satisfied with respect to the consequences of the dance, and the
+impotency of the evil spirit, were brought to the festivity. The
+oldest and most timid of the Indians, however, imbued all the rest
+with a superstitious dread; all resolved to flee al monte, and the
+missionary adjourned his project of turning into derision the demon of
+the natives. What extravagant ideas may sometimes enter the
+imagination of an idle monk, who passes his life in the forests, far
+from everything that can recall human civilization to his mind. The
+violence with which the attempt was made to execute in public at Tomo
+the mysterious dance of the devils is the more strange, as all the
+books written by the missionaries relate the efforts they have used to
+prevent the funereal dances, the dances of the sacred trumpet, and
+that ancient dance of serpents, the Queti, in which these wily animals
+are represented as issuing from the forests, and coming to drink with
+the men in order to deceive them, and carry off the women.
+
+After two hours' navigation from the mouth of the Tomo we arrived at
+the little mission of San Miguel de Davipe, founded in 1775, not by
+monks, but by a lieutenant of militia, Don Francisco Bobadilla. The
+missionary of the place, Father Morillo, with whom we spent some
+hours, received us with great hospitality. He even offered us Madeira
+wine, but, as an object of luxury, we should have preferred wheaten
+bread. The want of bread becomes more sensibly felt in length of time
+than that of a strong liquor. The Portuguese of the Amazon carry small
+quantities of Madeira wine, from time to time, to the Rio Negro; and
+the word madera, signifying wood in the Castilian language, the monks,
+who are not much versed in the study of geography, had a scruple of
+celebrating mass with Madeira wine, which they took for a fermented
+liquor extracted from the trunk of some tree, like palm-wine; and
+requested the guardian of the missions to decide, whether the vino de
+madera were wine from grapes, or the juice of a tree. At the beginning
+of the conquest, the question was agitated, whether it were allowable
+for the priests, in celebrating mass, to use any fermented liquor
+analogous to grape-wine. The question, as might have been foreseen,
+was decided in the negative.
+
+At Davipe we bought some provisions, among which were fowls and a pig.
+This purchase greatly interested our Indians, who had been a long
+while deprived of meat. They pressed us to depart, in order to reach
+the island of Dapa, where the pig was to be killed and roasted during
+the night. We had scarcely time to examine in the convent (convento)
+the great stores of mani resin, and cordage of the chiquichiqui palm,
+which deserves to be more known in Europe. This cordage is extremely
+light; it floats upon the water, and is more durable in the navigation
+of rivers than ropes of hemp. It must be preserved at sea by being
+often wetted, and little exposed to the heat of the tropical sun. Don
+Antonio Santos, celebrated in the country for his journey in search of
+lake Parima, taught the Indians of the Spanish Rio Negro to make use
+of the petioles of the chiquichiqui, a palm-tree with pinnate leaves,
+of which we saw neither the flowers nor the fruit. This officer is the
+only white man who ever came from Angostura to Grand Para, passing by
+land from the sources of the Rio Carony to those of the Rio Branco. He
+had studied the mode of fabricating ropes from the chiquichiqui in the
+Portuguese colonies; and, on his return from the Amazon, he introduced
+this branch of industry into the missions of Guiana. It were to be
+wished that extensive rope-walks could be established on the banks of
+the Rio Negro and the Cassiquiare, in order to make these cables an
+article of trade with Europe. A small quantity is already exported
+from Angostura to the West Indies; and it costs from fifty to sixty
+per cent less than cordage of hemp. Young palm-trees only being
+employed, they must be planted and carefully cultivated.
+
+A little above the mission of Davipe, the Rio Negro receives a branch
+of the Cassiquiare, the existence of which is a very remarkable
+phenomenon in the history of the branchings of rivers. This branch
+issues from the Cassiquiare, north of Vasiva, bearing the name of the
+Itinivini; and, after flowing for the length of twenty-five leagues
+through a flat and almost uninhabited country, it falls into the Rio
+Negro under the name of the Rio Conorichite. It appeared to me to be
+more than one hundred and twenty toises broad near its mouth. Although
+the current of the Conorichite is very rapid, this natural canal
+abridges by three days the passage from Davipe to Esmeralda. We cannot
+be surprised at a double communication between the Cassiquiare and the
+Rio Negro when we recollect that so many of the rivers of America
+form, as it were, deltas at their confluence with other rivers. Thus
+the Rio Branco and the Rio Jupura enter by a great number of branches
+into the Rio Negro and the Amazon. At the confluence of the Jupura
+there is a much more extraordinary phenomenon. Before this river joins
+the Amazon, the latter, which is the principal recipient, sends off
+three branches called Uaranapu, Manhama, and Avateparana, to the
+Jupura, which is but a tributary stream. The Portuguese astronomer,
+Ribeiro, has proved this important fact. The Amazon gives waters to
+the Jupura itself, before it receives that tributary stream.
+
+The Rio Conorichite, or Itinivini, formerly facilitated the trade in
+slaves carried on by the Portuguese in the Spanish territory. The
+slave-traders went up by the Cassiquiare and the Cano Mee to
+Conorichite; and thence dragged their canoes by a portage to the
+rochelas of Manuteso, in order to enter the Atabapo. This abominable
+trade lasted till about the year 1756; when the expedition of Solano,
+and the establishment of the missions on the banks of the Rio Negro,
+put an end to it. Old laws of Charles V and Philip III* (* 26 January
+1523 and 10 October 1618.) had forbidden under the most severe
+penalties (such as the being rendered incapable of civil employment,
+and a fine of two thousand piastres), the conversion of the natives to
+the faith by violent means, and sending armed men against them; but
+notwithstanding these wise and humane laws, the Rio Negro, in the
+middle of the last century, was no further interesting in European
+politics, than as it facilitated the entradas, or hostile incursions,
+and favoured the purchase of slaves. The Caribs, a trading and warlike
+people, received from the Portuguese and the Dutch, knives,
+fish-hooks, small mirrors, and all sorts of glass beads. They excited
+the Indian chiefs to make war against each other, bought their
+prisoners, and carried off, themselves, by stratagem or force, all
+whom they found in their way. These incursions of the Caribs
+comprehended an immense extent of land; they went from the banks of
+the Essequibo and the Carony, by the Rupunuri and the Paraguamuzi on
+one side, directly south towards the Rio Branco; and on the other, to
+the south-west, following the portages between the Rio Paragua, the
+Caura, and the Ventuario. The Caribs, when they arrived amid the
+numerous tribes of the Upper Orinoco, divided themselves into several
+bands, in order to reach, by the Cassiquiare, the Cababury, the
+Itinivini, and the Atabapo, on a great many points at once, the banks
+of the Guiainia or Rio Negro, and carry on the slave-trade with the
+Portuguese. Thus the unhappy natives, before they came into immediate
+contact with the Europeans, suffered from their proximity. The same
+causes produce everywhere the same effects. The barbarous trade which
+civilized nations have carried on, and still partially continue, on
+the coast of Africa, extends its fatal influence even to regions where
+the existence of white men is unknown.
+
+Having quitted the mouth of the Conorichite and the mission of Davipe,
+we reached at sunset the island of Dapa, lying in the middle of the
+river, and very picturesquely situated. We were astonished to find on
+this spot some cultivated ground, and on the top of a small hill an
+Indian hut. Four natives were seated round a fire of brushwood, and
+they were eating a sort of white paste with black spots, which much
+excited our curiosity. These black spots proved to be vachacos, large
+ants, the hinder parts of which resemble a lump of grease. They had
+been dried, and blackened by smoke. We saw several bags of them
+suspended above the fire. These good people paid but little attention
+to us; yet there were more than fourteen persons in this confined hut,
+lying naked in hammocks hung one above another. When Father Zea
+arrived, he was received with great demonstrations of joy. The
+military are in greater numbers on the banks of the Rio Negro than on
+those of the Orinoco, owing to the necessity of guarding the
+frontiers; and wherever soldiers and monks dispute for power over the
+Indians, the latter are most attached to the monks. Two young women
+came down from their hammocks, to prepare for us cakes of cassava. In
+answer to some enquiries which we put to them through an interpreter,
+they answered that cassava grew poorly on the island, but that it was
+a good land for ants, and food was not wanting. In fact, these
+vachacos furnish subsistence to the Indians of the Rio Negro and the
+Guainia. They do not eat the ants as a luxury, but because, according
+to the expression of the missionaries, the fat of ants (the white part
+of the abdomen) is a very substantial food. When the cakes of cassava
+were prepared, Father Zea, whose fever seemed rather to sharpen than
+to enfeeble his appetite, ordered a little bag to be brought to him
+filled with smoked vachacos. He mixed these bruised insects with flour
+of cassava, which he pressed us to taste. It somewhat resembled rancid
+butter mixed with crumb of bread. The cassava had not an acid taste,
+but some remains of European prejudices prevented our joining in the
+praises bestowed by the good missionary on what he called an excellent
+ant paste.
+
+The violence of the rain obliged us to sleep in this crowded hut. The
+Indians slept only from eight till two in the morning; the rest of the
+time they employed in conversing in their hammocks, and preparing
+their bitter beverage of cupana. They threw fresh fuel on the fire,
+and complained of cold, although the temperature of the air was at 21
+degrees. This custom of being awake, and even on foot, four or five
+hours before sunrise, is general among the Indians of Guiana. When, in
+the entradas, an attempt is made to surprise the natives, the hours
+chosen are those of the first sleep, from nine till midnight.
+
+We left the island of Dapa long before daybreak; and notwithstanding
+the rapidity of the current, and the activity of our rowers, our
+passage to the fort of San Carlos del Rio Negro occupied twelve hours.
+We passed, on the left, the mouth of the Cassiquiare, and, on the
+right, the small island of Cumarai. The fort is believed in the
+country to be on the equatorial line; but, according to the
+observations which I made at the rocks of Culimacari, it is in 1
+degree 54 minutes 11 seconds.
+
+We lodged at San Carlos with the commander of the fort, a lieutenant
+of militia. From a gallery in the upper part of the house we enjoyed a
+delightful view of three islands of great length, and covered with
+thick vegetation. The river runs in a straight line from north to
+south, as if its bed had been dug by the hand of man. The sky being
+constantly cloudy gives these countries a solemn and gloomy character.
+We found in the village a few juvia-trees which furnish the triangular
+nuts called in Europe the almonds of the Amazon, or Brazil-nuts. We
+have made it known by the name of Bertholletia excelsa. The trees
+attain after eight years' growth the height of thirty feet.
+
+The military establishment of this frontier consisted of seventeen
+soldiers, ten of whom were detached for the security of the
+neighbouring missions. Owing to the extreme humidity of the air there
+are not four muskets in a condition to be fired. The Portuguese have
+from twenty-five to thirty men, better clothed and armed, at the
+little fort of San Jose de Maravitanos. We found in the mission of San
+Carlos but one garita,* a square house, constructed with unbaked
+bricks, and containing six field-pieces. (* This word literally
+signifies a sentry-box; but it is here employed in the sense of
+store-house or arsenal.) The little fort, or, as they think proper to
+call it here, the Castillo de San Felipe, is situated opposite San
+Carlos, on the western bank of the Rio Negro.
+
+The banks of the Upper Guainia will be more productive when, by the
+destruction of the forests, the excessive humidity of the air and the
+soil shall be diminished. In their present state of culture maize
+scarcely grows, and the tobacco, which is of the finest quality, and
+much celebrated on the coast of Caracas, is well cultivated only on
+spots amid old ruins, remains of the huts of the pueblo viejo (old
+town). Indigo grows wild near the villages of Maroa, Davipe, and Tomo.
+Under a different system from that which we found existing in these
+countries, the Rio Negro will produce indigo, coffee, cacao, maize,
+and rice, in abundance.
+
+The passage from the mouth of the Rio Negro to Grand Para occupying
+only twenty or twenty-five days, it would not have taken us much more
+time to have gone down the Amazon as far as the coast of Brazil, than
+to return by the Cassiquiare and the Orinoco to the northern coast of
+Caracas. We were informed at San Carlos that, on account of political
+circumstances, it was difficult at that moment to pass from the
+Spanish to the Portuguese settlements; but we did not know till after
+our return to Europe the extent of the danger to which we should have
+been exposed in proceeding as far as Barcellos. It was known at
+Brazil, possibly through the medium of the newspapers, that I was
+going to visit the missions of the Rio Negro, and examine the natural
+canal which unites two great systems of rivers. In those desert
+forests instruments had been seen only in the hands of the
+commissioners of the boundaries; and at that time the subaltern agents
+of the Portuguese government could not conceive how a man of sense
+could expose himself to the fatigues of a long journey, to measure
+lands that did not belong to him. Orders had been issued to seize my
+person, my instruments, and, above all, those registers of
+astronomical observations, so dangerous to the safety of states. We
+were to be conducted by way of the Amazon to Grand Para, and thence
+sent back to Lisbon. But fortunately for me, the government at Lisbon,
+on being informed of the zeal of its subaltern agents, instantly gave
+orders that I should not be disturbed in my operations; but that on
+the contrary they should be encouraged, if I traversed any part of the
+Portuguese possessions.
+
+In going down the Guainia, or Rio Negro, you pass on the right the
+Cano Maliapo, and on the left the Canos Dariba and Eny. At five
+leagues distance, nearly in 1 degree 38 minutes of north latitude, is
+the island of San Josef. A little below that island, in a spot where
+there are a great number of orange-trees now growing wild, the
+traveller is shown a small rock, two hundred feet high, with a cavern
+called by the missionaries the Glorieta de Cocuy. This summer-house
+(for such is the signification of the word glorieta in Spanish)
+recalls remembrances that are not the most agreeable. It was here that
+Cocuy, the chief of the Manitivitanos,* had his harem of women, and
+where he devoured the finest and fattest. (* At San Carlos there is
+still preserved an instrument of music, a kind of large drum,
+ornamented with very rude Indian paintings, which relate to the
+exploits of Cocuy.) The tradition of the harem and the orgies of Cocuy
+is more current in the Lower Orinoco than on the banks of the Guainia.
+At San Carlos the very idea that the chief of the Manitivitanos could
+be guilty of cannibalism is indignantly rejected.
+
+The Portuguese government has established many settlements even in
+this remote part of Brazil. Below the Glorieta, in the Portuguese
+territory, there are eleven villages in an extent of twenty-five
+leagues. I know of nineteen more as far as the mouth of the Rio Negro,
+beside the six towns of Thomare, Moreira (near the Rio Demenene, or
+Uaraca, where dwelt anciently the Guiana Indians), Barcellos, San
+Miguel del Rio Branco, near the river of the same name (so well known
+in the fictions of El Dorado), Moura, and Villa de Rio Negro. The
+banks of this tributary stream of the Amazon alone are consequently
+ten times more thickly peopled than all the shores of the Upper and
+Lower Orinoco, the Cassiquiare, the Atabapo, and the Spanish Rio
+Negro.
+
+Among the tributary streams which the Rio Negro receives from the
+north, three are particularly deserving of attention, because on
+account of their branchings, their portages, and the situation of
+their sources, they are connected with the often-discussed problem of
+the origin of the Orinoco. The most southern of these tributary
+streams are the Rio Branco,* which was long believed to issue
+conjointly with the Orinoco from lake Parime (* The Portuguese name,
+Rio Branco, signifies White Water. Rio Parime is a Caribbean name,
+signifying Great Water. These names having also been applied to
+different tributary streams, have caused many errors in geography. The
+great Rio Branco, or Parime, often mentioned in this work, is formed
+by the Urariquera and the Tacutu, and flows, between Carvoeyro and
+Villa de Moura, into the Rio Negro. It is the Quecuene of the natives;
+and forms at its confluence with the Rio Negro a very narrow delta,
+between the principal trunk and the Amayauhau, which is a little
+branch more to the west.), and the Rio Padaviri, which communicates by
+a portage with the Mavaca, and consequently with the Upper Orinoco, to
+the east of the mission of Esmeralda. We shall have occasion to speak
+of the Rio Branco and the Padaviri, when we arrive in that mission; it
+suffices here to pause at the third tributary stream of the Rio Negro,
+the Cababury, the interbranchings of which with the Cassiquiare are
+alike important in their connexion with hydrography, and with the
+trade in sarsaparilla.
+
+The lofty mountains of the Parime, which border the northern bank of
+the Orinoco in the upper part of its course above Esmeralda, send off
+a chain towards the south, of which the Cerro de Unturan forms one of
+the principal summits. This mountainous country, of small extent but
+rich in vegetable productions, above all, in the mavacure liana,
+employed in preparing the wourali poison, in almond-trees (the juvia,
+or Bertholletia excelsa), in aromatic pucheries, and in wild
+cacao-trees, forms a point of division between the waters that flow to
+the Orinoco, the Cassiquiare, and the Rio Negro. The tributary streams
+on the north, or those of the Orinoco, are the Mavaca and the
+Daracapo; those on the west, or of the Cassiquiare, are the Idapa and
+the Pacimoni; and those on the south, or of the Rio Negro, are the
+Padaviri and the Cababuri. The latter is divided near its source into
+two branches, the westernmost of which is known by the name of Baria.
+The Indians of the mission of San Francisco Solano gave us the most
+minute description of its course. It affords the very rare example of
+a branch by which an inferior tributary stream, instead of receiving
+the waters of the superior stream, sends to it a part of its own
+waters in a direction opposite to that of the principal recipient.
+
+The Cababuri runs into the Rio Negro near the mission of Nossa Senhora
+das Caldas; but the rivers Ya and Dimity, which are higher tributary
+streams, communicate also with the Cababuri; so that, from the little
+fort of San Gabriel de Cachoeiras as far as San Antonio de Castanheira
+the Indians of the Portuguese possessions can enter the territory of
+the Spanish missions by the Baria and the Pacimoni.
+
+The chief object of these incursions is the collection of sarsaparilla
+and the aromatic seeds of the puchery-laurel (Laurus pichurim). The
+sarsaparilla of these countries is celebrated at Grand Para,
+Angostura, Cumana, Nueva Barcelona, and in other parts of Terra Firma,
+by the name of zarza del Rio Negro. It is much preferred to the zarza
+of the Province of Caracas, or of the mountains of Merida; it is dried
+with great care, and exposed purposely to smoke, in order that it may
+become blacker. This liana grows in profusion on the humid declivities
+of the mountains of Unturan and Achivaquery. Decandolle is right in
+suspecting that different species of smilax are gathered under the
+name of sarsaparilla. We found twelve new species, among which the
+Smilax siphylitica of the Cassiquaire, and the Smilax officinalis of
+the river Magdalena, are most esteemed on account of their diuretic
+properties. The quantity of sarsaparilla employed in the Spanish
+colonies as a domestic medicine is very considerable. We see by the
+works of Clusius, that at the beginning of the Conquista, Europe
+obtained this salutary medicament from the Mexican coast of Honduras
+and the port of Guayaquil. The trade in zarza is now more active in
+those ports which have interior communications with the Orinoco, the
+Rio Negro, and the Amazon.
+
+The trials made in several botanical gardens of Europe prove that the
+Smilax glauca of Virginia, which it is pretended is the S.
+sarsaparilla of Linnaeus, may be cultivated in the open air, wherever
+the mean winter temperature rises above six or seven degrees of the
+centigrade thermometer*: but those species that possess the most
+active virtues belong exclusively to the torrid zone, and require a
+much higher degree of heat. (* The winter temperature at London and
+Paris is 4.2 and 3.7; at Montpelier, 6.7; at Rome, 7.7 degrees. In
+that part of Mexico, and the Terra Firma, where we saw the most active
+species of the sarsaparilla growing (that which supplies the trade of
+the Spanish and Portuguese colonies), the temperature is from twenty
+to twenty-six degrees. The roots of another family of monocotyledons
+(of some cyperaceae) possess also diaphoretic and resolvent
+properties. The Carex arenaria, the C. hirta, etc. furnish the German
+sarsaparilla of druggists. According to Clusius, Europe received the
+first sarsaparilla from Yucatan, and the island of Puna, opposite
+Guayaquil.) In reading the works of Clusius, it can scarcely be
+conceived why our writers on the Materia Medica persist in considering
+a plant of the United States as the most ancient type of the officinal
+species of the genus smilax.
+
+We found in the possession of the Indians of the Rio Negro some of
+those green stones, known by the name of Amazon stones, because the
+natives pretend, according to an ancient tradition, that they come
+from the country of the women without husbands (Cougnantainsecouima),
+or women living alone (Aikeambenano*). (* This word is of the Tamanac
+language; these women are the sole Donne of the Italian missionaries.)
+We were told at San Carlos, and in the neighbouring villages, that the
+sources of the Orinoco, which we found east of the Esmeralda, and in
+the missions of the Carony and at Angostura, that the sources of the
+Rio Branco are the native spots of the green stones. These statements
+confirm the report of an old soldier of the garrison of Cayenne
+(mentioned by La Condamine), who affirmed that those mineral
+substances were obtained from the country of women, west of the rapids
+of the Oyapoc. The Indians who inhabit the fort of Topayos on the
+Amazon five degrees east of the mouth of the Rio Negro, possessed
+formerly a great number of these stones. Had they received them from
+the north, that is, from the country pointed out by the Indians of the
+Rio Negro, which extends from the mountains of Cayenne towards the
+sources of the Essequibo, the Carony, the Orinoco, the Parime, and the
+Rio Trombetas? or did they come from the south by the Rio Topayos,
+which descends from the vast table-land of the Campos Parecis?
+Superstition attaches great importance to these mineral substances:
+they are worn suspended from the neck as amulets, because, according
+to popular belief, they preserve the wearer from nervous complaints,
+fevers, and the stings of venomous serpents. They have consequently
+been for ages an article of trade among the natives, both north and
+south of the Orinoco. The Caribs, who may be considered as the
+Bucharians of the New World, made them known along the coasts of
+Guiana; and the same stones, like money in circulation, passed
+successively from nation to nation in opposite directions: their
+quantity is perhaps not augmented, and the spot which produces them is
+probably unknown rather than concealed. In the midst of enlightened
+Europe, on occasion of a warm contest respecting native bark, a few
+years ago, the green stones of the Orinoco were gravely proposed as a
+powerful febrifuge. After this appeal to the credulity of Europeans,
+we cannot be surprised to learn that the Spanish planters share the
+predilection of the Indians for these amulets, and that they are sold
+at a very considerable price. The form given to them most frequently
+is that of the Babylonian cylinders,* longitudinally perforated, and
+loaded with inscriptions and figures. (The price of a cylinder two
+inches long is from twelve to fifteen piastres.) But this is not the
+work of the Indians of our days, the natives of the Orinoco and the
+Amazon, whom we find in the last degree of barbarism. The Amazon
+stones, like the perforated and sculptured emeralds, found in the
+Cordilleras of New Grenada and Quito, are vestiges of anterior
+civilization. The present inhabitants of those countries, particularly
+in the hot region, so little comprehend the possibility of cutting
+hard stones (the emerald, jade, compact feldspar and rock-crystal),
+that they imagine the green stone is soft when taken out of the earth,
+and that it hardens after having been moulded by the hand.
+
+The natural soil of the Amazon-stone is not in the valley of the river
+Amazon. It does not derive its name from the river, but like the river
+itself, the stone has been named after a nation of warlike women, whom
+Father Acunha, and Oviedo, in his letter to cardinal Bembo, compare to
+the Amazons of the ancient world. What we see in our cabinets under
+the false denomination of Amazon-stone, is neither jade, nor compact
+feldspar, but a common feldspar of an apple-green colour, that comes
+from the Ural mountains and on lake Onega in Russia, but which I never
+saw in the granitic mountains of Guiana. Sometimes also this very rare
+and hard Amazon-stone is confounded with the hatchet-nephrite
+(beilstein)* of Werner, which has much less tenacity. (* Punamustein
+(jade axinien). The stone hatchets found in America, for instance in
+Mexico, are not of beilstein, but of compact feldspar.) The substance
+which I obtained from the hands of the Indians, belongs to the
+saussurite,* (* Jade of Saussure, according to the system of
+Brongniart; tenacious jade, and compact tenacious feldspar of Hauy;
+some varieties of the variolithe of Werner.) to the real jade, which
+resembles compact feldspar, and which forms one of the constituent
+parts of the verde de Corsica, or gabbro.* (* Euphotide of Hauy, or
+schillerfels, of Raumer.) It takes a fine polish, and passes from
+apple-green to emerald-green; it is translucent at the edges,
+extremely tenacious, and in a high degree sonorous. These Amazon
+stones were formerly cut by the natives into very thin plates,
+perforated at the centre, and suspended by a thread, and these plates
+yield an almost metallic sound if struck by another hard body.* (* M.
+Brongniart, to whom I showed these plates on my return to Europe, very
+justly compared these jades of Parime to the sonorous stones employed
+by the Chinese in their musical instruments called king.) This fact
+confirms the connection which we find, notwithstanding the difference
+of fracture and of specific gravity between the saussurite and the
+siliceous basis of the porphyrschiefer, which is the phonolite
+(klingstein). I have already observed, that, as it is very rare to
+find in America nephrite, jade, or compact feldspar, in its native
+place, we may well be astonished at the quantity of hatchets which are
+everywhere discovered in digging the earth, from the banks of the Ohio
+as far as Chile. We saw in the mountains of Upper Orinoco, or of
+Parime, only granular granites containing a little hornblende,
+granites passing into gneiss, and schistoid hornblendes. Has nature
+repeated on the east of Esmeralda, between the sources of the Carony,
+the Essequibo, the Orinoco, and the Rio Branco, the
+transition-formation of Tucutunemo reposing on mica-schist? Does the
+Amazon-stone come from the rocks of euphotide, which form the last
+member of the series of primitive rocks?
+
+We find among the inhabitants of both hemispheres, at the first dawn
+of civilization, a peculiar predilection for certain stones; not only
+those which, from their hardness, may be useful to man as cutting
+instruments, but also for mineral substances, which, on account of
+their colour and their natural form, are believed to bear some
+relation to the organic functions, and even to the propensities of the
+soul. This ancient worship of stones, these benign virtues attributed
+to jade and haematite, belong to the savages of America as well as to
+the inhabitants of the forests of Thrace. The human race, when in an
+uncultivated state, believes itself to have sprung from the ground;
+and feels as if it were enchained to the earth, and the substances
+contained in her bosom. The powers of nature, and still more those
+which destroy than those which preserve, are the first objects of its
+worship. It is not solely in the tempest, in the sound that precedes
+the earthquake, in the fire that feeds the volcano, that these powers
+are manifested; the inanimate rock; stones, by their lustre and
+hardness; mountains, by their mass and their solitude; act upon the
+untaught mind with a force which, in a state of advanced civilization,
+can no longer be conceived. This worship of stones, when once
+established, is preserved amidst more modern forms of worship; and
+what was at first the object of religious homage, becomes a source of
+superstitious confidence. Divine stones are transformed into amulets,
+which are believed to preserve the wearer from every ill, mental and
+corporeal. Although a distance of five hundred leagues separates the
+banks of the Amazon and the Orinoco from the Mexican table-land;
+although history records no fact that connects the savage nations of
+Guiana with the civilized nations of Anahuac, the monk Bernard de
+Sahagun, at the beginning of the conquest, found preserved as relics
+at Cholula, certain green stones which had belonged to Quetzalcohuatl.
+This mysterious personage is the Mexican Buddha; he appeared in the
+time of the Toltecs, founded the first religious associations, and
+established a government similar to that of Meroe and of Japan.
+
+The history of the jade, or the green stones of Guiana, is intimately
+connected with that of the warlike women whom the travellers of the
+sixteenth century named the Amazons of the New World. La Condamine has
+produced many testimonies in favour of this tradition. Since my return
+from the Orinoco and the river Amazon, I have often been asked, at
+Paris, whether I embraced the opinion of that learned man, or
+believed, like several of his contemporaries, that he undertook the
+defence of the Cougnantainsecouima (the independent women who received
+men into their society only in the month of April), merely to fix, in
+a public sitting of the Academy, the attention of an audience somewhat
+eager for novelties. I may take this opportunity of expressing my
+opinion on a tradition which has so romantic an appearance; and I am
+farther led to do this as La Condamine asserts that the Amazons of the
+Rio Cayame* crossed the Maranon to establish themselves on the Rio
+Negro. (* Orellana, arriving at the Maranon by the Rio Coca and the
+Napo, fought with the Amazons, as it appears, between the mouth of the
+Rio Negro and that of the Xingu. La Condamine asserts that in the
+seventeenth century they passed the Maranon between Tefe and the mouth
+of the Rio Puruz, near the Cano Cuchivara, which is a western branch
+of the Puruz. These women therefore came from the banks of the Rio
+Cayame, or Cayambe, consequently from the unknown country which
+extends south of the Maranon, between the Ucayale and the Madeira.
+Raleigh also places them on the south of the Maranon, but in the
+province of Topayos, and on the river of the same name. He says they
+were rich in golden vessels, which they had acquired in exchange for
+the famous green stones, or piedras hijadas. (Raleigh means, no doubt,
+piedros del higado, stones that cure diseases of the liver.) It is
+remarkable enough that, one hundred and forty-eight years after, La
+Condamine still found those green stones (divine stones), which differ
+neither in colour nor in hardness from oriental jade, in greater
+numbers among the Indians who live near the mouth of the Rio Topayos,
+than elsewhere. The Indians said that they inherited these stones,
+which cure the nephritic colic and epilepsy, from their fathers, who
+received them from the women without husbands.) A taste for the
+marvellous, and a wish to invest the descriptions of the New Continent
+with some of the colouring of classic antiquity, no doubt contributed
+to give great importance to the first narratives of Orellana. In
+perusing the works of Vespucci, Fernando Columbus, Geraldini, Oviedo,
+and Pietro Martyr, we recognize this tendency of the writers of the
+sixteenth century to find among the newly discovered nations all that
+the Greeks have related to us of the first age of the world, and of
+the manners of the barbarous Scythians and Africans. But if Oviedo, in
+addressing his letters to cardinal Bembo, thought fit to flatter the
+taste of a man so familiar with the study of antiquity, Sir Walter
+Raleigh had a less poetic aim. He sought to fix the attention of Queen
+Elizabeth on the great empire of Guiana, the conquest of which he
+proposed. He gave a description of the rising of that gilded king (el
+dorado),* whose chamberlains, furnished with long tubes, blew powdered
+gold every morning over his body, after having rubbed it over with
+aromatic oils: but nothing could be better adapted to strike the
+imagination of queen Elizabeth, than the warlike republic of women
+without husbands, who resisted the Castilian heroes. (* The term el
+dorado, which signifies the gilded, was not originally the name of the
+country. The territory subsequently distinguished by that appellation
+was at first known as the country of el Rey Dorado, the Gilded King.)
+Such were the motives which prompted exaggeration on the part of those
+writers who have given most reputation to the Amazons of America; but
+these motives do not, I think, suffice for entirely rejecting a
+tradition, which is spread among various nations having no
+communications one with another.
+
+Thirty years after La Condamine visited Quito, a Portuguese
+astronomer, Ribeiro, who has traversed the Amazon, and the tributary
+streams which run into that river on the northern side, has confirmed
+on the spot all that the learned Frenchman had advanced. He found the
+same traditions among the Indians; and he collected them with the
+greater impartiality as he did not himself believe that the Amazons
+formed a separate horde. Not knowing any of the tongues spoken on the
+Orinoco and the Rio Negro, I could learn nothing certain respecting
+the popular traditions of the women without husbands, or the origin of
+the green stones, which are believed to be intimately connected with
+them. I shall, however, quote a modern testimony of some weight, that
+of Father Gili. "Upon inquiring," says this well-informed missionary,
+"of a Quaqua Indian, what nations inhabited the Rio Cuchivero, he named
+to me the Achirigotos, the Pajuros, and the Aikeambenanos.* (* In
+Italian, Acchirecolti, Pajuri, and Aicheam-benano.) Being well
+acquainted," pursues he, "with the Tamanac tongue, I instantly
+comprehended the sense of this last word, which is a compound, and
+signifies women living alone. The Indian confirmed my observation, and
+related that the Aikeambenanos were a community of women, who
+manufactured blow-tubes* (* Long tubes made from a hollow cane, which
+the natives use to propel their poisoned arrows.), and other weapons
+of war. They admit, once a year, the men of the neighbouring nation of
+Vokearos into their society, and send them back with presents. All the
+male children born in this horde of women are killed in their
+infancy." This history seems framed on the traditions which circulate
+among the Indians of the Maranon, and among the Caribs; yet the Quaqua
+Indian, of whom Father Gili speaks, was ignorant of the Castilian
+language; he had never had any communication with white men; and
+certainly knew not, that south of the Orinoco there existed another
+river, called the river of the Aikeambenanos, or Amazons.
+
+What must we conclude from this narration of the old missionary of
+Encaramada? Not that there are Amazons on the banks of the Cuchivero,
+but that women in different parts of America, wearied of the state of
+slavery in which they were held by the men, united themselves
+together; that the desire of preserving their independence rendered
+them warriors; and that they received visits from a neighbouring and
+friendly horde. This society of women may have acquired some power in
+one part of Guiana. The Caribs of the continent held intercourse with
+those of the islands; and no doubt in this way the traditions of the
+Maranon and the Orinoco were propagated toward the north. Before the
+voyage of Orellana, Christopher Columbus imagined he had found the
+Amazons in the Caribbee Islands. This great man was told, that the
+small island of Madanino (Montserrat) was inhabited by warlike women,
+who lived the greater part of the year separate from men. At other
+times also, the conquistadores imagined that the women, who defended
+their huts in the absence of their husbands, were republics of
+Amazons; and, by an error less excusable, formed a like supposition
+respecting the religious congregations, the convents of Mexican
+virgins, who, far from admitting men at any season of the year into
+their society, lived according to the austere rule of Quetzalcohuatl.
+Such was the disposition of men's minds, that in the long succession
+of travellers, who crowded on each other in their discoveries and in
+narrations of the marvels of the New World, every one readily declared
+he had seen what his predecessors had announced.
+
+We passed three nights at San Carlos del Rio Negro. I count the
+nights, because I watched during the greater part of them, in the hope
+of seizing the moment of the passage of some star over the meridian.
+That I might have nothing to reproach myself with, I kept the
+instruments always ready for an observation. I could not even obtain
+double altitudes, to calculate the latitude by the method of Douwes.
+What a contrast between two parts of the same zone; between the sky of
+Cumana, where the air is constantly pure as in Persia and Arabia, and
+the sky of the Rio Negro, veiled like that of the Feroe islands,
+without sun, or moon or stars!
+
+On the 10th of May, our canoe being ready before sunrise, we embarked
+to go up the Rio Negro as far as the mouth of the Cassiquiare, and to
+devote ourselves to researches on the real course of that river, which
+unites the Orinoco to the Amazon. The morning was fine; but, in
+proportion as the heat augmented, the sky became obscured. The air is
+so saturated by water in these forests, that the vesicular vapours
+become visible on the least increase of evaporation at the surface of
+the earth. The breeze being never felt, the humid strata are not
+displaced and renewed by dryer air. We were every day more grieved at
+the aspect of the cloudy sky. M. Bonpland was losing by this excessive
+humidity the plants he had collected; and I, for my part, was afraid
+lest I should again find the fogs of the Rio Negro in the valley of
+the Cassiquiare. No one in these missions for half a century past had
+doubted the existence of communication between two great systems of
+rivers; the important point of our voyage was confined therefore to
+fixing by astronomical observations the course of the Cassiquiare, and
+particularly the point of its entrance into the Rio Negro, and that of
+the bifurcation of the Orinoco. Without a sight of the sun and the
+stars this object would be frustrated, and we should have exposed
+ourselves in vain to long and painful privations. Our fellow
+travellers would have returned by the shortest way, that of the
+Pimichin and the small rivers; but M. Bonpland preferred, like me,
+persisting in the plan of the voyage, which we had traced for
+ourselves in passing the Great Cataracts. We had already travelled one
+hundred and eighty leagues in a boat from San Fernando de Apure to San
+Carlos, on the Rio Apure, the Orinoco, the Atabapo, the Temi, the
+Tuamini, and the Rio Negro. In again entering the Orinoco by the
+Cassiquiare we had to navigate three hundred and twenty leagues, from
+San Carlos to Angostura. By this way we had to struggle against the
+currents during ten days; the rest was to be performed by going down
+the stream of the Orinoco. It would have been blamable to have
+suffered ourselves to be discouraged by the fear of a cloudy sky, and
+by the mosquitos of the Cassiquiare. Our Indian pilot, who had been
+recently at Mandavaca, promised us the sun, and those great stars that
+eat the clouds, as soon as we should have left the black waters of the
+Guaviare. We therefore carried out our first project of returning to
+San Fernando de Atabapo by the Cassiquiare; and, fortunately for our
+researches, the prediction of the Indian was verified. The white
+waters brought us by degrees a more serene sky, stars, mosquitos, and
+crocodiles.
+
+We passed between the islands of Zaruma and Mini, or Mibita, covered
+with thick vegetation; and, after having ascended the rapids of the
+Piedra de Uinumane, we entered the Rio Cassiquiare at the distance of
+eight miles from the small fort of San Carlos. The Piedra, or granitic
+rock which forms the little cataract, attracted our attention on
+account of the numerous veins of quartz by which it is traversed.
+These veins are several inches broad, and their masses proved that
+their date and formation are very different. I saw distinctly that,
+wherever they crossed each other, the veins containing mica and black
+schorl traversed and drove out of their direction those which
+contained only white quartz and feldspar. According to the theory of
+Werner, the black veins were consequently of a more recent formation
+than the white. Being a disciple of the school of Freyberg, I could
+not but pause with satisfaction at the rock of Uinumane, to observe
+the same phenomena near the equator, which I had so often seen in the
+mountains of my own country. I confess that the theory which considers
+veins as clefts filled from above with various substances, pleases me
+somewhat less now than it did at that period; but these modes of
+intersection and driving aside, observed in the stony and metallic
+veins, do not the less merit the attention of travellers as being one
+of the most general and constant of geological phenomena. On the east
+of Javita, all along the Cassiquiare, and particularly in the
+mountains of Duida, the number of veins in the granite increases.
+These veins are full of holes and druses; and their frequency seems to
+indicate that the granite of these countries is not of very ancient
+formation.
+
+We found some lichens on the rock Uinumane, opposite the island of
+Chamanare, at the edge of the rapids; and as the Cassiquiare near its
+mouth turns abruptly from east to south-west, we saw for the first
+time this majestic branch of the Orinoco in all its breadth. It much
+resembles the Rio Negro in the general aspect of the landscape. The
+trees of the forest, as in the basin of the latter river, advance as
+far as the beach, and there form a thick coppice; but the Cassiquiare
+has white waters, and more frequently changes its direction. Its
+breadth, near the rapids of Uinumane, almost surpasses that of the Rio
+Negro. I found it everywhere from two hundred and fifty to two hundred
+and eighty toises, as far as above Vasiva. Before we passed the island
+of Garigave, we perceived to the north-east, almost at the horizon, a
+little hill with a hemispheric summit; the form which in every zone
+characterises mountains of granite. Continually surrounded by vast
+plains, the solitary rocks and hills excite the attention of the
+traveller. Contiguous mountains are only found more to the east,
+towards the sources of the Pacimoni, Siapa, and Mavaca. Having arrived
+on the south of the Raudal of Caravine, we perceived that the
+Cassiquiare, by the windings of its course, again approached San
+Carlos. The distance from this fort to the mission of San Francisco
+Solano, where we slept, is only two leagues and a half by land, but it
+is reckoned seven or eight by the river. I passed a part of the night
+in the open air, waiting vainly for stars. The air was misty,
+notwithstanding the aguas blancas, which were to lead us beneath an
+ever-starry sky.
+
+The mission of San Francisco Solano, situated on the left bank of the
+Cassiquiare, was founded, as were most of the Christian settlements
+south of the Great Cataracts of the Orinoco, not by monks, but by
+military authority. At the time of the expedition of the boundaries,
+villages were built in proportion as a subteniente, or a corporal,
+advanced with his troops. Part of the natives, in order to preserve
+their independence, retired without a struggle; others, of whom the
+most powerful chiefs had been gained, joined the missions. Where there
+was no church, they contented themselves with erecting a great cross
+of red wood, close to which they constructed a casa fuerte, or
+block-house, the walls of which were formed of large beams resting
+horizontally upon each other. This house had two stories; in the upper
+story two cannon of small calibre were placed; and two soldiers lived
+on the ground-floor, and were served by an Indian family. Those of the
+natives with whom they were at peace cultivated spots of land round
+the casa fuerte. The soldiers called them together by the sound of the
+horn, or a botuto of baked earth, whenever any hostile attack was
+dreaded. Such were the pretended nineteen Christian settlements
+founded by Don Antonio Santos in the way from Esmeralda to the
+Erevato. Military posts, which had no influence on the civilization of
+the natives, figured on the maps, and in the works of the
+missionaries, as villages (pueblos) and reducciones apostolicas.* (*
+Signifying apostolic conquests or conversions.) The preponderance of
+the military was maintained on the banks of the Orinoco till 1785,
+when the system of the monks of San Francisco began. The small number
+of missions founded, or rather re-established, since that period, owe
+their existence to the Fathers of the Observance; for the soldiers now
+distributed among the missions are dependent on the missionaries, or
+at least are reputed to be so, according to the pretensions of the
+ecclesiastical hierarchy.
+
+The Indians whom we found at San Francisco Solano were of two nations;
+Pacimonales and Cheruvichahenas. The latter being descended from a
+considerable tribe settled on the Rio Tomo, near the Manivas of the
+Upper Guainia, I tried to gather from them some ideas respecting the
+upper course and the sources of the Rio Negro; but the interpreter
+whom I employed could not make them comprehend my questions. Their
+continually-repeated answer was, that the sources of the Rio Negro and
+the Inirida were as near to each other as "two fingers of the hand."
+In one of the huts of the Pacimonales we purchased two fine large
+birds, a toucan (piapoco) and an ana, a species of macaw, seventeen
+inches long, having the whole body of a purple colour. We had already
+in our canoe seven parrots, two manakins (pipa), a motmot, two guans,
+or pavas de monte, two manaviris (cercoleptes or Viverra
+caudivolvula), and eight monkeys, namely, two ateles,* (* Marimonda of
+the Great Cataracts, Simia belzebuth, Brisson.) two titis,* (* Simia
+sciurea, the saimiri of Buffon.) one viudita,* (* Simia lugens.) two
+douroucoulis or nocturnal monkeys,* (* Cusiensi, or Simia trivirgata.)
+and a short-tailed cacajao. (* Simia melanocephala, mono feo. These
+last three species are new.) Father Zea whispered some complaints at
+the daily augmentation of this ambulatory collection. The toucan
+resembles the raven in manners and intelligence. It is a courageous
+animal, but easily tamed. Its long and stout beak serves to defend it
+at a distance. It makes itself master of the house, steals whatever it
+can come at, and loves to bathe often and fish on the banks of the
+river. The toucan we had bought was very young; yet it took delight,
+during the whole voyage, in teasing the cusicusis, or nocturnal
+monkeys, which are melancholy and irritable. I did not observe what
+has been related in some works of natural history, that the toucan is
+forced, from the structure of its beak, to swallow its food by
+throwing it up into the air. It raises it indeed with some difficulty
+from the ground, but, having once seized it with the point of its
+enormous beak, it has only to lift it up by throwing back its head,
+and holding it perpendicularly whilst in the act of swallowing. This
+bird makes extraordinary gestures when preparing to drink. The monks
+say that it makes the sign of the cross upon the water; and this
+popular belief has obtained for the toucan, from the creoles, the
+singular name of diostede.* (* Dios te de, God gives it thee.)
+
+Most of our animals were confined in small wicker cages; others ran at
+full liberty in all parts of the boat. At the approach of rain the
+macaws sent forth noisy cries, the toucan wanted to reach the shore to
+fish, and the little monkeys (the titis) went in search of Father Zea,
+to take shelter in the large sleeves of his Franciscan habit. These
+incidents sometimes amused us so much that we forgot the torment of
+the mosquitos. At night we placed a leather case (petaca), containing
+our provisions, in the centre; then our instruments, and the cages of
+our animals; our hammocks were suspended around the cages, and beyond
+were those of the Indians. The exterior circle was formed by the fires
+which are lighted to keep off the jaguars. Such was the order of our
+encampment on the banks of the Cassiquiare. The Indians often spoke to
+us of a little nocturnal animal, with a long nose, which surprises the
+young parrots in their nests, and in eating makes use of its hands
+like the monkeys and the maniveris, or kinkajous. They call it the
+guachi; it is, no doubt, a coati, perhaps the Viverra nasua, which I
+saw wild in Mexico. The missionaries gravely prohibit the natives from
+eating the flesh of the guachi, to which, according to far-spread
+superstitious ideas, they attribute the same stimulating qualities
+which the people of the East believe to exist in the skink, and the
+Americans in the flesh of the alligator.
+
+On the 11th of May, we left the mission of San Francisco Solano at a
+late hour, to make but a short day's journey. The uniform stratum of
+vapours began to be divided into clouds with distinct outlines: and
+there was a light east wind in the upper regions of the air. We
+recognized in these signs an approaching change of the weather; and
+were unwilling to go far from the mouth of the Cassiquiare, in the
+hope of observing during the following night the passage of some star
+over the meridian. We descried the Cano Daquiapo to the south, the
+Guachaparu to the north, and a few miles further, the rapids of
+Cananivacari. The velocity of the current being 6.3 feet in a second,
+we had to struggle against the turbulent waves of the Raudal. We went
+on shore, and M. Bonpland discovered within a few steps of the beach a
+majestic almendron, or Bertholletia excelsa. The Indians assured us,
+that the existence of this valuable plant of the banks of the
+Cassiquiare was unknown at San Francisco Solano, Vasiva, and
+Esmeralda. They did not think that the tree we saw, which was more
+than sixty feet high, had been sown by some passing traveller.
+Experiments made at San Carlos have shown how rare it is to succeed in
+causing the bertholletia to germinate, on account of its ligneous
+pericarp, and the oil contained in its nut which so readily becomes
+rancid. Perhaps this tree denoted the existence of a forest of
+bertholletia in the inland country on the east and north-east. We
+know, at least, with certainty, that this fine tree grows wild in the
+third degree of latitude, in the Cerro de Guanaya. The plants that
+live in society have seldom marked limits, and it happens, that before
+we reach a palmar or a pinar,* (* Two Spanish words, which, according
+to a Latin form, denote a forest of palm-trees, palmetum, and of
+pines, pinetum.) we find solitary palm-trees and pines. They are
+somewhat like colonists that have advanced in the midst of a country
+peopled with different vegetable productions.
+
+Four miles distant from the rapids of Cunanivacari, rocks of the
+strangest form rise in the plains. First appears a narrow wall eighty
+feet high, and perpendicular; and at the southern extremity of this
+wall are two turrets, the courses of which are of granite, and nearly
+horizontal. The grouping of the rocks of Guanari is so symmetrical
+that they might be taken for the ruins of an ancient edifice. Are they
+the remains of islets in the midst of an inland sea, that covered the
+flat ground between the Sierra Parime and the Parecis mountains?* (*
+The Sierra de la Parime, or of the Upper Orinoco, and the Sierra (or
+Campos) dos Parecis, are part of the mountains of Matto Grosso, and
+form the northern back of the Sierra de Chiquitos. I here name the two
+chains of mountains running from east to west, and bordering the
+plains or basins of the Cassiquiare, the Rio Negro, and the Amazon,
+between 5 degrees 30 minutes north, and 14 degrees south latitude.) or
+have these walls of rock, these turrets of granite, been upheaved by
+the elastic forces that still act in the interior of our planet? We
+may be permitted to meditate a little on the origin of mountains,
+after having seen the position of the Mexican volcanoes, and of
+trachyte summits on an elongated crevice; having found in the Andes of
+South America primitive and volcanic rocks in a straight line in the
+same chain; and when we recollect the island, three miles in
+circumference, and of a great height, which in modern times issued
+from the depths of the ocean near Oonalaska.
+
+The banks of the Cassiquiare are adorned with the chiriva palm-tree
+with pinnate leaves, silvery on the under part. The rest of the forest
+furnishes only trees with large, coriaceous, glossy leaves, that have
+plain edges. This peculiar physiognomy* of the vegetation of the
+Guainia, the Tuamini, and the Cassiquiare, is owing to the
+preponderance of the families of the guttiferae, the sapotae, and the
+laurineae, in the equatorial regions. (* This physiognomy struck us
+forcibly, in the vast forests of Spanish Guiana, only between the
+second and third degrees of north latitude.) The serenity of the sky
+promising us a fine night, we resolved, at five in the evening, to
+rest near the Piedra de Culimacari, a solitary granite rock, like all
+those which I have described between the Atabapo and the Cassiquiare.
+We found by the bearings of the sinuosities of the river, that this
+rock is nearly in the latitude of the mission of San Francisco Solano.
+In those desert countries, where man has hitherto left only fugitive
+traces of his existence, I constantly endeavoured to make my
+observations near the mouth of a river, or at the foot of a rock
+distinguishable by its form. Such points only as are immutable by
+their nature can serve for the basis of geographical maps. I obtained,
+in the night of the 10th of May, a good observation of latitude by
+alpha of the Southern Cross; the longitude was determined, but with
+less precision, by the chronometer, taking the altitudes of the two
+beautiful stars which shine in the feet of the Centaur. This
+observation made known to us at the same time, with sufficient
+precision for the purposes of geography, the positions of the mouth of
+the Pacimoni, of the fortress of San Carlos, and of the junction of
+the Cassiquiare with the Rio Negro. The rock of Culimacari is
+precisely in latitude 2 degrees 0 minutes 42 seconds, and probably in
+longitude 69 degrees 33 minutes 50 seconds.
+
+Satisfied with our observations, we left the rock of Culimacari at
+half past one on the morning of the 12th. The torment of mosquitos, to
+which we were exposed, augmented in proportion as we withdrew from the
+Rio Negro. There are no zancudos in the valley of Cassiquiare, but the
+simulia, and all the other insects of the tipulary family, are the
+more numerous and venomous. Having still eight nights to pass in the
+open air in this damp and unhealthy climate, before we could reach the
+mission of Esmeralda, our pilot sought to arrange our passage in such
+a manner as might enable us to enjoy the hospitality of the missionary
+of Mandavaca, and some shelter in the village of Vasiva. We went up
+with difficulty against the current, which was nine feet, and in some
+places (where I measured it with precision) eleven feet eight inches
+in a second, that is, almost eight miles an hour. Our resting-place
+was probably not farther than three leagues in a right line from the
+mission of Mandavaca; yet, though we had no reason to complain of
+inactivity on the part of our rowers, we were fourteen hours in making
+this short passage.
+
+Towards sunrise we passed the mouth of the Rio Pacimoni, a river which
+I mentioned when speaking of the trade in sarsaparilla, and which (by
+means of the Baria) intertwines in so remarkable a way with the
+Cababuri. The Pacimoni rises in a hilly ground, from the confluence of
+three small rivers,* not marked on the maps of the missionaries. (*
+The Rios Guajavaca, Moreje, and Cachevaynery.) Its waters are black,
+but less so than those of the lake of Vasiva, which also communicates
+with the Cassiquiare. Between those two tributary streams coming from
+the east, lies the mouth of the Rio Idapa, the waters of which are
+white. I shall not recur again to the difficulty of explaining this
+coexistence of rivers differently coloured, within a small extent of
+territory, but shall merely observe, that at the mouth of the
+Pacimoni, and on the borders of the lake Vasiva, we were again struck
+with the purity and extreme transparency of the brown waters. Ancient
+Arabian travellers have observed, that the Alpine branch of the Nile,
+which joins the Bahr el Abiad near Halfaja, has green waters, which
+are so transparent, that the fish may be seen at the bottom of the
+river.
+
+We passed some turbulent rapids before we reached the mission of
+Mandavaca. The village, which bears also the name of Quirabuena,
+contains only sixty natives. The state of the Christian settlements is
+in general so miserable that, in the whole course of the Cassiquiare,
+on a length of fifty leagues, not two hundred inhabitants are found.
+The banks of this river were indeed more peopled before the arrival of
+the missionaries; the Indians have withdrawn into the woods, toward
+the east; for the western plains are almost deserted. The natives
+subsist during a part of the year on those large ants of which I have
+spoken above. These insects are much esteemed here, as spiders are in
+the southern hemisphere, where the savages of Australia deem them
+delicious. We found at Mandavaca the good old missionary, who had
+already spent twenty years of mosquitos in the bosques del
+Cassiquiare, and whose legs were so spotted by the stings of insects,
+that the colour of the skin could scarcely be perceived. He talked to
+us of his solitude, and of the sad necessity which often compelled him
+to leave the most atrocious crimes unpunished in the two missions of
+Mandavaca and Vasiva. In the latter place, an Indian alcalde had, a
+few years before, eaten one of his wives, after having taken her to
+his conuco,* (* A hut surrounded with cultivated ground; a sort of
+country-house, which the natives prefer to residing in the missions.)
+and fattened her by good feeding. The cannibalism of the nations of
+Guiana is never caused by the want of subsistence, or by the
+superstitions of their religion, as in the islands of the South Sea;
+but is generally the effect of the vengeance of a conqueror, and (as
+the missionaries say) "of a vitiated appetite." Victory over a hostile
+tribe is celebrated by a repast, in which some parts of the body of a
+prisoner are devoured. Sometimes a defenceless family is surprised in
+the night; or an enemy, who is met with by chance in the woods, is
+killed by a poisoned arrow. The body is cut to pieces, and carried as
+a trophy to the hut. It is civilization only, that has made man feel
+the unity of the human race; which has revealed to him, as we may say,
+the ties of consanguinity, by which he is linked to beings to whose
+language and manners he is a stranger. Savages know only their own
+family; and a tribe appears to them but a more numerous assemblage of
+relations. When those who inhabit the missions see Indians of the
+forest, who are unknown to them, arrive, they make use of an
+expression, which has struck us by its simple candour: they are, no
+doubt, my relations; I understand them when they speak to me. But
+these very savages detest all who are not of their family, or their
+tribe; and hunt the Indians of a neighbouring tribe, who live at war
+with their own, as we hunt game. They know the duties of family ties
+and of relationship, but not those of humanity, which require the
+feeling of a common tie with beings framed like ourselves. No emotion
+of pity prompts them to spare the wives or children of a hostile race;
+and the latter are devoured in preference, at the repast given at the
+conclusion of a battle or warlike incursion.
+
+The hatred which savages for the most part feel for men who speak
+another idiom, and appear to them to be of an inferior race, is
+sometimes rekindled in the missions, after having long slumbered. A
+short time before our arrival at Esmeralda, an Indian, born in the
+forest* behind the Duida, travelled alone with another Indian, who,
+after having been made prisoner by the Spaniards on the banks of the
+Ventuario, lived peaceably in the village, or, as it is expressed
+here, within the sound of the bell (debaxo de la campana.) (* En el
+monte. The Indians born in the missions are distinguished from those
+born in the woods. The word monte signifies more frequently, in the
+colonies, a forest (bosque) than a mountain, and this circumstance has
+led to great errors in our maps, on which chains of mountains
+(sierras) are figured, where there are only thick forests, (monte
+espeso.)) The latter could only walk slowly, because he was suffering
+from one of those fevers to which the natives are subject, when they
+arrive in the missions, and abruptly change their diet. Wearied by his
+delay, his fellow-traveller killed him, and hid the body behind a
+copse of thick trees, near Esmeralda. This crime, like many others
+among the Indians, would have remained unknown, if the murderer had
+not made preparations for a feast on the following day. He tried to
+induce his children, born in the mission and become Christians, to go
+with him for some parts of the dead body. They had much difficulty in
+persuading him to desist from his purpose; and the soldier who was
+posted at Esmeralda, learned from the domestic squabble caused by this
+event, what the Indians would have concealed from his knowledge.
+
+It is known that cannibalism and the practice of human sacrifices,
+with which it is often connected, are found to exist in all parts of
+the globe, and among people of very different races;* but what strikes
+us more in the study of history is to see human sacrifices retained in
+a state of civilization somewhat advanced; and that the nations who
+hold it a point of honour to devour their prisoners are not always the
+rudest and most ferocious. (* Some casual instances of children
+carried off by the negroes in the island of Cuba have led to the
+belief, in the Spanish colonies, that there are tribes of cannibals in
+Africa. This opinion, though supported by some travellers, is not
+borne out by the researches of Mr. Barrow on the interior of that
+country. Superstitious practices may have given rise to imputations
+perhaps as unjust as those of which Jewish families were the victims
+in the ages of intolerance and persecution.) The painful facts have
+not escaped the observation of those missionaries who are sufficiently
+enlightened to reflect on the manners of the surrounding tribes. The
+Cabres, the Guipunaves, and the Caribs, have always been more powerful
+and more civilized than the other hordes of the Orinoco; and yet the
+two former are as much addicted to anthropophagy as the latter are
+repugnant to it. We must carefully distinguish the different branches
+into which the great family of the Caribbee nations is divided. These
+branches are as numerous as those of the Mongols, and the western
+Tartars, or Turcomans. The Caribs of the continent, those who inhabit
+the plains between the Lower Orinoco, the Rio Branco, the Essequibo,
+and the sources of the Oyapoc, hold in horror the practice of
+devouring their enemies. This barbarous custom,* at the first
+discovery of America, existed only among the Caribs of the West
+Indies. (* See Geraldini Itinerarium page 186 and the eloquent tract
+of cardinal Bembo on the discoveries of Columbus. "Insularum partem
+homines incolebant feri trucesque, qui puerorum et virorum carnibus,
+quos aliis in insulus bello aut latrociniis cepissent, vescebantur; a
+feminis abstinebant; Canibales appellati." "Some of the islands are
+inhabited by a cruel and savage race, called cannibals, who eat the
+flesh of men and boys, and captives and slaves of the male sex,
+abstaining from that of females." Hist. Venet. 1551. The custom of
+sparing the lives of female prisoners confirms what I have previously
+said of the language of the women. Does the word cannibal, applied to
+the Caribs of the West India Islands, belong to the language of this
+archipelago (that of Haiti)? or must we seek for it in an idiom of
+Florida, which some traditions indicate as the first country of the
+Caribs?) It is they who have rendered the names of cannibals,
+Caribbees, and anthropophagi, synonymous; it was their cruelties that
+prompted the law promulgated in 1504, by which the Spaniards were
+permitted to make a slave of every individual of an American nation
+which could be proved to be of Caribbee origin. I believe, however,
+that the anthropophagy of the inhabitants of the West India Islands
+was much exaggerated by early travellers, whose stories Herrera, a
+grave and judicious historian, has not disdained to repeat in his
+Decades historicas. He has even credited that extraordinary event
+which led the Caribs to renounce this barbarous custom. The natives of
+a little island devoured a Dominican monk whom they had carried off
+from the coast of Porto Rico; they all fell sick, and would never
+again eat monk or layman.
+
+If the Caribs of the Orinoco, since the commencement of the sixteenth
+century, have differed in their manners from those of the West India
+Islands; if they are unjustly accused of anthropophagy; it is
+difficult to attribute this difference to any superiority of their
+social state. The strangest contrasts are found blended in this
+mixture of nations, some of whom live only upon fish, monkeys, and
+ants; while others are more or less cultivators of the ground, more or
+less occupied in making and painting pottery, or weaving hammocks or
+cotton cloth. Several of the latter tribes have preserved inhuman
+customs altogether unknown to the former. "You cannot imagine," said
+the old missionary of Mandavaca, "the perversity of this Indian race
+(familia de Indios). You receive men of a new tribe into the village;
+they appear to be mild, good, and laborious; but suffer them to take
+part in an incursion (entrada) to bring in the natives, and you can
+scarcely prevent them from murdering all they meet, and hiding some
+portions of the dead bodies." In reflecting on the manners of these
+Indians, we are almost horrified at that combination of sentiments
+which seem to exclude each other; that faculty of nations to become
+but partially humanized; that preponderance of customs, prejudices,
+and traditions, over the natural affections of the heart. We had a
+fugitive Indian from the Guaisia in our canoe, who had become
+sufficiently civilized in a few weeks to be useful to us in placing
+the instruments necessary for our observations at night. He was no
+less mild than intelligent, and we had some desire of taking him into
+our service. What was our horror when, talking to him by means of an
+interpreter, we learned, that the flesh of the marimonde monkeys,
+though blacker, appeared to him to have the taste of human flesh. He
+told us that his relations (that is, the people of his tribe)
+preferred the inside of the hands in man, as in bears. This assertion
+was accompanied with gestures of savage gratification. We inquired of
+this young man, so calm and so affectionate in the little services
+which he rendered us, whether he still felt sometimes a desire to eat
+of a Cheruvichahena. He answered, without discomposure, that, living
+in the mission, he would only eat what he saw was eaten by the Padres.
+Reproaches addressed to the natives on the abominable practice which
+we here discuss, produce no effect; it is as if a Brahmin, travelling
+in Europe, were to reproach us with the habit of feeding on the flesh
+of animals. In the eyes of the Indian of the Guaisia, the
+Cheruvichahena was a being entirely different from himself; and one
+whom he thought it was no more unjust to kill than the jaguars of the
+forest. It was merely from a sense of propriety that, whilst he
+remained in the mission, he would only eat the same food as the
+Fathers. The natives, if they return to their tribe (al monte), or
+find themselves pressed by hunger, soon resume their old habits of
+anthropophagy. And why should we be so much astonished at this
+inconstancy in the tribes of the Orinoco, when we are reminded, by
+terrible and well-ascertained examples, of what has passed among
+civilized nations in times of great scarcity? In Egypt, in the
+thirteenth century, the habit of eating human flesh pervaded all
+classes of society; extraordinary snares were spread for physicians in
+particular. They were called to attend persons who pretended to be
+sick, but who were only hungry; and it was not in order to be
+consulted, but devoured. An historian of great veracity, Abd-allatif,
+has related how a practice, which at first inspired dread and horror,
+soon occasioned not even the slightest surprise.* (* "When the poor
+began to eat human flesh, the horror and astonishment caused by
+repasts so dreadful were such that these crimes furnished the
+never-ceasing subject of every conversation. But at length the people
+became so accustomed to it, and conceived such a taste for this
+detestable food, that people of wealth and respectability were found
+to use it as their ordinary food, to eat it by way of a treat, and
+even to lay in a stock of it. This flesh was prepared in different
+ways, and the practice being once introduced, spread into the
+provinces, so that instances of it were found in every part of Egypt.
+It then no longer caused any surprise; the horror it had at first
+inspired vanished; and it was mentioned as an indifferent and ordinary
+thing. This mania of devouring one another became so common among the
+poor, that the greater part perished in this manner. These wretches
+employed all sorts of artifices, to seize men by surprise, or decoy
+them into their houses under false pretences. This happened to three
+physicians among those who visited me; and a bookseller who sold me
+books, an old and very corpulent man, fell into their snares, and
+escaped with great difficulty. All the facts which we relate as
+eye-witnesses fell under our observation accidentally, for we
+generally avoided witnessing spectacles which inspired us with so much
+horror." Account of Egypt by Abd-allatif, physician of Bagdad,
+translated into French by De Sacy pages 360 to 374.)
+
+Although the Indians of the Cassiquiare readily return to their
+barbarous habits, they evince, whilst in the missions, intelligence,
+some love of labour, and, in particular, a great facility in learning
+the Spanish language. The villages being, for the most part, inhabited
+by three or four tribes, who do not understand each other, a foreign
+idiom, which is at the same time that of the civil power, the language
+of the missionary, affords the advantage of more general means of
+communication. I heard a Poinave Indian conversing in Spanish with a
+Guahibo, though both had come from their forests within three months.
+They uttered a phrase every quarter of an hour, prepared with
+difficulty, and in which the gerund of the verb, no doubt according to
+the grammatical turn of their own languages, was constantly employed.
+"When I seeing Padre, Padre to me saying;"* (* "Quando io mirando
+Padre, Padre me diciendo.") instead of, "when I saw the missionary, he
+said to me." I have mentioned in another place, how wise it appeared
+to me in the Jesuits to generalize one of the languages of civilized
+America, for instance that of the Peruvians,* (* The Quichua or Inca
+language, Lengua del Inga.) and instruct the Indians in an idiom which
+is foreign to them in its roots, but not in its structure and
+grammatical forms. This was following the system which the Incas, or
+king-priests of Peru had employed for ages, in order to humanize the
+barbarous nations of the Upper Maranon, and maintain them under their
+domination; a system somewhat more reasonable than that of making the
+natives of America speak Latin, as was gravely proposed in a
+provincial concilio at Mexico.
+
+We were told that the Indians of the Cassiquiare and the Rio Negro are
+preferred on the Lower Orinoco, and especially at Angostura, to the
+inhabitants of the other missions, on account of their intelligence
+and activity. Those of Mandavaca are celebrated among the tribes of
+their own race for the preparation of the curare poison, which does
+not yield in strength to the curare of Esmeralda. Unhappily the
+natives devote themselves to this employment more than to agriculture.
+Yet the soil on the banks of the Cassiquiare is excellent. We find
+there a granitic sand, of a blackish-brown colour, which is covered in
+the forests with thick layers of rich earth, and on the banks of the
+river with clay almost impermeable to water. The soil of the
+Cassiquiare appears more fertile than that of the valley of the Rio
+Negro, where maize does not prosper. Rice, beans, cotton, sugar, and
+indigo yield rich harvests, wherever their cultivation has been
+tried.* (* M. Bonpland found at Mandavaca, in the huts of the natives,
+a plant with tuberous roots, exactly like cassava (yucca). It is
+called cumapana, and is cooked by being baked on the ashes. It grows
+spontaneously on the banks of the Cassiquiare.) We saw wild indigo
+around the missions of San Miguel de Davipe, San Carlos, and
+Mandavaca. No doubt can exist that several nations of America,
+particularly the Mexicans, long before the conquest, employed real
+indigo in their hieroglyphic paintings; and that small cakes of this
+substance were sold at the great market of Tenochtitlan. But a
+colouring matter, chemically identical, may be extracted from plants
+belonging to neighbouring genera; and I should not at present venture
+to affirm that the native indigoferae of America do not furnish some
+generic difference from the Indigofera anil, and the Indigofera
+argentea of the Old World. In the coffee-trees of both hemispheres
+this difference has been observed.
+
+Here, as at the Rio Negro, the humidity of the air, and the consequent
+abundance of insects, are obstacles almost invincible to new
+cultivation. Everywhere you meet with those large ants that march in
+close bands, and direct their attacks the more readily on cultivated
+plants, because they are herbaceous and succulent, whilst the forests
+of these countries afford only plants with woody stalks. If a
+missionary wishes to cultivate salad, or any culinary plant of Europe,
+he is compelled as it were to suspend his garden in the air. He fills
+an old boat with good mould, and, having sown the seed, suspends it
+four feet above the ground with cords of the chiquichiqui palm-tree;
+but most frequently places it on a slight scaffolding. This protects
+the young plants from weeds, worms, and those ants which pursue their
+migration in a right line, and, not knowing what vegetates above them,
+seldom turn from their course to climb up stakes that are stripped of
+their bark. I mention this circumstance to prove how difficult, within
+the tropics, on the banks of great rivers, are the first attempts of
+man to appropriate to himself a little spot of earth in that vast
+domain of nature, invaded by animals, and covered by spontaneous
+plants.
+
+During the night of the 13th of May, I obtained some observations of
+the stars, unfortunately the last at the Cassiquiare. The latitude of
+Mandavaca is 2 degrees 4 minutes 7 seconds; its longitude, according
+to the chronometer, 69 degrees 27 minutes. I found the magnetic dip
+25.25 degrees (cent div), showing that it had increased considerably
+from the fort of San Carlos. Yet the surrounding rocks are of the same
+granite, mixed with a little hornblende, which we had found at Javita,
+and which assumes a syenitic aspect. We left Mandavaca at half-past
+two in the morning. After six hours' voyage, we passed on the east the
+mouth of the Idapa, or Siapa, which rises on the mountain of Uuturan,
+and furnishes near its sources a portage to the Rio Mavaca, one of the
+tributary streams of the Orinoco. This river has white waters, and is
+not more than half as broad as the Pacimoni, the waters of which are
+black. Its upper course has been strangely misrepresented on maps. I
+shall have occasion hereafter to mention the hypotheses that have
+given rise to these errors, in speaking of the source of the Orinoco.
+
+We stopped near the raudal of Cunuri. The noise of the little cataract
+augmented sensibly during the night, and our Indians asserted that it
+was a certain presage of rain. I recollected that the mountaineers of
+the Alps have great confidence in the same prognostic.* (* "It is
+going to rain, because we hear the murmur of the torrents nearer," say
+the mountaineers of the Alps, like those of the Andes. The cause of
+the phenomenon is a modification of the atmosphere, which has an
+influence at once on the sonorous and on the luminous undulations. The
+prognostic drawn from the increase and the intensity of sound is
+intimately connected with the prognostic drawn from a less extinction
+of light. The mountaineers predict a change of weather, when, the air
+being calm, the Alps covered with perpetual snow seem on a sudden to
+be nearer the observer, and their outlines are marked with great
+distinctness on the azure sky. What is it that causes the want of
+homogeneity in the vertical strata of the atmosphere to disappear
+instantaneously?) It fell before sunrise, and the araguato monkeys had
+warned us, by their lengthened howlings, of the approaching rain, long
+before the noise of the cataract increased.
+
+On the 14th, the mosquitos, and especially the ants, drove us from the
+shore before two in the morning. We had hitherto been of opinion that
+the ants did not crawl along the cords by which the hammocks are
+usually suspended: whether we were correct in this supposition, or
+whether the ants fell on us from the tops of the trees, I cannot say;
+but certain it is that we had great difficulty to keep ourselves free
+from these troublesome insects. The river became narrower as we
+advanced, and the banks were so marshy, that it was not without much
+labour M. Bonpland could get to a Carolinea princeps loaded with large
+purple flowers. This tree is the most beautiful ornament of these
+forests, and of those of the Rio Negro. We examined repeatedly, during
+this day, the temperature of the Cassiquiare. The water at the surface
+of the river was only 24 degrees (when the air was at 25.6 degrees.)
+This is nearly the temperature of the Rio Negro, but four or five
+degrees below that of the Orinoco. After having passed on the west the
+mouth of the Cano Caterico, which has black waters of extraordinary
+transparency, we left the bed of the river, to land at an island on
+which the mission of Vasiva is established. The lake which surrounds
+this mission is a league broad, and communicates by three outlets with
+the Cassiquiare. The surrounding country abounds in marshes which
+generate fever. The lake, the waters of which appear yellow by
+transmitted light, is dry in the season of great heat, and the Indians
+themselves are unable to resist the miasmata rising from the mud. The
+complete absence of wind contributes to render the climate of this
+country more pernicious.
+
+From the 14th to the 21st of May we slept constantly in the open air;
+but I cannot indicate the spots where we halted. These regions are so
+wild, and so little frequented, that with the exception of a few
+rivers, the Indians were ignorant of the names of all the objects
+which I set by the compass. No observation of a star helped me to fix
+the latitude within the space of a degree. After having passed the
+point where the Itinivini separates from the Cassiquiare, to take its
+course to the west towards the granitic hills of Daripabo, we found
+the marshy banks of the river covered with bamboos. These arborescent
+gramina rise to the height of twenty feet; their stem is constantly
+arched towards the summit. It is a new species of Bambusa with very
+broad leaves. M. Bonpland fortunately found one in flower; a
+circumstance I mention, because the genera Nastus and Bambusa had
+before been very imperfectly distinguished, and nothing is more rare
+in the New World, than to see these gigantic gramina in flower. N.
+Mutis herborised during twenty years in a country where the Bambusa
+guadua forms marshy forests several leagues broad, without having ever
+been able to procure the flowers. We sent that learned naturalist the
+first ears of Bambusa from the temperate valleys of Popayan. It is
+strange that the parts of fructification should develop themselves so
+rarely in a plant which is indigenous, and which vegetates with such
+extraordinary rigour, from the level of the sea to the height of nine
+hundred toises, that is, to a subalpine region the climate of which,
+between the tropics, resembles that of the south of Spain. The Bambusa
+latifolia seems to be peculiar to the basins of the Upper Orinoco, the
+Cassiquiare, and the Amazon; it is a social plant, like all the
+gramina of the family of the nastoides; but in that part of Spanish
+Guiana which we traversed it does not grow in those large masses which
+the Spanish Americans call guadales, or forests of bamboos.
+
+Our first resting-place above Vasiva was easily arranged. We found a
+little nook of dry ground, free from shrubs, to the south of the Cano
+Curamuni, in a spot where we saw some capuchin monkeys.* (* Simia
+chiropotes.) They were recognizable by their black beards and their
+gloomy and sullen air, and were walking slowly on the horizontal
+branches of a genipa. During the five following nights our passage was
+the more troublesome in proportion as we approached the bifurcation of
+the Orinoco. The luxuriance of the vegetation increases in a manner of
+which it is difficult even for those acquainted with the aspect of the
+forests between the tropics, to form an idea. There is no longer a
+bank: a palisade of tufted trees forms the margin of the river. You
+see a canal two hundred toises broad, bordered by two enormous walls,
+clothed with lianas and foliage. We often tried to land, but without
+success. Towards sunset we sailed along for an hour seeking to
+discover, not an opening (since none exists), but a spot less wooded,
+where our Indians by means of the hatchet and manual labour, could
+clear space enough for a resting-place for twelve or thirteen persons.
+It was impossible to pass the night in the canoe; the mosquitos, which
+tormented us during the day, accumulated toward evening beneath the
+toldo covered with palm-leaves, which served to shelter us from the
+rain. Our hands and faces had never before been so much swelled.
+Father Zea, who had till then boasted of having in his missions of the
+cataracts the largest and fiercest (las mas feroces) mosquitos, at
+length gradually acknowledged that the sting of the insects of the
+Cassiquiare was the most painful he had ever felt. We experienced
+great difficulty, amid a thick forest, in finding wood to make a fire,
+the branches of the trees in those equatorial regions where it always
+rains, being so full of sap, that they will scarcely burn. There being
+no bare shore, it is hardly possible to procure old wood, which the
+Indians call wood baked in the sun. However, fire was necessary to us
+only as a defence against the beasts of the forest; for we had such a
+scarcity of provision that we had little need of fuel for the purpose
+of preparing our food.
+
+On the 18th of May, towards evening, we discovered a spot where wild
+cacao-trees were growing on the bank of the river. The nut of these
+cacaos is small and bitter; the Indians of the forest suck the pulp,
+and throw away the nut, which is picked up by the Indians of the
+missions, and sold to persons who are not very nice in the preparation
+of their chocolate. "This is the Puerto del Cacao" (Cacao Port), said
+the pilot; "it is here our Padres sleep, when they go to Esmeralda to
+buy sarbacans* (* The bamboo tubes furnished by the Arundinaria, used
+for projecting the poisoned arrows of the natives. See Views of Nature
+page 180.) and juvias ( Brazil nuts). Not five boats, however, pass
+annually by the Cassiquiare; and since we left Maypures (a whole month
+previously), we had not met one living soul on the rivers we
+navigated, except in the immediate neighbourhood of the missions. To
+the south of lake Duractumuni we slept in a forest of palm-trees. It
+rained violently, but the pothoses, arums, and lianas, furnished so
+thick a natural trellis, that we were sheltered as under a vault of
+foliage. The Indians whose hammocks were placed on the edge of the
+river, interwove the heliconias and other musaceae, so as to form a
+kind of roof over them. Our fires lighted up, to the height of fifty
+or sixty feet, the palm-trees, the lianas loaded with flowers, and the
+columns of white smoke, which ascended in a straight line toward the
+sky. The whole exhibited a magnificent spectacle; but to have enjoyed
+it fully, we should have breathed an air clear of insects.
+
+The most depressing of all physical sufferings are those which are
+uniform in their duration, and can be combated only by long patience.
+It is probable, that in the exhalations of the forests of the
+Cassiquiare M. Bonpland imbibed the seeds of a severe malady, under
+which he nearly sunk on our arrival at Angostura. Happily for him and
+for me, nothing led us to presage the danger with which he was
+menaced. The view of the river, and the hum of the insects, were a
+little monotonous; but some remains of our natural cheerfulness
+enabled us to find sources of relief during our wearisome passage. We
+discovered, that by eating small portions of dry cacao ground without
+sugar, and drinking a large quantity of the river water, we succeeded
+in appeasing our appetite for several hours. The ants and the
+mosquitos troubled us more than the humidity and the want of food.
+Notwithstanding the privations to which we were exposed during our
+excursions in the Cordilleras, the navigation from Mandavaca to
+Esmeralda has always appeared to us the most painful part of our
+travels in America. I advise those who are not very desirous of seeing
+the great bifurcation of the Orinoco, to take the way of the Atabapo
+in preference to that of the Cassiquiare.
+
+Above the Cano Duractumuni, the Cassiquiare pursues a uniform
+direction from north-east to south-west. We were surprised to see how
+much the high steep banks of the Cassiquiare had been undermined on
+each side by the sudden risings of the water. Uprooted trees formed as
+it were natural rafts; and being half-buried in the mud, they were
+extremely dangerous for canoes. We passed the night of the 20th of
+May, the last of our passage on the Cassiquiare, near the point of the
+bifurcation of the Orinoco. We had some hope of being able to make an
+astronomical observation, as falling-stars of remarkable magnitude
+were visible through the vapours that veiled the sky; whence we
+concluded that the stratum of vapours must be very thin, since meteors
+of this kind have scarcely ever been seen below a cloud. Those we now
+beheld shot towards the north, and succeeded each other at almost
+equal intervals. The Indians, who seldom ennoble by their expressions
+the wanderings of the imagination, name the falling-stars the urine;
+and the dew the spittle of the stars. The clouds thickened anew, and
+we discerned neither the meteors, nor the real stars, for which we had
+impatiently waited during several days.
+
+We had been told, that we should find the insects at Esmeralda still
+more cruel and voracious than in the branch of the Orinoco which we
+were going up; nevertheless we indulged the hope of at length sleeping
+in a spot that was inhabited, and of taking some exercise in
+herbalizing. This anticipation was, however, disturbed at our last
+resting-place on the Cassiquiare. Whilst we were sleeping on the edge
+of the forest, we were warned by the Indians, in the middle of the
+night, that they heard very near us the cries of a jaguar. These
+cries, they alleged, came from the top of some neighbouring trees.
+Such is the thickness of the forests in these regions, that scarcely
+any animals are to be found there but such as climb trees; as, for
+instance, the monkeys, animals of the weasel tribe, jaguars, and other
+species of the genus Felis.
+
+As our fires burnt brightly, we paid little attention to the cries of
+the jaguars. They had been attracted by the smell and noise of our
+dog. This animal (which was of the mastiff breed) began at first to
+bark; and when the tiger drew nearer, to howl, hiding himself below
+our hammocks. how great was our grief, when in the morning, at the
+moment of re-embarking, the Indians informed us that the dog had
+disappeared! There could be no doubt that it had been carried off by
+the jaguars.* (* See Views of Nature page 195.) Perhaps, when their
+cries had ceased, it had wandered from the fires on the side of the
+beach; and possibly we had not heard its moans, as we were in a
+profound sleep. We have often heard the inhabitants of the banks of
+the Orinoco and the Rio Magdalena affirm, that the oldest jaguars will
+carry off animals from the midst of a halting-place, cunningly
+grasping them by the neck so as to prevent their cries. We waited part
+of the morning, in the hope that our dog had only strayed. Three days
+after we came back to the same place; we heard again the cries of the
+jaguars, for these animals have a predilection for particular spots;
+but all our search was vain. The dog, which had accompanied us from
+Caracas, and had so often in swimming escaped the pursuit of the
+crocodiles,* had been devoured in the forest. (* Ibid page 198.)
+
+On the 21st May, we again entered the bed of the Orinoco, three
+leagues below the mission of Esmeralda. It was now a month since we
+had left that river near the mouth of the Guaviare. We had still to
+proceed seven hundred and fifty miles* (* Of nine hundred and fifty
+toises each, or two hundred and fifty nautical leagues.) before
+reaching Angostura, but we should go with the stream; and this
+consideration lessened our discouragement. In descending great rivers,
+the rowers take the middle of the current, where there are few
+mosquitos; but in ascending, they are obliged, in order to avail
+themselves of the dead waters and counter-currents, to sail near the
+shore, where the proximity of the forests, and the remains of organic
+substances accumulated on the beach, harbour the tipulary insects. The
+point of the celebrated bifurcation of the Orinoco has a very imposing
+aspect. Lofty granitic mountains rise on the northern bank; and amidst
+them are discovered at a distance the Maraguaca and the Duida. There
+are no mountains on the left bank of the Orinoco, west or east of the
+bifurcation, till opposite the mouth of the Tamatama. On that spot
+stands the rock Guaraco, which is said to throw out flames from time
+to time in the rainy season. When the Orinoco is no longer bounded by
+mountains towards the south, and when it reaches the opening of a
+valley, or rather a depression of the ground, which terminates at the
+Rio Negro, it divides itself into two branches. The principal branch
+(the Rio Paragua of the Indians) continues its course west-north-west,
+turning round the group of the mountains of Parime; the other branch
+forming the communication with the Amazon runs into plains, the
+general slope of which is southward, but of which the partial planes
+incline, in the Cassiquiare, to south-west, and in the basin of the
+Rio Negro, south-east. A phenomenon so strange in appearance, which I
+verified on the spot, merits particular attention; the more especially
+as it may throw some light on analogous facts, which are supposed to
+have been observed in the interior of Africa.
+
+The existence of a communication of the Orinoco with the Amazon by the
+Rio Negro, and a bifurcation of the Caqueta, was believed by Sanson,
+and rejected by Father Fritz and by Blaeuw: it was marked in the first
+maps of De l'Isle, but abandoned by that celebrated geographer towards
+the end of his days. Those who had mistaken the mode of this
+communication hastened to deny the communication itself. It is in fact
+well worthy of remark that, at the time when the Portuguese went up
+most frequently by the Amazon, the Rio Negro, and the Cassiquiare, and
+when Father Gumilla's letters were carried (by the natural
+interbranching of the rivers) from the lower Orinoco to Grand Para,
+that very missionary made every effort to spread the opinion through
+Europe that the basins of the Orinoco and the Amazon are perfectly
+separate. He asserts that, having several times gone up the former of
+these rivers as far as the Raudal of Tabaje, situate in the latitude
+of 1 degree 4 minutes, he never saw a river flow in or out that could
+be taken for the Rio Negro. He adds further, that a great Cordillera,
+which stretches from east to west, prevents the mingling of the
+waters, and renders all discussion on the supposed communication of
+the two rivers useless. The errors of Father Gumilla arose from his
+firm persuasion that he had reached the parallel of 1 degree 4 minutes
+on the Orinoco. He was in error by more than 5 degrees 10 minutes of
+latitude; for I found, by observation, at the mission of Atures,
+thirteen leagues south of the rapids of Tabaje, the latitude to be 5
+degrees 37 minutes 34 seconds. Gumilla having gone but little above
+the confluence of the Meta, it is not surprising that he had no
+knowledge of the bifurcation of the Orinoco, which is found by the
+sinuosities of the river to be one hundred and twenty leagues distant
+from the Raudal of Tabaje.
+
+La Condamine, during his memorable navigation on the river Amazon in
+1743, carefully collected a great number of proofs of this
+communication of the rivers, denied by the Spanish Jesuit. The most
+decisive proof then appeared to him to be the unsuspected testimony of
+a Cauriacani Indian woman with whom he had conversed, and who had come
+in a boat from the banks of the Orinoco (from the mission of Pararuma)
+to Grand Para. Before the return of La Condamine to his own country,
+the voyage of Father Manuel Roman, and the fortuitous meeting of the
+missionaries of the Orinoco and the Amazon, left no doubt of this
+fact, the knowledge of which was first obtained by Acunha.
+
+The incursions undertaken from the middle of the seventeenth century,
+to procure slaves, had gradually led the Portuguese from the Rio
+Negro, by the Cassiquiare, to the bed of a great river, which they did
+not know to be the Upper Orinoco. A flying camp, composed of the troop
+of ransomers,* favoured this inhuman commerce. (* Tropa de rescate;
+from rescatar, to redeem.) After having excited the natives to make
+war, they ransomed the prisoners; and, to give an appearance of equity
+to the traffic, monks accompanied the troop of ransomers to examine
+whether those who sold the slaves had a right to do so, by having made
+them prisoners in open war. From the year 1737 these visits of the
+Portuguese to the Upper Orinoco became very frequent. The desire of
+exchanging slaves (poitos) for hatchets, fish-hooks, and glass
+trinkets, induced the Indian tribes to make war upon one another. The
+Guipunaves, led on by their valiant and cruel chief Macapu, descended
+from the banks of the Inirida towards the confluence of the Atabapo
+and the Orinoco. "They sold," says the missionary Gili, "the slaves
+whom they did not eat."* (* "I Guipunavi avventizj abitatori dell'
+Alto Orinoco, recavan de' danni incredibili alle vicine mansuete
+nazioni; altre mangiondone, altre conducendone schiave ne' Portoghesi
+dominj." "The Guipunaves, at their first arrival on the Upper Orinoco,
+inflicted incredible injuries on the other peaceable tribes who dwelt
+near them, devouring some, and selling others as slaves to the
+Portuguese." Gili tome 1 page 31.) The Jesuits of the Lower Orinoco
+became uneasy at this state of things, and the superior of the Spanish
+missions, Father Roman, the intimate friend of Gumilla, took the
+courageous resolution of crossing the Great Cataracts, and visiting
+the Guipunaves, without being escorted by Spanish soldiers. He left
+Carichana the 4th of February, 1744; and having arrived at the
+confluence of the Guaviare, the Atabapo, and the Orinoco, where the
+last mentioned river suddenly changes its previous course from east to
+west, to a direction from south to north, he saw from afar a canoe as
+large as his own, and filled with men in European dresses. He caused a
+crucifix to be placed at the bow of his boat in sign of peace,
+according to the custom of the missionaries when they navigate in a
+country unknown to them. The whites, who were Portuguese slave-traders
+of the Rio Negro, recognized with marks of joy the habit of the order
+of St. Ignatius. They heard with astonishment that the river on which
+this meeting took place was the Orinoco; and they brought Father Roman
+by the Cassiquiare to the Brazilian settlements on the Rio Negro. The
+superior of the Spanish missions was forced to remain near the flying
+camp of the troop of ransomers till the arrival of the Portuguese
+Jesuit Avogadri, who had gone upon business to Grand Para. Father
+Manuel Roman returned with his Salive Indians by the same way, that of
+the Cassiquiare and the Upper Orinoco, to Pararuma,* a little to the
+north of Carichana, after an absence of seven months. (* On the 15th
+of October, 1774. La Condamine quitted the town of Grand Para December
+the 29th, 1743; it follows, from a comparison of the dates, that the
+Indian woman of Pararuma, carried off by the Portuguese, and to whom
+the French traveller had spoken, had not come with Father Roman, as
+was erroneously affirmed. The appearance of this woman on the banks of
+the Amazon is interesting with respect to the researches lately made
+on the mixture of races and languages: it proves the enormous
+distances through which the individuals of one tribe are compelled to
+carry on intercourse with those of another.) He was the first white
+man who went from the Rio Negro, consequently from the basin of the
+Amazon, without passing his boats over any portage, to the basin of
+the Lower Orinoco.
+
+The tidings of this extraordinary passage spread with such rapidity
+that La Condamine was able to announce it* at a public sitting of the
+Academy, seven months after the return of Father Roman to Pararuma. (*
+The intelligence was communicated to him by Father John Ferreyro,
+rector of the college of Jesuits at Para. Voyage a l'Amazone page 120.
+Mem. de l'Acad. 1745 page 450. Caulin page 79. See also, in the work
+of Gili, the fifth chapter of the first book, published in 1780, with
+the title: Della scoperta delle communicazione dell' Orinoco col
+Maragnone.) "The communication between the Orinoco and the Amazon,"
+said he, "recently averred, may pass so much the more for a discovery
+in geography, as, although the junction of these two rivers is marked
+on the old maps (according to the information given by Acunha), it had
+been suppressed by all the modern geographers in their new maps, as if
+in concert. This is not the first time that what is positive fact has
+been thought fabulous, that the spirit of criticism has been pushed
+too far, and that this communication has been treated as chimerical by
+those who ought to have been better informed." Since the voyage of
+Father Roman in 1774, no person in Spanish Guiana, or on the coasts of
+Cumana and Caracas, has admitted a doubt of the existence of the
+Cassiquiare and the bifurcation of the Orinoco. Father Gumilla
+himself; whom Bouguer met at Carthagena, confessed that he had been
+deceived; and he read to Father Gili, a short time before his death, a
+supplement to his history of the Orinoco, intended for a new edition,
+in which he recounts pleasantly the manner in which he had been
+undeceived. The expedition of the boundaries, under Iturriaga and
+Solano, completed in detail the knowledge of the geography of the
+Upper Orinoco, and the intertwinings of this river with the Rio Negro.
+Solano established himself in 1756 at the confluence of the Atabapo;
+and from that time the Spanish and Portuguese commissioners often
+passed in their canoes, by the Cassiquiare, from the Lower Orinoco to
+the Rio Negro, to visit each other at their head-quarters of Cabruta*
+and Mariva. (* General Iturriaga, confined by illness, first at
+Muitaco, or Real Corona, and afterward at Cabruta, received a visit in
+1760 from the Portuguese colonel Don Gabriel de Souza y Figueira, who
+came from Grand Para, having made a voyage of nearly nine hundred
+leagues in his boat. The Swedish botanist, Loefling, who was chosen to
+accompany the expedition of the boundaries at the expense of the
+Spanish government, so greatly multiplied in his ardent imagination
+the branchings of the great rivers of South America, that he appeared
+well persuaded of being able to navigate, by the Rio Negro and the
+Amazon, to the Rio de la Plata. (Iter page 131.)) Since the year 1767,
+two or three canoes come annually from the fort of San Carlos, by the
+bifurcation of the Orinoco to Angostura, to fetch salt and the pay of
+the troops. These passages, from one basin of a river to another, by
+the natural canal of the Cassiquiare, excite no more attention in the
+colonists at present than the arrival of boats that descend the Loire
+by the canal of Orleans, awakens on the banks of the Seine.
+
+Although, since the journey of Father Roman, in 1744, precise notions
+have been acquired in the Spanish possessions in America, both of the
+direction of the Upper Orinoco from east to west, and of the manner of
+its communication with the Rio Negro, this knowledge did not reach
+Europe till a much later period. In 1750, La Condamine and D'Anville*
+were still of opinion that the Orinoco was a branch of the Caqueta
+coming from the south-east, and that the Rio Negro issued immediately
+from it. (* See the classical memoir of this great geographer in the
+Journal des Savans, March 1750 page 184. "One fact," says D'Anville,
+"which cannot be considered as equivocal, after the proofs with which
+we have been recently furnished, is the communication of the Rio Negro
+with the Orinoco; but we must not hesitate to admit, that we are not
+yet sufficiently informed of the manner in which this communication
+takes place." I was surprised to see in a very rare map, which I found
+at Rome (Provincia Quitensis Soc. Jesu in America, auctore Carolo
+Brentano et Nicolao de la Torre; Romae 1745) that seven years after
+the discovery of Father Roman, the Jesuits of Quito were ignorant of
+the existence of the Cassiquiare. The Rio Negro is figured in this map
+as a branch of the Orinoco.) It was only in the second edition of his
+South America, that D'Anville (without renouncing that
+intercommunication of the Caqueta, by means of the Iniricha (Inirida),
+with the Orinoco and the Rio Negro) describes the Orinoco as taking
+its rise at the east, near the sources of the Rio Branco, and marks
+the Rio Cassiquiare as bearing the waters of the Upper Orinoco to the
+Rio Negro. It is probable that this indefatigable and learned writer
+had obtained information on the manner of the bifurcation from his
+frequent communications with the missionaries,* who were then the only
+geographers of the most inland parts of the continents. (* According
+to the Annals of Berredo, it would appear, that as early as the year
+1739, the military incursions from the Rio Negro to the Cassiquiare
+had confirmed the Portuguese Jesuits in the opinion that there was a
+communication between the Amazon and the Orinoco. Southey's Brazils
+volume 1 page 658.)
+
+Had the nations of the lower region of equinoctial America
+participated in the civilization spread over the cold and alpine
+region, that immense Mesopotamia between the Orinoco and the Amazon
+would have favoured the development of their industry, animated their
+commerce, and accelerated the progress of social order. We see
+everywhere in the old world the influence of locality on the dawning
+civilization of nations. The island of Meroe between the Astaboras and
+the Nile, the Punjab of the Indus, the Douab of the Ganges, and the
+Mesopotamia of the Euphrates, furnish examples that are justly
+celebrated in the annals of the human race. But the feeble tribes that
+wander in the savannahs and the woods of eastern America, have
+profited little by the advantages of their soil, and the
+interbranchings of their rivers. The distant incursions of the Caribs,
+who went up the Orinoco, the Cassiquiare, and the Rio Negro, to carry
+off slaves and exercise pillage, compelled some rude tribes to rouse
+themselves from their indolence, and form associations for their
+common defence; the little good, however, which these wars with the
+Caribs (the Bedouins of the rivers of Guiana) produced, was but slight
+compensation for the evils that followed in their train, by rendering
+the tribes more ferocious, and diminishing their population. We cannot
+doubt, that the physical aspect of Greece, intersected by small chains
+of mountains, and mediterranean gulfs, contributed, at the dawn of
+civilization, to the intellectual development of the Greeks. But the
+operation of this influence of climate, and of the configuration of
+the soil, is felt in all its force only among a race of men who,
+endowed with a happy organization of the mental faculties, are
+susceptible of exterior impulse. In studying the history of our
+species, we see, at certain distances, these foci of ancient
+civilization dispersed over the globe like luminous points; and we are
+struck by the inequality of improvement in nations inhabiting
+analogous climates, and whose native soil appears equally favoured by
+the most precious gifts of nature.
+
+Since my departure from the banks of the Orinoco and the Amazon, a new
+era has unfolded itself in the social state of the nations of the
+West. The fury of civil discussions has been succeeded by the
+blessings of peace, and a freer development of the arts of industry.
+The bifurcations of the Orinoco, the isthmus of Tuamini, so easy to be
+made passable by an artificial canal, will ere long fix the attention
+of commercial Europe. The Cassiquiare, as broad as the Rhine, and the
+course of which is one hundred and eighty miles in length, will no
+longer form uselessly a navigable canal between two basins of rivers
+which have a surface of one hundred and ninety thousand square
+leagues. The grain of New Grenada will be carried to the banks of the
+Rio Negro; boats will descend from the sources of the Napo and the
+Ucuyabe, from the Andes of Quito and of Upper Peru, to the mouths of
+the Orinoco, a distance which equals that from Timbuctoo to
+Marseilles. A country nine or ten times larger than Spain, and
+enriched with the most varied productions, is navigable in every
+direction by the medium of the natural canal of the Cassiquiare, and
+the bifurcation of the rivers. This phenomenon, which will one day be
+so important for the political connections of nations, unquestionably
+deserves to be carefully examined.
+
+
+CHAPTER 2.24.
+
+THE UPPER ORINOCO, FROM THE ESMERALDA TO THE CONFLUENCE OF THE
+GUAVIARE.
+SECOND PASSAGE ACROSS THE CATARACTS OF ATURES AND MAYPURES.
+THE LOWER ORINOCO, BETWEEN THE MOUTH OF THE RIO APURE, AND ANGOSTURA
+THE CAPITAL OF SPANISH GUIANA.
+
+Opposite to the point where the Orinoco forms its bifurcation, the
+granitic group of Duida rises in an amphitheatre on the right bank of
+the river. This mountain, which the missionaries call a volcano, is
+nearly eight thousand feet high. It is perpendicular on the south and
+west, and has an aspect of solemn grandeur. Its summit is bare and
+stony, but, wherever its less steep declivities are covered with mould
+vast forests appear suspended on its flanks. At the foot of Duida is
+the mission of Esmeralda, a little hamlet with eighty inhabitants,
+surrounded by a lovely plain, intersected by rills of black but limpid
+water. This plain is adorned with clumps of the mauritia palm, the
+sago-tree of America. Nearer the mountain, the distance of which from
+the cross of the mission I found to be seven thousand three hundred
+toises, the marshy plain changes to a savannah, and spends itself
+along the lower region of the Cordillera. Large pine-apples are there
+found of a delicious flavour; that species of bromelia always grows
+solitary among the gramina, like our Colchicum autumnale, while the B.
+karatas, another species of the same genus, is a social plant, like
+our whortleberries and heaths. The pine-apples of Esmeralda are
+cultivated throughout Guiana. There are certain spots in America, as
+in Europe, where different fruits attain their highest perfection. The
+sapota-plum (achra) should be eaten at the Island of Margareta or at
+Cumana: the chirimoya (very different from the custard-apple and
+sweet-sop of the West India Islands) at Loxa in Peru; the grenadilla,
+or parcha, at Caracas; and the pine-apple at Esmeralda, or in the
+island of Cuba. The pine-apple forms the ornament of the fields near
+the Havannah, where it is planted in parallel rows; on the sides of
+the Duida it embellishes the turf of the savannahs, lifting its yellow
+fruit, crowned with a tuft of silvery leaves, above the setaria, the
+paspalum, and a few cyperaceae. This plant, which the Indians of the
+Orinoco call ana-curua, has been propagated since the sixteenth
+century in the interior of China,* and some English travellers found
+it recently, together with other plants indubitably American (maize,
+cassava, tobacco, and pimento), on the banks of the River Congo, in
+Africa. (* No doubt remains of the American origin of the Bromelia
+ananas. See Cayley's Life of Raleigh volume 1 page 61. Gili volume 1
+pages 210 and 336. Robert Brown, Geogr. Observ. on the Plants of the
+River Congo 1818 page 50.)
+
+There is no missionary at Esmeralda; the monk appointed to celebrate
+mass in that hamlet is settled at Santa Barbara, more than fifty
+leagues distant; and he visits this spot but five or six times in a
+year. We were cordially received by an old officer, who took us for
+Catalonian shopkeepers, and who supposed that trade had led to the
+missions. On seeing packages of paper intended for drying our plants,
+he smiled at our simple ignorance. "You come," said he, "to a country
+where this kind of merchandise has no sale; we write little here; and
+the dried leaves of maize, the platano (plantain-tree), and the vijaho
+(heliconia), serve us, like paper in Europe, to wrap up needles,
+fish-hooks, and other little articles of which we are careful." This
+old officer united in his person the civil and ecclesiastical
+authority. He taught the children, I will not say the Catechism, but
+the Rosary; he rang the bells to amuse himself; and impelled by ardent
+zeal for the service of the church, he sometimes used his chorister's
+wand in a manner not very agreeable to the natives.
+
+Notwithstanding the small extent of the mission, three Indian
+languages are spoken at Esmeralda; the Idapimanare, the Catarapenno,
+and the Maquiritan. The last of these prevails on the Upper Orinoco,
+from the confluence of the Ventuari as far as that of the Padamo (*
+The Arivirianos of the banks of the Ventuari speak a dialect of the
+language of the Maquiritares. The latter live, jointly with a tribe of
+the Macos, in the savannahs that are by the Padamo. They are so
+numerous, that they have even given their name to this tributary
+stream of the Orinoco.); the Caribbee prevails on the Lower Orinoco;
+the Ottomac, near the confluence of the Apure, at the Great Cataracts;
+and the Maravitan, on the banks of the Rio Negro. These are the five
+or six languages most generally spoken. We were surprised to find at
+Esmeralda many zambos, mulattos, and copper-coloured people, who
+called themselves Spaniards (Espanoles) and who fancy they are white,
+because they are not so red as the Indians. These people live in the
+most absolute misery; they have for the most part been sent hither in
+banishment (desterrados). Solano, in his haste to found colonies in
+the interior of the country, in order to guard its entrance against
+the Portuguese, assembled in the Llanos, and as far as the island of
+Margareta, vagabonds and malefactors, whom justice had vainly pursued,
+and made them go up the Orinoco to join the unhappy Indians who had
+been carried off from the woods. A mineralogical error gave celebrity
+to Esmeralda. The granites of Duida and Maraguaca contain in open
+veins fine rock-crystals, some of them of great transparency, others
+coloured by chlorite or blended with actonite; these were mistaken for
+diamonds and emeralds.
+
+So near the sources of the Orinoco we heard of nothing in these
+mountains but the proximity of El Dorado, the lake Parima, and the
+ruins of the great city of Manoa. A man, still known in the country
+for his credulity and his love of exaggeration, Don Apollinario Diez
+de la Fuente, assumed the pompous title of capitan poblador, and cabo
+militar (military commander) of the fort of Cassiquiare. This fort
+consisted of a few trunks of trees, joined together by planks; and to
+complete the deception, a demand was made at Madrid for the privileges
+of a villa for the mission of Esmeralda, which but a hamlet with
+twelve or fifteen huts. A colony composed of elements altogether
+heterogeneous perished by degrees. The vagabonds of the Llanos had as
+little taste for labour as the natives, who were compelled to live
+within the sound of the bell. The former found a motive in their pride
+to justify their indolence. In the missions, every mulatto who is not
+decidedly black as an African, or copper-coloured as an Indian, calls
+himself a Spaniard; he belongs to the gente de razon--the race endued
+with reason; and that reason (sometimes, it must be admitted, arrogant
+and indolent) persuaded the whites, and those who fancy they are so,
+that to till the ground is a task fit only for slaves (poitos) and the
+native neophytes. The colony of Esmeralda had been founded on the
+principles of that of Australia; but it was far from being governed
+with the same wisdom. The American colonists, being separated from
+their native soil, not by seas, but by forests and savannahs,
+dispersed; some taking the road northward, towards the Caura and the
+Carony; others proceeding southward to the Portuguese possessions.
+Thus the celebrity of this villa, and of the emerald-mines of Duida,
+vanished in a few years; and Esmeralda, on account of the immense
+number of insects that obscure the air at all seasons of the year, was
+regarded by the monks as a place of banishment. The superior of the
+missions, when he would make the lay-brothers mindful of their duty,
+threatens sometimes to send them to Esmeralda; that is, say the monks,
+to be condemned to the mosquitos; to be devoured by those buzzing
+flies (zancudos gritones) which God appears to have created for the
+torment and chastisement of man.* (* "Estos mosquitos que llaman
+zancudos gritones los parece cria la naturaleza para castigo y
+tormento de los hombres." "Those mosquitos which are called buzzing
+zancudos, Nature seems to have created for the especial punishment and
+torture of man." Fray Pedro Simon.) These strange punishments have not
+always been confined to the lay-brothers. There happened in 1788 one
+of those monastic revolutions, of which it is difficult to form a
+conception in Europe, according to the ideas that prevail of the
+peaceful state of the Christian settlements in the New World. For a
+long period the Franciscan monks settled in Guiana had been desirous
+of forming a separate republic, and rendering themselves independent
+of the college of Piritu at Nueva Barcelona. Discontented with the
+election of Fray Gutierez de Aguilera, chosen by a general chapter,
+and confirmed by the king in the important office of president of the
+missions, five or six monks of the Upper Orinoco, the Cassiquiare, and
+the Rio Negro, assembled together at San Fernando de Atabapo; chose
+hastily a new superior from their own body; and caused the old one,
+who, unfortunately for himself, had come to visit those parts, to be
+arrested. They put him in irons, threw him into a boat, and conducted
+him to Esmeralda, as to a place of proscription. This great distance
+of the coast from the scene of this revolution led the monks to hope
+that their crime would remain long unknown beyond the Great Cataracts.
+They wished to gain time to intrigue, to negotiate, to frame acts of
+accusation, and employ the little artifices by which, in every
+country, the invalidity of a first election may be proved. Fray
+Gutierez do Aguilera languished in his prison at Esmeralda, and fell
+dangerously ill from the double influence of the excessive heat, and
+the continual irritation of the mosquitos. Happily for the fallen
+power the monks did not remain united. A missionary of the Cassiquiare
+conceived serious alarms respecting the issue of this affair; he
+dreaded being sent a prisoner to Cadiz, or, as they say in the
+colonies, having his name on the list (baxo partido de registro). Fear
+overcame his resolution, and he suddenly disappeared. Indians were
+placed on the watch at the mouth of the Atabapo, at the Great
+Cataracts, and wherever the fugitive was likely to pass on his way to
+the Lower Orinoco. Notwithstanding these precautions, he arrived at
+Angostura, and then reached the college of the missions of Piritu,
+denounced his colleagues, and was appointed, in recompense of this
+information, to arrest those with whom he had conspired against the
+president of the missions.* (* Two of the missionaries, considered as
+the leaders of the insurrection, were embarked at Angostura, in order
+to be tried in Spain. The vessel in which they were conveyed became
+leaky, and put into Spanish Harbour in the island of Trinidad. The
+governor Chacon intereated himself in the fate of the monks; they were
+pardoned a violent proceeding somewhat inconsistent with monastic
+discipline, and were again employed in the missions. I was acquainted
+with them both during my abode in South America.) At Esmeralda, where
+the political events that have agitated Europe for thirty years past
+have not yet been heard of, lively interest is still felt in an event
+which is called the sedition of the monks, (el alboroto de los
+frailes.) In this country, as in the East, no conception is formed of
+any other revolutions than those that are made by rulers themselves;
+and we have just seen that the effects are not very alarming.
+
+If the villa of Esmeralda, with a population of twelve or fifteen
+families, be at present considered as a frightful place of abode, this
+must be attributed to the want of cultivation, the distance from every
+other inhabited country, and the excessive quantity of mosquitos. The
+site of the mission is highly picturesque; the surrounding country is
+lovely, and of great fertility. I never saw plantains of so large a
+size as these: and indigo, sugar, and cacao might be produced in
+abundance, if any trouble were taken for their cultivation. The Cerro
+Duida is surrounded with fine pasturage; and if the Observantins of
+the college of Piritu partook a little of the industry of the
+Catalonian Capuchins settled on the banks of the Carony, numerous
+herds would be seen wandering between the Cunucunumo and the Padamo.
+At present, not a cow or a horse is to be found; and the inhabitants,
+victims of their own indolence, are often reduced to eat the flesh of
+alouate monkeys, and flour made from the bones of fish, of which I
+shall have occasion to speak hereafter. A little cassava and a few
+plantains only are cultivated; and when the fishery is not abundant,
+the natives of a country so favoured by nature are exposed to the most
+cruel privations.
+
+The pilots of the small number of boats that go from the Rio Negro to
+Angostura by the Cassiquiare are afraid to ascend as far as Esmeralda,
+and therefore that mission would have been much better placed at the
+point of the bifurcation of the Orinoco. It is probable that this vast
+country will not always be doomed to the desertion in which it has
+hitherto been left, owing to the errors of monkish administration and
+the spirit of monopoly that characterises corporations. We may even
+predict on what points of the Orinoco industry and commerce will
+become most active. In every zone, population is concentred at the
+mouth of tributary streams. The Rio Apure, by which the productions of
+the provinces of Varinas and Merida are exported, will give great
+importance to the little town of Cabruta, which will then be in
+rivalship with San Fernando de Apure, where all commerce has hitherto
+centred. Higher up, a new settlement will be formed at the confluence
+of the Meta, which communicates with New Grenada by the Llanos of
+Casanare. The two missions of the Cataracts will increase, from the
+activity to which the transport of boats at those points will give
+rise; for an unhealthy and damp climate, and the swarming of
+mosquitos, will as little impede the progress of cultivation at the
+Orinoco as at the Rio Magdalena, whenever a powerful mercantile
+interest shall call new settlers thither. Habitual evils are those
+which are least felt; and men born in America do not suffer the same
+intensity of pain as Europeans recently arrived. Perhaps, also, the
+destruction of forests round the inhabited places, although slow, will
+somewhat tend to diminish the torment of the tipulary insects. San
+Fernando de Atabapo, Javita, San Carlos, and Esmeralda, appear (from
+their situation at the mouth of the Guaviare, the portage between
+Tuamini and the Rio Negro, the confluence of the Cassiquiare, and the
+point of bifurcation of the Upper Orinoco) to promise a considerable
+increase of population and prosperity. The same improvement will take
+place in the fertile but uncultivated countries through which flow the
+Guallaga, the Amazon, and the Orinoco; as well as at the isthmus of
+Panama, the lake of Nicaragua, and the Rio Huasacualco, which furnish
+a communication between the two oceans. The imperfection of political
+institutions may for ages have converted into deserts places where the
+commerce of the world should be found concentred; but the time
+approaches when these obstacles shall exist no longer. A vicious
+administration cannot always struggle against the united interest of
+men; and civilization will be carried insensibly into those countries,
+the great destinies of which nature itself proclaims, by the physical
+configuration of the soil, the immense windings of the rivers, and the
+proximity of two seas, that bathe the shores of Europe and of India.
+
+Esmeralda is the most celebrated spot on the Orinoco for the
+preparation of that active poison, which is employed in war, in the
+chase, and, singularly enough, as a remedy for gastric derangements.
+The poison of the ticunas of the Amazon, the upas-tieute of Java, and
+the curare of Guiana, are the most deleterious substances that are
+known. Raleigh, about the end of the sixteenth century, had heard of
+urari* as being a vegetable substance with which arrows were envenomed
+(* In Tamanac marana, in Maypure macuri.); yet no fixed notions of
+this poison had reached Europe. The missionaries Gumilla and Gili had
+not been able to penetrate into the country where the curare is
+manufactured. Gumilla asserts that this preparation was enveloped in
+great mystery; that its principal ingredient was furnished by a
+subterranean plant with a tuberous root, which never puts forth
+leaves, and which is called specially the root (raiz de si misma);
+that the venomous exhalations which arise from the manufacture are
+fatal to the lives of the old women who (being otherwise useless) are
+chosen to watch over this operation; finally, that these vegetable
+juices are never thought to be sufficiently concentrated till a few
+drops produce at a distance a repulsive action on the blood. An Indian
+wounds himself slightly; and a dart dipped in the liquid curare is
+held near the wound. If it make the blood return to the vessels
+without having been brought into contact with them, the poison is
+judged to be sufficiently concentrated.
+
+When we arrived at Esmeralda, the greater part of the Indians were
+returning from an excursion which they had made to the east, beyond
+the Rio Padamo, to gather juvias, or the fruit of the bertholletia,
+and the liana which yields the curare. Their return was celebrated by
+a festival, which is called in the mission la fiesta de las juvias,
+and which resembles our harvest-homes and vintage-feasts. The women
+had prepared a quantity of fermented liquor; and during two days the
+Indians were in a state of intoxication. Among nations who attach
+great importance to the fruit of the palm, and of some other trees
+useful for the nourishment of man, the period when these fruits are
+gathered is marked by public rejoicings, and time is divided according
+to these festivals, which succeed one another in a course invariably
+regular. We were fortunate enough to find an old Indian more temperate
+than the rest, who was employed in preparing the curare poison from
+freshly-gathered plants. He was the chemist of the place. We found at
+his dwelling large earthen pots for boiling the vegetable juice,
+shallower vessels to favour the evaporation by a larger surface, and
+leaves of the plantain-tree rolled up in the shape of our filters, and
+used to filtrate the liquids, more or less loaded with fibrous matter.
+The greatest order and neatness prevailed in this hut, which was
+transformed into a chemical laboratory. The old Indian was known
+throughout the mission by the name of the poison-master (amo del
+curare). He had that self-sufficient air and tone of pedantry of which
+the pharmacopolists of Europe were formerly accused. "I know," said
+he, "that the whites have the secret of making soap, and manufacturing
+that black powder which has the defect of making a noise when used in
+killing animals. The curare, which we prepare from father to son, is
+superior to anything you can make down yonder (beyond sea). It is the
+juice of an herb which kills silently, without any one knowing whence
+the stroke comes."
+
+This chemical operation, to which the old man attached so much
+importance, appeared to us extremely simple. The liana (bejuco) used
+at Esmeralda for the preparation of the poison, bears the same name as
+in the forests of Javita. It is the bejuco de Mavacure, which is
+gathered in abundance east of the mission, on the left bank of the
+Orinoco, beyond the Rio Amaguaca, in the mountainous and rocky tracts
+of Guanaya and Yumariquin. Although the bundles of bejuco which we
+found in the hut of the Indian were entirely bare of leaves, we had no
+doubt of their being produced by the same plant of the strychnos
+family (nearly allied to the rouhamon of Aublet) which we had examined
+in the forest of Pimichin.* (* I may here insert the description of
+the curare or bejuco de Mavacure, taken from a manuscript, yet
+unpublished, of my learned fellow-labourer M. Kunth, corresponding
+member of the Institute. "Ramuli lignosi, oppositi, ramulo altero
+abortivo, teretiusculi, fuscescenti-tomentosi, inter petiolos lineola
+pilosa notati, gemmula aut processu filiformi (pedunculo?) terminati.
+FOLIA opposita, bereviter petiolata, ovato-oblonga, acuminata,
+intergerrima, reticulato-triplinervia, nervo medio subtus prominente,
+membranacea, ciliata, utrinque glabra, nervo medio
+fuscescente-tomentoso, lacte viridia, subtus pallidiora, 1 1/2 to 2
+1/2 pollices longa, 8 to 9 lineas lata. PETIOLI lineam longi,
+tomentosi, inarticulati.") The mavacure is employed fresh or dried
+indifferently during several weeks. The juice of the liana, when it
+has been recently gathered, is not regarded as poisonous; possibly it
+is so only when strongly concentrated. It is the bark and a part of
+the alburnum which contain this terrible poison. Branches of the
+mavacure four or five lines in diameter are scraped with a knife, and
+the bark that comes off is bruised, and reduced into very thin
+filaments on the stone employed for grinding cassava. The venomous
+juice being yellow, the whole fibrous mass takes that colour. It is
+thrown into a funnel nine inches high, with an opening four inches
+wide. This funnel was of all the instruments of the Indian laboratory
+that of which the poison-master seemed to be most proud. He asked us
+repeatedly if, por alla (out yonder, meaning in Europe) we had ever
+seen anything to be compared to this funnel (embudo). It was a leaf of
+the plantain-tree rolled up in the form of a cone, and placed within
+another stronger cone made of the leaves of the palm-tree. The whole
+of this apparatus was supported by slight frame-work made of the
+petioles and ribs of palm-leaves. A cold infusion is first prepared by
+pouring water on the fibrous matter which is the ground bark of the
+mavacure. A yellowish water filters during several hours, drop by
+drop, through the leafy funnel. This filtered water is the poisonous
+liquor, but it acquires strength only when concentrated by
+evaporation, like molasses, in a large earthen pot. The Indian from
+time to time invited us to taste the liquid; its taste, more or less
+bitter, decides when the concentration by fire has been carried
+sufficiently far. There is no danger in tasting it, the curare being
+deleterious only when it comes into immediate contact with the blood.
+The vapours, therefore, which are disengaged from the pans are not
+hurtful, notwithstanding all that has been asserted on this point by
+the missionaries of the Orinoco. Fontana, in his experiments on the
+poison of the ticuna of the Amazon, long since proved that the vapours
+arising from this poison, when thrown on burning charcoal, may be
+inhaled without danger and that the statement of La Condamine, that
+Indian women, when condemned to death, have been killed by the vapours
+of the poison of the ticuna, is incorrect.
+
+The most concentrated juice of the mavacure is not thick enough to
+stick to the darts; and therefore, to give a body to the poison,
+another vegetable juice, extremely glutinous, drawn from a tree with
+large leaves, called kiracaguero, is poured into the concentrated
+infusion. As this tree grows at a great distance from Esmeralda, and
+was at that period as destitute of flowers and fruits as the bejuco de
+mavacure, we could not determine it botanically. I have several times
+mentioned that kind of fatality which withholds the most interesting
+plants from the examination of travellers, while thousands of others,
+of the chemical properties of which we are ignorant, are found loaded
+with flowers and fruits. In travelling rapidly, even within the
+tropics, where the flowering of the ligneous plants is of such long
+duration, scarcely one-eighth of the trees can be seen furnishing the
+essential parts of fructification. The chances of being able to
+determine, I do not say the family, but the genus and species, is
+consequently as one to eight; and it may be conceived that this
+unfavourable chance is felt most powerfully when it deprives us of the
+intimate knowledge of objects which afford a higher interest than that
+of descriptive botany.
+
+At the instant when the glutinous juice of the kiracaguero-tree is
+poured into the venomous liquor well concentrated, and kept in a state
+of ebullition, it blackens, and coagulates into a mass of the
+consistence of tar, or of a thick syrup. This mass is the curare of
+commerce. When we hear the Indians say that the kiracaguero is as
+necessary as the bejuco do mavacure in the manufacture of the poison,
+we may be led into error by the supposition that the former also
+contains some deleterious principle, while it only serves (as the
+algarrobo, or any other gummy substance would do) to give more body to
+the concentrated juice of the curare. The change of colour which the
+mixture undergoes is owing to the decomposition of a hydruret of
+carbon; the hydrogen is burned, and the carbon is set free. The curare
+is sold in little calabashes; but its preparation being in the hands
+of a few families, and the quantity of poison attached to each dart
+being extremely small, the best curare, that of Esmeralda and
+Mandavaca, is sold at a very high price. This substance, when dried,
+resembles opium; but it strongly absorbs moisture when exposed to the
+air. Its taste is an agreeable bitter, and M. Bonpland and myself have
+often swallowed small portions of it. There is no danger in so doing,
+if it be certain that neither lips nor gums bleed. In experiments made
+by Mangili on the venom of the viper, one of his assistants swallowed
+all the poison that could be extracted from four large vipers of
+Italy, without being affected by it. The Indians consider the curare,
+taken internally, as an excellent stomachic. The same poison prepared
+by the Piraoas and Salives, though it has some celebrity, is not so
+much esteemed as that of Esmeralda. The process of this preparation
+appears to be everywhere nearly the same; but there is no proof that
+the different poisons sold by the same name at the Orinoco and the
+Amazon are identical, and derived from the same plants. Orfila,
+therefore, in his excellent work On Poisons, has very judiciously
+separated the wourali of Dutch Guiana, the curare of the Orinoco, the
+ticuna of the Amazon, and all those substances which have been too
+vaguely united under the name of American poisons. Possibly at some
+future day, one and the same alkaline principle, similar to morphine
+and strychnia, will be found in poisonous plants belonging to
+different genera.
+
+At the Orinoco the curare de raiz (of the root) is distinguished from
+the curare de bejuco (of lianas, or of the bark of branches). We saw
+only the latter prepared; the former is weaker, and much less
+esteemed. At the river Amazon we learned to distinguish the poisons of
+the Ticuna, Yagua, Peva, and Xibaro Indians, which being all obtained
+from the same plant, perhaps differ only by a more or less careful
+preparation. The Ticuna poison, to which La Condamine has given so
+much celebrity in Europe, and which somewhat improperly begins to bear
+the name of ticuna, is extracted from a liana which grows in the
+island of Mormorote, on the Upper Maranon. This poison is employed
+partly by the Ticunas, who remain independent on the Spanish territory
+near the sources of the Yacarique; and partly by Indians of the same
+tribe, inhabiting the Portuguese mission of Loreto. The poisons we
+have just named differ totally from that of La Peca, and from the
+poison of Lamas and of Moyobamba. I enter into these details because
+the vestiges of plants which we were able to examine, proved to us
+(contrary to the common opinion) that the three poisons of the
+Ticunas, of La Peca, and of Moyobamba are not obtained from the same
+species, probably not even from congeneric plants. In proportion as
+the preparation of the curare is simple, that of the poison of
+Moyobamba is a long and complicated process. With the juice of the
+bejuco de ambihuasca, which is the principal ingredient, are mixed
+pimento, tobacco, barbasco (Jacquinia armillaris), sanango (Tabernae
+montana), and the milk of some other apocyneae. The fresh juice of the
+ambihuasca has a deleterious action when in contact with the blood;
+the juice of the mavacure is a mortal poison only when it is
+concentrated by fire; and ebullition deprives the juice of the root of
+Jatropha manihot (the manioc) of all its baneful qualities. In rubbing
+a long time between my fingers the liana which yields the potent
+poison of La Peca, when the weather was excessively hot, my hands were
+benumbed; and a person who was employed with me felt the same effects
+from this rapid absorption by the uninjured integuments.
+
+I shall not here enter into any detail on the physiological properties
+of those poisons of the New World which kill with the same promptitude
+as the strychneae of Asia,* (* The nux vomica, the upas tieute, and
+the bean of St. Ignatius, Strychnos Ignatia.) but without producing
+vomiting when they are received into the stomach, and without denoting
+the approach of death by the violent excitement of the spinal marrow.
+Scarcely a fowl is eaten on the banks of the Orinoco which has not
+been killed with a poisoned arrow; and the missionaries allege that
+the flesh of animals is never so good as when this method is employed.
+Father Zea, who accompanied us, though ill of a tertian fever, every
+morning had the live fowls allotted for our food brought to his
+hammock together with an arrow, and he killed them himself; for he
+would not confide this operation, to which he attached great
+importance, to any other person. Large birds, a guan (pava de monte)
+for instance, or a curassao (alector), when wounded in the thigh, die
+in two or three minutes; but it is often ten or twelve minutes before
+life is extinct in a pig or a peccary. M. Bonpland found that the same
+poison, bought in different villages, varied much. We had procured at
+the river Amazon some real Ticuna poison which was less potent than
+any of the varieties of the curare of the Orinoco. Travellers, on
+arriving in the missions, frequently testify their apprehension on
+learning that the fowls, monkeys, guanas, and even the fish which they
+eat, have been killed with poisoned arrows. But these fears are
+groundless. Majendie has proved by his ingenious experiments on
+transfusion, that the blood of animals on which the bitter strychnos
+of India has produced a deleterious effect, has no fatal action on
+other animals. A dog received a considerable quantity of poisoned
+blood into his veins without any trace of irritation being perceived
+in the spinal marrow.
+
+I placed the most active curare in contact with the crural nerves of a
+frog, without perceiving any sensible change in measuring the degree
+of irritability of the organs, by means of an arc formed of
+heterogeneous metals. Galvanic experiments succeeded upon birds, some
+minutes after I had killed them with a poisoned arrow. These
+observations are not uninteresting, when we recollect that a solution
+of the upas-poison poured upon the sciatic nerve, or insinuated into
+the texture of the nerve, produces also a sensible effect on the
+irritability of the organs by immediate contact with the medullary
+substance. The danger of the curare, as of most of the other
+strychneae (for we continue to believe that the mavacure belongs to a
+neighbouring family), results only from the action of the poison on
+the vascular system. At Maypures, a zambo descended from an Indian and
+a negro, prepared for M. Bonpland some of those poisoned arrows, that
+are shot from blowing-tubes to kill small monkeys or birds. He was a
+man of remarkable muscular strength. Having had the imprudence to rub
+the curare between his fingers after being slightly wounded, he fell
+on the ground seized with a vertigo, that lasted nearly half an hour.
+Happily the poison was of that diluted kind which is used for very
+small animals, that is, for those which it is believed can be recalled
+to life by putting muriate of soda into the wound. During our passage
+in returning from Esmeralda to Atures, I myself narrowly escaped an
+imminent danger. The curare, having imbibed the humidity of the air,
+had become fluid, and was spilt from an imperfectly closed jar upon
+our linen. The person who washed the linen had neglected to examine
+the inside of a stocking, which was filled with curare; and it was
+only on touching this glutinous matter with my hand, that I was warned
+not to draw on the poisoned stocking. The danger was so much the
+greater, as my feet at that time were bleeding from the wounds made by
+chegoes (Pulex penetrans), which had not been well extirpated. This
+circumstance may warn travellers of the caution requisite in the
+conveyance of poisons.
+
+An interesting chemical and physiological investigation remains to be
+accomplished in Europe on the poisons of the New World, when, by more
+frequent communications, the curare de bejuco, the curare de raiz, and
+the various poisons of the Amazon, Guallaga, and Brazil, can be
+procured, without being confounded together, from the places where
+they are prepared. Since the discovery of prussic acid,* (* First
+obtained by Scheele in the year 1782. Gay-Lussac (to whom we are
+indebted for the complete analysis of this acid) observes that it can
+never become very dangerous to society, because its peculiar smell
+(that of bitter almonds) betrays its presence, and the facility with
+which it is decomposed makes it difficult to preserve.) and many other
+new substances eminently deleterious, the introduction of poisons
+prepared by savage nations is less feared in Europe; we cannot however
+appeal too strongly to the vigilance of those who keep such noxious
+substances in the midst of populous cities, the centres of
+civilization, misery, and depravity. Our botanical knowledge of the
+plants employed in making poison can be but very slowly acquired. Most
+of the Indians who make poisoned arrows, are totally ignorant of the
+nature of the venomous substances they use, and which they obtain from
+other people. A mysterious veil everywhere covers the history of
+poisons and of their antidotes. Their preparation among savages is the
+monopoly of the piaches, who are at once priests, jugglers, and
+physicians; it is only from the natives who are transplanted to the
+missions, that any certain notions can be acquired on matters so
+problematical. Ages elapsed before Europeans became acquainted through
+the investigation of M. Mutis, with the bejuco del guaco (Mikania
+guaco), which is the most powerful of all antidotes against the bite
+of serpents, and of which we were fortunate enough to give the first
+botanical description.
+
+The opinion is very general in the missions that no cure is possible,
+if the curare be fresh, well concentrated, and have stayed long in the
+wound, to have entered freely into the circulation. Among the
+specifics employed on the banks of the Orinoco, and in the Indian
+Archipelago, the most celebrated is muriate of soda.* (* Oviedo,
+Sommario delle Indie Orientali, recommends sea-water as an antidote
+against vegetable poisons. The people in the missions never fail to
+assure European travellers, that they have no more to fear from arrows
+dipped in curare, if they have a little salt in their mouths, than
+from the electric shocks of the gymnoti, when chewing tobacco. Raleigh
+recommends as an antidote to the ourari (curare) the juice of garlick.
+[But later experiments have completely proved that if the poison has
+once fairly entered into combination with the blood there is no
+remedy, either for man or any of the inferior animals. The wourali and
+other poisons mentioned by Humboldt have, since the publication of
+this work, been carefully analysed by the first chemists of Europe,
+and experiments made on their symptoms and supposed remedies.
+Artificial inflation of the lungs was found the most successful, but
+in very few instances was any cure effected.]) The wound is rubbed
+with this salt, which is also taken internally. I had myself no direct
+and sufficiently convincing proof of the action of this specific; and
+the experiments of Delille and Majendie rather tend to disprove its
+efficacy. On the banks of the Amazon, the preference among the
+antidotes is given to sugar; and muriate of soda being a substance
+almost unknown to the Indians of the forests, it is probable that the
+honey of bees, and that farinaceous sugar which oozes from plantains
+dried in the sun, were anciently employed throughout Guiana. In vain
+have ammonia and eau-de-luce been tried against the curare; it is now
+known that these specifics are uncertain, even when applied to wounds
+caused by the bite of serpents. Sir Everard Home has shown that a cure
+is often attributed to a remedy, when it is owing only to the
+slightness of the wound, and to a very circumscribed action of the
+poison. Animals may with impunity be wounded with poisoned arrows, if
+the wound be well laid open, and the point imbued with poison be
+withdrawn immediately after the wound is made. If salt or sugar be
+employed in these cases, people are tempted to regard them as
+excellent specifics. Indians, who had been wounded in battle by
+weapons dipped in the curare, described to us the symptoms they
+experienced, which were entirely similar to those observed in the bite
+of serpents. The wounded person feels congestion in the head, vertigo,
+and nausea. He is tormented by a raging thirst, and numbness pervades
+all the parts that are near the wound.
+
+The old Indian, who was called the poison-master, seemed flattered by
+the interest we took in his chemical processes. He found us
+sufficiently intelligent to lead him to the belief that we knew how to
+make soap, an art which, next to the preparation of curare, appeared
+to him one of the finest of human inventions. When the liquid poison
+had been poured into the vessels prepared for their reception, we
+accompanied the Indian to the festival of the juvias. The harvest of
+juvias, or fruits of the Bertholletia excelsa,* (* The Brazil-nut.)
+was celebrated by dancing, and by excesses of wild intoxication. The
+hut where the natives were assembled, displayed during several days a
+very singular aspect. There was neither table nor bench; but large
+roasted monkeys, blackened by smoke, were ranged in regular order
+against the wall. These were the marimondes (Ateles belzebuth), and
+those bearded monkeys called capuchins, which must not be confounded
+with the weeper, or sai (Simia capucina of Buffon). The manner of
+roasting these anthropomorphous animals contributes to render their
+appearance extremely disagreeable in the eyes of civilized man. A
+little grating or lattice of very hard wood is formed, and raised one
+foot from the ground. The monkey is skinned, and bent into a sitting
+posture; the head generally resting on the arms, which are meagre and
+long; but sometimes these are crossed behind the back. When it is tied
+on the grating, a very clear fire is kindled below. The monkey,
+enveloped in smoke and flame, is broiled and blackened at the same
+time. On seeing the natives devour the arm or leg of a roasted monkey,
+it is difficult not to believe that this habit of eating animals so
+closely resembling man in their physical organization, has, to a
+certain degree, contributed to diminish the horror of cannibalism
+among these people. Roasted monkeys, particularly those which have
+very round heads, display a hideous resemblance to a child; and
+consequently Europeans who are obliged to feed on them prefer
+separating the head and the hands, and serve up only the rest of the
+animal at their tables. The flesh of monkeys is so lean and dry, that
+M. Bonpland has preserved in his collections at Paris an arm and hand,
+which had been broiled over the fire at Esmeralda; and no smell has
+arisen from them after the lapse of a great number of years.
+
+We saw the Indians dance. The monotony of their dancing is increased
+by the women not daring to take part in it. The men, young and old,
+form a circle, holding each others' hands; and turn sometimes to the
+right, sometimes to the left, for whole hours, with silent gravity.
+Most frequently the dancers themselves are the musicians. Feeble
+sounds, drawn from a series of reeds of different lengths, form a slow
+and plaintive accompaniment. The first dancer, to mark the time, bends
+both knees in a kind of cadence. Sometimes they all make a pause in
+their places, and execute little oscillatory movements, bending the
+body from one side to the other. The reeds ranged in a line, and
+fastened together, resemble the Pan's pipes, as we find them
+represented in the bacchanalian processions on Grecian vases. To unite
+reeds of different lengths, and make them sound in succession by
+passing them before the lips, is a simple idea, and has naturally
+presented itself to every nation. We were surprised to see with what
+promptitude the young Indians constructed and tuned these pipes, when
+they found reeds on the bank of the river. Uncivilized men, in every
+zone, make great use of these gramina with high stalks. The Greeks,
+with truth, said that reeds had contributed to subjugate nations by
+furnishing arrows, to soften men's manners by the charm of music, and
+to unfold their understanding by affording the first instruments for
+tracing letters. These different uses of reeds mark in some sort three
+different periods in the life of nations. We must admit that the
+tribes of the Orinoco are in the first stage of dawning civilization.
+The reed serves them only as an instrument of war and of hunting; and
+the Pan's pipes, of which we have spoken, have not yet, on those
+distant shores, yielded sounds capable of awakening mild and humane
+feelings.
+
+We found in the hut allotted for the festival, several vegetable
+productions which the Indians had brought from the mountains of
+Guanaya, and which engaged our attention. I shall only here mention
+the fruit of the juvia, reeds of a prodigious length, and shirts made
+of the bark of marima. The almendron, or juvia, one of the most
+majestic trees of the forests of the New World, was almost unknown
+before our visit to the Rio Negro. It begins to be found after a
+journey of four days east of Esmeralda, between the Padamo and Ocamo,
+at the foot of the Cerro Mapaya, on the right bank of the Orinoco. It
+is still more abundant on the left bank, at the Cerro Guanaja, between
+the Rio Amaguaca and the Gehette. The inhabitants of Esmeralda assured
+us, that in advancing above the Gehette and the Chiguire, the juvia
+and cacao-trees become so common that the wild Indians (the Guaicas
+and Guaharibos) do not disturb the Indians of the missions when
+gathering in their harvests. They do not envy them the productions
+with which nature has enriched their own soil. Scarcely any attempt
+has been made to propagate the almendrones in the settlements of the
+Upper Orinoco. To this the indolence of the inhabitants is a greater
+obstacle than the rapidity with which the oil becomes rancid in the
+amygdaliform seeds. We found only three trees of the kind at the
+mission of San Carlos, and two at Esmeralda. These majestic trees were
+eight or ten years old, and had not yet borne flowers.
+
+As early as the sixteenth century, the seeds with ligneous and
+triangular teguments (but not the great drupe like a cocoa-nut, which
+contains the almonds,) were known in Europe. I recognise them in an
+imperfect engraving of Clusius.* (* Clusius distinguishes very
+properly the almendras del Peru, our Bertholletia excelsa, or juvia,
+(fructus amygdalae-nucleo, triangularis, dorso lato, in bina latera
+angulosa desinente, rugosus, paululum cuneiformis) from the pekea, or
+Amygdala guayanica. Raleigh, who knew none of the productions of the
+Upper Orinoco, does not speak of the juvia; but it appears that he
+first brought to Europe the fruit of the mauritia palm, of which we
+have so often spoken. (Fructus elegantissimus, squamosus, similis
+palmae-pini.) This botanist designates them under the name of
+almendras del Peru. They had no doubt been carried, as a very rare
+fruit, to the Upper Maranon, and thence, by the Cordilleras, to Quito
+and Peru. The Novus Orbis of Laet, in which I found the first account
+of the cow-tree, furnishes also a description and a figure singularly
+exact of the fruit of the bertholletia. Laet calls the tree totocke,
+and mentions the drupe of the size of the human head, which contains
+the almonds. The weight of these fruits, he says, is so enormous, that
+the savages dare not enter the forests without covering their heads
+and shoulders with a buckler of very hard wood. These bucklers are
+unknown to the natives of Esmeralda, but they told us of the danger
+incurred when the fruit ripens and falls from a height of fifty or
+sixty feet. The triangular seeds of the juvia are sold in Portugal
+under the vague appellation of chesnuts (castanas) of the Amazon, and
+in England under the name of Brazil-nuts; and it was long believed
+that, like the fruit of the pekea, they grew on separate stalks. They
+have furnished an article of trade for a century past to the
+inhabitants of Grand Para, by whom they are sent either directly to
+Europe, or to Cayenne, where they are called touka. The celebrated
+botanist, Correa de Serra, told us that this tree abounds in the
+forests in the neighbourhood of Macapa, at the mouth of the Amazon;
+that it there bears the name of capucaya, and that the inhabitants
+gather the almonds, like those of the lecythis, to express the oil. A
+cargo of almonds of the juvia, bought into Havre, captured by a
+privateer, in 1807, was employed for the same purpose.
+
+The tree that yields the Brazil-nuts is generally not more than two or
+three feet in diameter, but attains one hundred or one hundred and
+twenty feet in height. It does not resemble the mammee-tree, the
+star-apple, and several other trees of the tropics, the branches of
+which (as in the laurel-trees of the temperate zone) rise almost
+straight towards the sky. The branches of the bertholletia are open,
+very long, almost entirely bare towards the base, and loaded at their
+summits with tufts of very close foliage. This disposition of the
+semicoriaceous leaves, which are a little silvery on their under part,
+and more than two feet long, makes the branches bend down toward the
+ground, like the fronds of the palm-tree. We did not see this majestic
+tree in blossom: it is not loaded with flowers* till in its fifteenth
+year, and they appear about the end of March and the beginning of
+April. (* According to accounts somewhat vague, they are yellow, very
+large, and have some similitude to those of the Bombax ceiba. M.
+Bonpland says, however, in his botanical journal written on the banks
+of the Rio Negro, flos violaceus. It was thus the Indians of the river
+had described to him the colour of the corolla.) The fruits ripen
+towards the end of May, and some trees retain them till the end of
+August. These fruits, which are as large as the head of a child, often
+twelve or thirteen inches in diameter, make a very loud noise in
+falling from the tops of the trees. Nothing is more fitted to fill the
+mind with admiration of the force of organic action in the equinoctial
+zone than the aspect of those great igneous pericarps, for instance,
+the cocoa-tree (lodoicea) of the Maldives among the monocotyledons,
+and the bertholletia and the lecythis among the dicotyledons. In our
+climates only the cucurbitaceae produce in the space of a few months
+fruits of an extraordinary size; but these fruits are pulpy and
+succulent. Within the tropics, the bertholletia forms in less than
+fifty or sixty days a pericarp, the ligneous part of which is half an
+inch thick, and which it is difficult to saw with the sharpest
+instruments. A great naturalist has observed, that the wood of fruits
+attains in general a hardness which is scarcely to be found in the
+wood of the trunks of trees. The pericarp of the bertholletia has
+traces of four cells, and I have sometimes found even five. The seeds
+have two very distinct coverings, and this circumstance renders the
+structure of the fruit more complicated than in the lecythis, the
+pekea or caryocar, and the saouvari. The first tegument is osseous or
+ligneous, triangular, tuberculated on its exterior surface, and of the
+colour of cinnamon. Four or five, and sometimes eight of these
+triangular nuts, are attached to a central partition. As they are
+loosened in time, they move freely in the large spherical pericarp.
+The capuchin monkeys (Simia chiropotes) are singularly fond of the
+Brazil nuts; and the noise made by the seeds, when the fruit is shaken
+as it falls from the tree, excites the appetites of these animals in
+the highest degree. I have most frequently found only from fifteen to
+twenty-two nuts in each fruit. The second tegument of the almonds is
+membranaceous, and of a brown-yellow. Their taste is extremely
+agreeable when they are fresh; but the oil, with which they abound,
+and which is so useful in the arts, becomes easily rancid. Although at
+the Upper Orinoco we often ate considerable quantities of these
+almonds for want of other food, we never felt any bad effects from so
+doing. The spherical pericarp of the bertholletia, perforated at the
+summit, is not dehiscent; the upper and swelled part of the columella
+forms (according to M. Kunth) a sort of inner cover, as in the fruit
+of the lecythis, but it seldom opens of itself. Many seeds, from the
+decomposition of the oil contained in the cotyledons, lose the faculty
+of germination before the rainy season, in which the ligneous
+integument of the pericarp opens by the effect of putrefaction. A tale
+is very current on the banks of the Lower Orinoco, that the capuchin
+and cacajao monkeys (Simia chiropotes, and Simia melanocephala) place
+themselves in a circle, and, by striking the shell with a stone,
+succeed in opening it, so as to take out the triangular nuts. This
+operation must, however, be impossible, on account of the extreme
+hardness and thickness of the pericarp. Monkeys may have been seen
+rolling along the fruit of the bertholletia, but though this fruit has
+a small hole closed by the upper extremity of the columella, nature
+has not furnished monkeys with the means of opening the ligneous
+pericarp, as it has of opening the covercle of the lecythis, called in
+the missions the covercle of the monkeys' cocoa.* (* La tapa del coco
+de monos.) According to the report of several Indians, only the
+smaller rodentia, particularly the cavies (the acuri and the lapa), by
+the structure of their teeth, and the inconceivable perseverance with
+which they pursue their destructive operations, succeed in perforating
+the fruit of the juvia. As soon as the triangular nuts are spread on
+the ground, all the animals of the forest, the monkeys, the manaviris,
+the squirrels, the cavies, the parrots, and the macaws, hastily
+assemble to dispute the prey. They have all strength enough to break
+the ligneous tegument of the seed; they get out the kernel, and carry
+it to the tops of the trees. "It is their festival also," said the
+Indians who had returned from the harvest; and on hearing their
+complaints of the animals, one may perceive that they think themselves
+alone the lawful masters of the forest.
+
+One of the four canoes, which had taken the Indians to the gathering
+of the Juvias, was filled in great part with that species of reeds
+(carices) of which the blow-tubes are made. These reeds were from
+fifteen to seventeen feet long, yet no trace of a knot for the
+insertion of leaves and branches was perceived. They were quite
+straight, smooth externally, and perfectly cylindrical. These carices
+come from the foot of the mountains of Yumariquin and Guanaja. They
+are much sought after, even beyond the Orinoco, by the name of reeds
+of Esmeralda. A hunter preserves the same blow-tube during his whole
+life, and boasts of its lightness and precision, as we boast of the
+same qualities in our fire-arms. What is the monocotyledonous plant*
+that furnishes these admirable reeds? (* The smooth surface of these
+tubes sufficiently proves that they are not furnished by a plant of
+the family of umbelliferae.) Did we see in fact the internodes (parts
+between the knots) of a gramen of the tribe of nastoides? or may this
+carex be perhaps a cyperaceous plant* destitute of knots? (* The
+caricillo del manati, which grows abundantly on the banks of the
+Orinoco, attains from eight to ten feet in height.) I cannot solve
+this question, or determine to what genus another plant belongs, which
+furnishes the shirts of marima. We saw on the slope of the Cerra Duida
+shirt-trees fifty feet high. The Indians cut off cylindrical pieces
+two feet in diameter, from which they peel the red and fibrous bark,
+without making any longitudinal incision. This bark affords them a
+sort of garment, which resembles sacks of a very coarse texture, and
+without a seam. The upper opening serves for the head; and two lateral
+holes are cut for the arms to pass through. The natives wear these
+shirts of marima in the rainy season: they have the form of the
+ponchos and ruanas of cotton, which are so common in New Grenada, at
+Quito, and in Peru. In these climates the riches and beneficence of
+nature being regarded as the primary causes of the indolence of the
+inhabitants, the missionaries say in showing the shirts of marima, in
+the forests of the Orinoco garments are found ready-made on the trees.
+We may also mention the pointed caps, which the spathes of certain
+palm-trees furnish, and which resemble coarse network.
+
+At the festival of which we were the spectators, the women, who were
+excluded from the dance, and every sort of public rejoicing, were
+daily occupied in serving the men with roasted monkey, fermented
+liquors, and palm-cabbage. This last production has the taste of our
+cauliflowers, and in no other country had we seen specimens of such an
+immense size. The leaves that are not unfolded are united with the
+young stem, and we measured cylinders of six feet long and five inches
+in diameter. Another substance, which is much more nutritive, is
+obtained from the animal kingdom: this is fish-flour (manioc de
+pescado). The Indians throughout the Upper Orinoco fry fish, dry them
+in the sun, and reduce them to powder without separating the bones. I
+have seen masses of fifty or sixty pounds of this flour, which
+resembles that of cassava. When it is wanted for eating, it is mixed
+with water, and reduced to a paste. In every climate the abundance of
+fish has led to the invention of the same means of preserving them.
+Pliny and Diodorus Siculus have described the fish-bread of the
+ichthyophagous nations, that dwelt on the Persian Gulf and the shores
+of the Red Sea.* (* These nations, in a still ruder state than the
+natives of the Orinoco, contented themselves with drying the raw fish
+in the sun. They made up the fish-paste in the form of bricks, and
+sometimes mixed with it the aromatic seed of paliurus (rhamnus), as in
+Germany, and some other countries, cummin and fennel-seed are mixed
+with wheaten bread.)
+
+At Esmeralda, as everywhere else throughout the missions, the Indians
+who will not be baptized, and who are merely aggregated in the
+community, live in a state of polygamy. The number of wives differs
+much in different tribes. It is most considerable among the Caribs,
+and all the nations that have preserved the custom of carrying off
+young girls from the neighbouring tribes. How can we imagine domestic
+happiness in so unequal an association? The women live in a sort of
+slavery, as they do in most nations which are in a state of barbarism.
+The husbands being in the full enjoyment of absolute power, no
+complaint is heard in their presence. An apparent tranquillity
+prevails in the household; the women are eager to anticipate the
+wishes of an imperious and sullen master; and they attend without
+distinction to their own children and those of their rivals. The
+missionaries assert, what may easily be believed, that this domestic
+peace, the effect of fear, is singularly disturbed when the husband is
+long absent. The wife who contracted the first ties then applies to
+the others the names of concubines and servants. The quarrels continue
+till the return of the master, who knows how to calm their passions by
+the sound of his voice, by a mere gesticulation, or, if he thinks it
+necessary, by means a little more violent. A certain inequality in the
+rights of the women is sanctioned by the language of the Tamanacs. The
+husband calls the second and third wife the companions of the first;
+and the first treats these companions as rivals and enemies
+(ipucjatoje), a term which truly expresses their position. The whole
+weight of labour being supported by these unhappy women, we must not
+be surprised if, in some nations, their number is extremely small.
+Where this happens, a kind of polyandry is formed, which we find more
+fully displayed in Thibet, and on the lofty mountains at the extremity
+of the Indian peninsula. Among the Avanos and Maypures, brothers have
+often but one wife. When an Indian, who lives in polygamy, becomes a
+christian, he is compelled by the missionaries, to choose among his
+wives her whom he prefers, and to reject the others. At the moment of
+separation the new convert sometimes discovers the most valuable
+qualities in the wives he is obliged to abandon. One understands
+gardening perfectly; another knows how to prepare chiza, an
+intoxicating beverage extracted from the root of cassava; all appear
+to him alike clever and useful. Sometimes the desire of preserving his
+wives overcomes in the Indian his inclination to christianity; but
+most frequently, in his perplexity, the husband prefers submitting to
+the choice of the missionary, as to a blind fatality.
+
+The Indians, who from May to August take journeys to the east of
+Esmeralda, to gather the vegetable productions of the mountains of
+Yumariquin, gave us precise notions of the course of the Orinoco to
+the east of the mission. This part of my itinerary may differ entirely
+from the maps that preceded it. I shall begin the description of this
+country with the granitic group of Duida, at the foot of which we
+sojourned. This group is bounded on the west by the Rio Tamatama, and
+on the east by the Rio Guapo. Between these two tributary streams of
+the Orinoco, amid the morichales, or clumps of mauritia palm-trees,
+which surround Esmeralda, the Rio Sodomoni flows, celebrated for the
+excellence of the pine-apples that grow upon its banks. I measured, on
+the 22nd of May, in the savannah at the foot of Duida, a base of four
+hundred and seventy-five metres in length; the angle, under which the
+summit of the mountain appeared at the distance of thirteen thousand
+three hundred and twenty-seven metres, was still nine degrees. A
+trigonometric measurement, made with great care, gave me for Duida
+(that is, for the most elevated peak, which is south-west of the Cerro
+Maraguaca) two thousand one hundred and seventy-nine metres, or one
+thousand one hundred and eighteen toises, above the plain of
+Esmeralda. The Cerro Duida thus yields but little in height (scarcely
+eighty or one hundred toises) to the summit of St. Gothard, or the
+Silla of Caracas on the shore of Venezuela. It is indeed considered as
+a colossal mountain in those countries; and this celebrity gives a
+precise idea of the mean height of Parima and of all the mountains of
+eastern America. To the east of the Sierra Nevada de Merida, as well
+as to the south-east of the Paramo de las Rosas, none of the chains
+that extend in the same parallel line reach the height of the central
+ridge of the Pyrenees.
+
+The granitic summit of Duida is so nearly perpendicular that the
+Indians have vainly attempted the ascent. It is a well-known fact that
+mountains not remarkable for elevation are sometimes the most
+inaccessible. At the beginning and end of the rainy season, small
+flames, which seem to change their place, are seen on the top of
+Duida. This phenomenon, the existence of which is borne out by
+concurrent testimony, has caused this mountain to be improperly called
+a volcano. As it stands nearly alone, it might be supposed that
+lightning from time to time sets fire to the brushwood; but this
+supposition loses its probability when we reflect on the extreme
+difficulty with which plants are ignited in these damp climates. It
+must be observed also that these flames are said to appear often where
+the rock seems scarcely covered with turf, and that the same igneous
+phenomena are visible, on days entirely exempt from storms, on the
+summit of Guaraco or Murcielago, a hill opposite the mouth of the Rio
+Tamatama, on the southern bank of the Orinoco. This hill is scarcely
+elevated one hundred toises above the neighbouring plains. If the
+statements of the natives be correct, it is probable that some
+subterraneous cause produces these flames on the Duida and the
+Guaraco; for they never appear on the lofty neighbouring mountains of
+Jao and Maraguaca, so often wrapped in electric storms. The granite of
+the Cerro Duida is full of veins, partly open, and partly filled with
+crystals of quartz and pyrites. Gaseous and inflammable emanations,
+either of hydrogen or of naphtha, may pass through these veins. Of
+this the mountains of Caramania, of Hindookho, and of Himalaya,
+furnish frequent examples. We saw the appearance of flames in many
+parts of eastern America subject to earthquakes, even from secondary
+rocks, as at Cuchivero, near Cumanacoa. The fire shows itself when the
+ground, strongly heated by the sun, receives the first rains; or when,
+after violent showers, the earth begins to dry. The first cause of
+these igneous phenomena lies at immense depths below the secondary
+rocks, in the primitive formations: the rains and the decomposition of
+atmospheric water act only a secondary part. The hottest springs of
+the globe issue immediately from granite. Petroleum gushes from
+mica-schist; and frightful detonations are heard at Encaramada,
+between the rivers Arauca and Cuchivero, in the midst of the granitic
+soil of the Orinoco and the Sierra Parima. Here, as everywhere else on
+the globe, the focus of volcanoes is in the most ancient soils; and it
+appears that an intimate connection exists between the great phenomena
+that heave up and liquify the crust of our planet, and those igneous
+meteors which are seen from time to time on its surface, and which
+from their littleness we are tempted to attribute solely to the
+influence of the atmosphere.
+
+Duida, though lower than the height assigned to it by popular belief,
+is however the most prominent point of the whole group of mountains
+that separate the basin of the Lower Orinoco from that of the Amazon.
+These mountains lower still more rapidly on the north-east, toward the
+Purunama, than on the east, toward the Padamo and the Rio Ocamo. In
+the former direction the most elevated summits next to Duida are
+Cuneva, at the sources of the Rio Paru (one of the tributary streams
+of the Ventuari), Sipapo, Calitamini, which forms one group with
+Cunavami and the peak of Umiana. East of Duida, on the right bank of
+the Orinoco, Maravaca, or Sierra Maraguaca, is distinguished by its
+elevation, between the Rio Caurimoni and the Padamo; and on the left
+bank of the Orinoco rise the mountains of Guanaja and Yumariquin,
+between the Rios Amaguaca and Gehette. It is almost superfluous to
+repeat that the line which passes through these lofty summits (like
+those of the Pyrenees, the Carpathian mountains, and so many other
+chains of the old continent) is very distinct from the line that marks
+the partition of the waters. This latter line, which separates the
+tributary streams of the Lower and Upper Orinoco, intersects the
+meridian of 64 degrees in latitude 4 degrees. After having separated
+the sources of the Rio Branco and the Carony, it runs north-west,
+sending off the waters of the Padamo, the Jao, and the Ventuari
+towards the south, and the waters of the Arui, the Caura, and the
+Cuchivero towards the north.
+
+The Orinoco may be ascended without danger from Esmeralda as far as
+the cataracts occupied by the Guaica Indians, who prevent all farther
+progress of the Spaniards. This is a voyage of six days and a half. In
+the first two days you arrive at the mouth of the Rio Padamo, or
+Patamo, having passed, on the north, the little rivers of Tamatama,
+Sodomoni, Guapo, Caurimoni, and Simirimoni; and on the south the Cuca,
+situate between the rock of Guaraco, which is said to throw out
+flames, and the Cerro Canclilla. Throughout this course the Orinoco
+continues to be three or four hundred toises broad. The tributary
+streams are most frequent on the right bank, because on that side the
+river is bounded by the lofty cloud-capped mountains of Duida and
+Maraguaca, while the left bank on the contrary is low and contiguous
+to a plain, the general slope of which inclines to the south-west. The
+northern Cordilleras are covered with fine timber. The growth of
+plants is so enormous in this hot and constantly humid climate, that
+the trunks of the Bombax ceiba are sixteen feet in diameter. From the
+mouth of the Rio Padamo, which is of considerable breadth, the Indians
+arrive, in a day and a half, at the Rio Mavaca. The latter takes its
+rise in the lofty mountains of Unturan, and communicates with a lake,
+on the banks of which the Portuguese* of the Rio Negro gather the
+aromatic seeds of the Laurus pucheri, known in trade by the names of
+the pichurim bean, and toda specie. (* The pichurim bean is the
+puchiri of La Condamine, which abounds at the Rio Xingu, a tributary
+stream of the Amazon, and on the banks of the Hyurubaxy, or Yurubesh,
+which runs into the Rio Negro. The puchery, or pichurim, which is
+grated like nutmeg, differs from another aromatic fruit (a laurel?)
+known in trade at Grand Para by the names of cucheri, cuchiri, or
+cravo (clavus) do Maranhao, and which, on account of its odour, is
+compared with cloves.) Between the confluence of the Padamo and that
+of the Mavaca, the Orinoco receives on the north the Ocamo, into which
+the Rio Matacona falls. At the sources of the latter live the
+Guainares, who are much less copper-coloured, or tawny, than the other
+inhabitants of those countries. This is one of the tribes called by
+the missionaries fair Indians (Indios blancos). Near the mouth of the
+Ocamo, travellers are shown a rock, which is the wonder of the
+country. It is a granite passing into gneiss, and remarkable for the
+peculiar distribution of the black mica, which forms little ramified
+veins. The Spaniards call this rock Piedra Mapaya (the map-stone). The
+little fragment which I procured indicated a stratified rock, rich in
+white feldspar, and containing, together with spangles of mica,
+grouped in streaks, and variously twisted, some crystals of
+hornblende. It is not a syenite, but probably a granite of new
+formation, analogous to those to which the stanniferous granites
+(hyalomictes) and the pegmatites, or graphic granites, belong.
+
+Beyond the confluence of the Macava, the Orinoco suddenly diminishes
+in breadth and depth, becoming extremely sinuous, like an Alpine
+torrent. Its banks are surrounded by mountains, and the number of its
+tributary streams on the south augments considerably, yet the
+Cordillera on the north remains the most elevated. It requires two
+days to go from the mouth of the Macava, to the Rio Gehette, the
+navigation being very difficult, and the boats, on account of the want
+of water, being often dragged along the shore. The tributary streams
+along this distance are, on the south, the Daracapo and the Amaguaca;
+which skirt on the west and east the mountains of Guanaya and
+Yumariquin, where the bertholletias are gathered. The Rio Manaviche
+flows down from the mountains on the north, the elevation of which
+diminishes progressively from the Cerro Maraguaca. As we advance
+further up the Orinoco, the whirlpools and little rapids (chorros y
+remolinos) become more and more frequent; on the north lies the Cano
+Chiquire, inhabited by the Guaicas, another tribe of white Indians;
+and two leagues distant is the mouth of the Gehette, where there is a
+great cataract. A dyke of granitic rocks crosses the Orinoco these
+rocks are, as it were, the columns of Hercules, beyond which no white
+man has been able to penetrate. It appears that this point, known by
+the name of the great Raudal de Guaharibos, is three-quarters of a
+degree west of Esmeralda, consequently in longitude 67 degrees 38
+minutes. A military expedition, undertaken by the commander of the
+fort of San Carlos, Don Francisco Bovadilla, to discover the sources
+of the Orinoco, led to some information respecting the cataracts of
+the Guaharibos. Bovadilla had heard that some fugitive negroes from
+Dutch Guiana, proceeding towards the west (beyond the isthmus between
+the sources of the Rio Carony and the Rio Branco) had joined the
+independent Indians. He attempted an entrada (hostile incursion)
+without having obtained the permission of the governor; the desire of
+procuring African slaves, better fitted for labour than the
+copper-coloured race, was a far more powerful motive than that of zeal
+for the progress of geography. Bovadilla arrived without difficulty as
+far as the little Raudal* opposite the Gehette (* It is called Raudal
+de abaxo (Low Cataract) in opposition to the great Raudal de
+Guaharibos, which is situated higher up toward the east.); but having
+advanced to the foot of the rocky dike that forms the great cataract,
+he was suddenly attacked, while he was breakfasting, by the Guaharibos
+and Guaycas, two warlike tribes, celebrated for the virulence of the
+curare with which their arrows are empoisoned. The Indians occupied
+the rocks that rise in the middle of the river, and seeing the
+Spaniards without bows, and having no knowledge of firearms, they
+provoked the whites, whom they believed to be without defence. Several
+of the latter were dangerously wounded, and Bovadilla found himself
+forced to give the signal for battle. A fearful carnage ensued among
+the natives, but none of the Dutch negroes, who, as was believed, had
+taken refuge in those parts, were found. Notwithstanding a victory so
+easily won, the Spaniards did not dare to advance eastward in a
+mountainous country, and along a river inclosed by very high banks.
+
+These white Guaharibos have constructed a bridge of lianas above the
+cataract, supported on rocks that rise, as generally happens in the
+pongos of the Upper Maranon, in the middle of the river. The existence
+of this bridge, which is known to all the inhabitants of Esmeralda,*
+seems to indicate that the Orinoco must be very narrow at this point.
+(* The Amazon also is crossed twice on bridges of wood near its source
+in the lake Lauricocha; first north of Chavin, and then below the
+confluence of the Rio Aguamiras. These, the only two bridges that have
+been thrown over the largest river we yet know, are called Puente de
+Quivilla, and Puente de Guancaybamba.) It is generally estimated by
+the Indians to be only two or three hundred feet broad. They say that
+the Orinoco, above the Raudal of the Guaharibos, is no longer a river,
+but a brook (riachuelo); while a well informed ecclesiastic, Fray Juan
+Gonzales, who had visited those countries, assured me that the
+Orinoco, in the part where its farther course is no longer known, is
+two-thirds of the breadth of the Rio Negro near San Carlos. This
+opinion appears to me hardly probable; but I relate what I have
+collected, and affirm nothing positively.
+
+In the rocky dike that crosses the Orinoco, forming the Raudal of the
+Guaharibos, Spanish soldiers pretend to have found the fine kind of
+saussurite (Amazon-stone), of which we have spoken. This tradition
+however is very uncertain; and the Indians, whom I interrogated on the
+subject, assured me that the green stones, called piedras de Macagua*
+at Esmeralda, were purchased from the Guaicas and Guaharibos, who
+traffic with hordes much farther to the east. (* The etymology of this
+name, which is unknown to me, might lead to the knowledge of the spot
+where these stones are found. I have sought in vain the name of
+Macagua among the numerous tributary streams of the Tacutu, the Mahu,
+the Rupunury, and the Rio Trombetas.) The same uncertainty prevails
+respecting these stones, as that which attaches to many other valuable
+productions of the Indies. On the coast, at the distance of some
+hundred leagues, the country where they are found is positively named;
+but when the traveller with difficulty penetrates into that country,
+he discovers that the natives are ignorant even of the name of the
+object of his research. It might be supposed that the amulets of
+saussurite found in the possession of the Indians of the Rio Negro,
+come from the Lower Maranon, while those that are received by the
+missions of the Upper Orinoco and the Rio Carony come from a country
+situated between the sources of the Essequibo and the Rio Branco. The
+opinion that this stone is taken in a soft state like paste from the
+little lake Amucu, though very prevalent at Angostura, is wholly
+without foundation. A curious geognostic discovery remains to be made
+in the eastern part of America, that of finding in a primitive soil a
+rock of euphotide containing the piedra de Macagua.
+
+I shall here proceed to give some information respecting the tribes of
+dwarf and fair Indians, which ancient traditions have placed near the
+sources of the Orinoco. I had an opportunity of seeing some of these
+Indians at Esmeralda, and can affirm that the short stature of the
+Guaicas, and the fair complexion of the Guaharibos, whom Father Caulin
+calls Guaribos blancos, have been alike exaggerated. The Guaicas, whom
+I measured, were in general from four feet seven inches to four feet
+eight inches high (old measure of France).* (* About five feet three
+inches English measure.) We were assured that the whole tribe were of
+this diminutive size; but we must not forget that what is called a
+tribe constitutes, properly speaking, but one family, owing to the
+exclusion of all foreign connections. The Indians of the lowest
+stature next to the Guaicas are the Guainares and the Poignaves. It is
+singular, that all these nations are found in near proximity to the
+Caribs, who are remarkably tall. They all inhabit the same climate,
+and subsist on the same aliments. They are varieties in the race,
+which no doubt existed previously to the settlement of these tribes
+(tall and short, fair and dark brown) in the same country. The four
+nations of the Upper Orinoco, which appeared to me to be the fairest,
+are the Guaharibos of the Rio Gehette, the Guainares of the Ocamo, the
+Guaicas of Cano Chiguire, and the Maquiritares of the sources of the
+Padamo, the Jao, and the Ventuari. It being very extraordinary to see
+natives with a fair skin beneath a burning sky, and amid nations of a
+very dark hue, the Spaniards have attempted to explain this phenomenon
+by the following hypotheses. Some assert, that the Dutch of Surinam
+and the Rio Essequibo may have intermingled with the Guaharibos and
+the Guainares; others insist, from hatred to the Capuchins of the
+Carony, and the Observantins of the Orinoco, that the fair Indians are
+what are called in Dalmatia muso di frate, children whose legitimacy
+is somewhat doubtful. In either case the Indios blancos would be
+mestizos, that is to say, children of an Indian woman and a white man.
+Now, having seen thousands of mestizos, I can assert that this
+supposition is altogether inaccurate. The individuals of the fair
+tribes whom we examined, have the features, the stature, and the
+smooth, straight, black hair which characterises other Indians. It
+would be impossible to take them for a mixed race, like the
+descendants of natives and Europeans. Some of these people are very
+little, others are of the ordinary stature of the copper-coloured
+Indians. They are neither feeble nor sickly, nor are they albinos; and
+they differ from the copper-coloured races only by a much less tawny
+skin. It would be useless, after these considerations, to insist on
+the distance of the mountains of the Upper Orinoco from the shores
+inhabited by the Dutch. I will not deny that descendants of fugitive
+negroes may have been seen among the Caribs, at the sources of the
+Essequibo; but no white man ever went from the eastern coast to the
+Rio Gehette and the Ocamo, in the interior of Guiana. It must also be
+observed, although we may be struck with the singularity of several
+fair tribes being found at one point to the east of Esmeralda, it is
+no less certain, that tribes have been found in other parts of
+America, distinguished from the neighbouring tribes by the less tawny
+colour of their skin. Such are the Arivirianos and Maquiritares of the
+Rio Ventuario and the Padamo, the Paudacotos and Paravenas of the
+Erevato, the Viras and Araguas of the Caura, the Mologagos of Brazil,
+and the Guayanas of the Uruguay.* (* The Cumanagotos, the Maypures,
+the Mapojos, and some hordes of the Tamanacs, are also fair, but in a
+less degree than the tribes I have just named. We may add to this list
+(which the researches of Sommering, Blumenbach, and Pritchard, on the
+varieties of the human species, have rendered so interesting) the Ojes
+of the Cuchivero, the Boanes (now almost destroyed) of the interior of
+Brazil, and in the north of America, far from the north-west coast,
+the Mandans and the Akanas (Walkenaer, Geogr. page 645. Gili volume 2
+page 34. Vater, Amerikan. Sprachen page 81. Southey volume 1 page
+603.) The most tawny, we might almost say the blackest of the American
+race, are the Otomacs and the Guamos. These have perhaps given rise to
+the confused notions of American negroes, spread through Europe in the
+early times of the conquest. (Herrera Dec 1 lib 3 cap 9, volume 1 page
+79. Garcia, Origen de los Americanos page 259.) Who are those Negros
+de Quereca, placed by Gomara page 277, in that very isthmus of Panama,
+whence we received the first absurd tales of an albino American
+people? In reading with attention the authors of the beginning of the
+16th century, we see that the discovery of America and of a new race
+of men, had singularly awakened the interest of travellers respecting
+the varieties of our species. Now, if a black race had been mingled
+with copper-colored men, as in the South-sea Islands, the
+conquistadores would not have failed to speak of it in a precise
+manner. Besides, the religious traditions of the Americans relate the
+appearance, in the heroic times, of white and bearded men as priests
+and legislators; but none of these traditions make mention of a black
+race.)
+
+These phenomena are so much the more worthy of attention as they are
+observed in that great branch of the American nations generally ranked
+in a class totally opposite to that circumpolar branch, namely the
+Tschougaz-Esquimaux,* whose children are fair, and who acquire the
+Mongol or yellowish tint only from the influence of the air and the
+humidity. (* The Chevalier Gieseke has recently confirmed all that
+Krantz related of the colour of the skin of the Esquimaux. That race
+(even in the latitude of seventy-five and seventy-six degrees, where
+the climate is so rigorous) is not in general so diminutive as it was
+long believed to be. Ross' Voyage to the North.) In Guiana, the hordes
+who live in the midst of the thickest forests are generally less tawny
+than those who inhabit the shores of the Orinoco, and are employed in
+fishing. But this slight difference, which is alike found in Europe
+between the artisans of towns and the cultivators of the fields or the
+fishermen on the coasts, in no way explains the problem of the Indios
+blancos. They are surrounded by other Indians of the woods (Indios del
+monte) who are of a reddish-brown, although now exposed to the same
+physical influences. The causes of these phenomena are very ancient,
+and we may repeat with Tacitus, "est durans originis vis."
+
+The fair-complexioned tribes, which we had an opportunity of seeing at
+the mission of Esmeralda, inhabit part of a mountainous country lying
+between the sources of six tributaries of the Orinoco; that is to say,
+between the Padamo, the Jao, the Ventuari, the Erevato, the Aruy, and
+the Paraguay.* (* They are six tributary streams on the right bank of
+the Orinoco; the first three run towards the south, or the Upper
+Orinoco; the three others towards the north, or the Lower Orinoco.)
+The Spanish and Portuguese missionaries are accustomed to designate
+this country more particularly by the name of Parima.* (* The name
+Parima, which signifies water, great water, is applied sometimes, and
+more especially, to the land washed by the Rio Parima, or Rio Branco
+(Rio de Aguas Blancas), a stream running into the Rio Negro; sometimes
+to the mountains (Sierra Parima), which divide the Upper and Lower
+Orinoco.) Here, as in several other countries of Spanish America, the
+savages have reconquered what had been wrested from them by
+civilization, or rather by its precursors, the missionaries. The
+expedition of the boundaries under Solano, and the extravagant zeal
+displayed by a governor of Guiana for the discovery of El Dorado,
+partially revived in the latter half of the eighteenth century that
+spirit of enterprise which characterised the Spaniards at the period
+of the discovery of America. In going along the Rio Padamo, a road was
+observed across the forests and savannahs (the length of ten days'
+journey), from Esmeralda to the sources of the Ventuari; and in two
+days more, from those sources, by the Erevato, the missions on the Rio
+Caura were reached. Two intelligent and enterprising men, Don Antonio
+Santos and Captain Bareto, had established, with the aid of the
+Miquiritares, a chain of military posts on this line from Esmeralda to
+the Rio Erevato. These posts consisted of block-houses (casas
+fuertes), mounted with swivels, such as I have already mentioned. The
+soldiers, left to themselves, exercised all kinds of vexations on the
+natives (Indians of peace), who had cultivated pieces of ground around
+the casas fuertes; and the consequence was that, in 1776, several
+tribes formed a league against the Spaniards. All the military posts
+were attacked on the same night, on a line of nearly fifty leagues in
+length. The houses were burnt, and many soldiers massacred; a very
+small number only owing their preservation to the pity of the Indian
+women. This nocturnal expedition is still mentioned with horror. It
+was concerted in the most profound secrecy, and executed with that
+spirit of unity which the natives of America, skilled in concealing
+their hostile passions, well know how to practise in whatever concerns
+their common interests. Since 1776 no attempt has been made to
+re-establish the road which leads by land from the Upper to the Lower
+Orinoco, and no white man has been able to pass from Esmeralda to the
+Erevato. It is certain, however, that in the mountainous lands,
+between the sources of the Padamo and the Ventuari (near the sites
+called by the Indians Aurichapa, Ichuana, and Irique) there are many
+spots where the climate is temperate, and where there are pasturages
+capable of feeding numerous herds of cattle. The military posts were
+very useful in preventing the incursions of the Caribs, who, from time
+to time carried off slaves, though in very small numbers, between the
+Erevato and the Padamo. They would have resisted the attacks of the
+natives, if, instead of leaving them isolated and solely to the
+control of the soldiery, they had been formed into communities, and
+governed like the villages of neophyte Indians.
+
+We left the mission of Esmeralda on the 23rd of May. Without being
+positively ill, we felt ourselves in a state of languor and weakness,
+caused by the torment of insects, bad food, and a long voyage, in
+narrow and damp boats. We did not go up the Orinoco beyond the mouth
+of the Rio Guapo, which we should have done, if we could have
+attempted to reach the sources of the river. There remains a distance
+of fifteen leagues from the Guapo to the Raudal of the Guaharibos. At
+this cataract, which is passed on a bridge of lianas, Indians are
+posted armed with bows and arrows to prevent the whites, or those who
+come from their territory from advancing westward. How could we hope
+to pass a point where the commander of the Rio Negro, Don Francisco
+Bovadilla, was stopped when, accompanied by his soldiers, he tried to
+penetrate beyond the Gehette?* (* See above.) The carnage then made
+among the natives has rendered them more distrustful, and more averse
+to the inhabitants of the missions. It must be remembered that the
+Orinoco had hitherto offered to geographers two distinct problems,
+alike important, the situation of its sources, and the mode of its
+communication with the Amazon. The latter problem formed the object of
+the journey which I have described; with respect to the discovery of
+its sources, that remains to be done by the Spanish and Portuguese
+governments.
+
+Our canoe was not ready to receive us till near three o'clock in the
+afternoon. It had been filled with innumerable swarms of ants during
+the navigation of the Cassiquiare; and the toldo, or roof of
+palm-leaves, beneath which we were again doomed to remain stretched
+out during twenty-two days, was with difficulty cleared of these
+insects. We employed part of the morning in repeating to the
+inhabitants of Esmeralda the questions we had already put to them,
+respecting the existence of a lake towards the east. We showed copies
+of the maps of Surville and La Cruz to old soldiers, who had been
+posted in the mission ever since its first establishment. They laughed
+at the supposed communication of the Orinoco with the Rio Idapa, and
+at the White Sea, which the former river was represented to cross.
+What we politely call geographical fictions they termed lies of the
+old world (mentiras de por alla). These good people could not
+comprehend how men, in making the map of a country which they had
+never visited, could pretend to know things in minute detail, of which
+persons who lived on the spot were ignorant. The lake Parima, the
+Sierra Mey, and the springs which separate at the point where they
+issue from the earth, were entirely unknown at Esmeralda. We were
+repeatedly assured that no one had ever been to the east of the Raudal
+of the Guaharibos; and that beyond that point, according to the
+opinion of some of the natives, the Orinoco descends like a small
+torrent from a group of mountains, inhabited by the Coroto Indians.
+Father Gili, who was living on the banks of the Orinoco when the
+expedition of the boundaries arrived, says expressly that Don
+Apollinario Diez was sent in 1765 to attempt the discovery of the
+source of the Orinoco; that he found the river, east of Esmeralda,
+full of shoals; that he returned for want of provision; and that he
+learned nothing, absolutely nothing, of the existence of a lake. This
+statement perfectly accords with what I heard myself thirty-five years
+later at Esmeralda. The probability of a fact is powerfully shaken
+when it can be proved to be totally unknown on the very spot where it
+ought to be known best; and when those by whom the existence of the
+lake is affirmed contradict each other, not in the least essential
+circumstances, but in all that are the most important.
+
+When travellers judge only by their own sensations they differ from
+each other respecting the abundance of the mosquitos as they do
+respecting the progressive increase or diminution of the temperature.
+The state of our organs, the motion of the air, its degree of humidity
+or dryness, its electric intensity, a thousand circumstances
+contribute at once to make us suffer more or less from the heat and
+the insects. My fellow travellers were unanimously of opinion that
+Esmeralda was more tormented by mosquitos than the banks of the
+Cassiquiare, and even more than the two missions of the Great
+Cataracts; whilst I, less sensible than they of the high temperature
+of the air, thought that the irritation produced by the insects was
+somewhat less at Esmeralda than at the entrance of the Upper Orinoco.
+On hearing the complaints that are made of these tormenting insects in
+hot countries it is difficult to believe that their absence, or rather
+their sudden disappearance, could become a subject of inquietude; yet
+such is the fact. The inhabitants of Esmeralda related to us, that in
+the year 1795, an hour before sunset, when the mosquitos usually form
+a very thick cloud, the air was observed to be suddenly free from
+them. During the space of twenty minutes, not one insect was
+perceived, although the sky was cloudless, and no wind announced rain.
+It is necessary to have lived in those countries to comprehend the
+degree of surprise which the sudden disappearance of the insects must
+have produced. The inhabitants congratulated each other, and inquired
+whether this state of happiness, this relief from pain (feicidad y
+alivio), could be of any duration. But soon, instead of enjoying the
+present, they yielded to chimerical fears, and imagined that the order
+of nature was perverted. Some old Indians, the sages of the place,
+asserted that the disappearance of the insects must be the precursor
+of a great earthquake. Warm discussions arose; the least noise amid
+the foliage of the trees was listened to with an attentive ear; and
+when the air was again filled with mosquitos they were almost hailed
+with pleasure. We could not guess what modification of the atmosphere
+had caused this phenomenon, which must not be confounded with the
+periodical replacing of one species of insects by another.
+
+After four hours' navigation down the Orinoco we arrived at the point
+of the bifurcation. Our resting place was on the same beach of the
+Cassiquiare, where a few days previously our great dog had, as we
+believe, been carried off by the jaguars. All the endeavours of the
+Indians to discover any traces of the animal were fruitless. The cries
+of the jaguars were heard during the whole night.* (* This frequency
+of large jaguars is somewhat remarkable in a country destitute of
+cattle. The tigers of the Upper Orinoco are far less bountifully
+supplied with prey than those of the Pampas of Buenos Ayres and the
+Llanos of Caracas, which are covered with herds of cattle. More than
+four thousand jaguars are killed annually in the Spanish colonies,
+several of them equalling the mean size of the royal tiger of Asia.
+Two thousand skins of jaguars were formerly exported annually from
+Buenos Ayres alone.) These animals are very frequent in the tracts
+situated between the Cerro Maraguaca, the Unturan, and the banks of
+the Pamoni. There also is found that black species of tiger* of which
+I saw some fine skins at Esmeralda. (* Gmelin, in his Synonyma, seems
+to confound this animal, under the name of Felis discolor, with the
+great American lion (Felis concolor) which is very different from the
+puma of the Andes of Quito.) This animal is celebrated for its
+strength and ferocity; it appears to be still larger than the common
+jaguar. The black spots are scarcely visible on the dark-brown ground
+of its skin. The Indians assert, that these tigers are very rare, that
+they never mingle with the common jaguars, and that they form another
+race. I believe that Prince Maximilian of Neuwied, who has enriched
+American zoology by so many important observations, acquired the same
+information farther to the south, in the hot part of Brazil. Albino
+varieties of the jaguar have been seen in Paraguay: for the spots of
+these animals, which may be called the beautiful panthers of America,
+are sometimes so pale as to be scarcely distinguishable on a very
+white ground. In the black jaguars, on the contrary, it is the colour
+of the ground which renders the spots indistinct. It requires to
+reside long in those countries, and to accompany the Indians of
+Esmeralda in the perilous chase of the tiger, to decide with certainty
+upon the varieties and the species. In all the mammiferae, and
+particularly in the numerous family of the apes, we ought, I believe,
+to fix our attention less on the transition from one colour to another
+in individuals, than on their habit of separating themselves, and
+forming distinct bands.
+
+We left our resting place before sunrise on the 24th of May. In a
+rocky cove, which had been the dwelling of some Durimundi Indians, the
+aromatic odour of the plants was so powerful, that although sleeping
+in the open air, and the irritability of our nervous system being
+allayed by the habits of a life of fatigue, we were nevertheless
+incommoded by it. We could not ascertain the flowers which diffused
+this perfume. The forest was impenetrable; but M. Bonpland believed
+that large clumps of pancratium and other liliaceous plants were
+concealed in the neighbouring marshes. Descending the Orinoco by
+favour of the current, we passed first the mouth of the Rio
+Cunucunumo, and then the Guanami and the Puriname. The two banks of
+the principal river are entirely desert; lofty mountains rise on the
+north, and on the south a vast plain extends far as the eye can reach
+beyond the sources of the Atacavi, which lower down takes the name of
+the Atabapo. There is something gloomy and desolate in this aspect of
+a river, on which not even a fisherman's canoe is seen. Some
+independent tribes, the Abirianos and the Maquiritares, dwell in the
+mountainous country; but in the neighbouring savannahs,* bounded by
+the Cassiquiare, the Atabapo, the Orinoco, and the Rio Negro, there is
+now scarcely any trace of a human habitation. (* They form a
+quadrilateral plot of a thousand square leagues, the opposite sides of
+which have contrary slopes, the Cassiquiare flowing towards the south,
+the Atabapo towards the north, the Orinoco towards the north-west, and
+the Rio Negro towards the south-east.) I say now; for here, as in
+other parts of Guiana, rude figures representing the sun, the moon,
+and different animals, traced on the hardest rocks of granite, attest
+the anterior existence of a people, very different from those who
+became known to us on the banks of the Orinoco. According to the
+accounts of the natives, and of the most intelligent missionaries,
+these symbolic signs resemble perfectly the characters we saw a
+hundred leagues more to the north, near Caycara, opposite the mouth of
+the Rio Apure. (See Chapter 2.18 above.)
+
+In advancing from the plains of the Cassiquiare and the Conorichite,
+one hundred and forty leagues further eastward, between the sources of
+the Rio Blanco and the Rio Essequibo, we also meet with rocks and
+symbolical figures. I have lately verified this curious fact, which is
+recorded in the journal of the traveller Hortsman, who went up the
+Rupunuvini, one of the tributary streams of the Essequibo. Where this
+river, full of small cascades, winds between the mountains of
+Macarana, he found, before he reached lake Amucu, rocks covered with
+figures, or (as he says in Portuguese) with varias letras. We must not
+take this word letters in its real signification. We were also shewn,
+near the rock Culimacari, on the banks of the Cassiquiare, and at the
+port of Caycara in the Lower Orinoco, traces which were believed to be
+regular characters. They were however only misshapen figures,
+representing the heavenly bodies, together with tigers, crocodiles,
+boas, and instruments used for making the flour of cassava. It was
+impossible to recognize in these painted rocks* (the name by which the
+natives denote those masses loaded with figures) any symmetrical
+arrangement, or characters with regular spaces. (* In Tamanac
+tepumereme. (Tepu, a stone, rock; as in Mexican, tetl, a stone, and
+tepetl, a mountain; in Turco-Tatarian, tepe.) The Spanish Americans
+also call the rock covered with sculptured figures, piedras pintadas;
+those for instance, which are found on the summit of the Paramo of
+Guanacas, in New Grenada, and which recall to mind the tepumereme of
+the Orinoco, the Cassiquiare, and the Rupunuvini.) The traces
+discovered in the mountains of Uruana, by the missionary Fray Ramon
+Bueno, approach nearer to alphabetical writing; but are nevertheless
+very doubtful.
+
+Whatever may be the meaning of these figures, and with whatever view
+they were traced upon granite, they merit the examination of those who
+direct their attention to the philosophic history of our species. In
+travelling from the coast of Caracas towards the equator, we are at
+first led to believe that monuments of this kind are peculiar to the
+mountain-chain of Encaramada; they are found at the port of Sedeno,
+near Caycara,* (* In the Mountains of the Tyrant, Cerros del Tirano.)
+at San Rafael del Capuchino, opposite Cabruta, and in almost every
+place where the granitic rock pierces the soil, in the savannah which
+extends from the Cerro Curiquima towards the banks of the Caura. The
+nations of the Tamanac race, the ancient inhabitants of those
+countries, have a local mythology, and traditions connected with these
+sculptured rocks. Amalivaca, the father of the Tamanacs, that is, the
+creator of the human race (for every nation regards itself as the root
+of all other nations), arrived in a bark, at the time of the great
+inundation, which is called the age of water,* when the billows of the
+ocean broke against the mountains of Encaramada in the interior of the
+land. (* The Atonatiuh of the Mexicans, the fourth age, the fourth
+regeneration of the world.) All mankind, or, to speak more correctly,
+all the Tamanacs, were drowned, with the exception of one man and one
+woman, who saved themselves on a mountain near the banks of the
+Asiveru, called Cuchivero by the Spaniards. This mountain is the
+Ararat of the Aramean or Semitic nations, and the Tlaloc or Colhuacan
+of the Mexicans. Amalivaca, sailing in his bark, engraved the figures
+of the moon and the sun on the Painted Rock (Tepumereme) of
+Encaramada. Some blocks of granite piled upon one another, and forming
+a kind of cavern, are still called the house or dwelling of the great
+forefather of the Tamanacs. The natives show also a large stone near
+this cavern, in the plains of Maita, which they say was an instrument
+of music, the drum of Amalivaca. We must here observe, that this
+heroic personage had a brother, Vochi, who helped him to give the
+surface of the earth its present form. The Tamanacs relate that the
+two brothers, in their system of perfectibility, sought, at first, to
+arrange the Orinoco in such a manner, that the current of the water
+could always be followed either going down or going up the river. They
+hoped by this means to spare men trouble in navigating rivers; but,
+however great the power of these regenerators of the world, they could
+never contrive to give a double slope to the Orinoco, and were
+compelled to relinquish this singular plan. Amalivaca had daughters,
+who had a decided taste for travelling. The tradition states,
+doubtless with a figurative meaning, that he broke their legs, to
+render them sedentary, and force them to people the land of the
+Tamanacs. After having regulated everything in America, on that side
+of the great water, Amalivaca again embarked, and returned to the
+other shore, to the same place from whence he came. Since the natives
+have seen the missionaries arrive, they imagine that Europe is this
+other shore; and one of them inquired with great simplicity of Father
+Gili, whether he had there seen the great Amalivaca, the father of the
+Tamanacs, who had covered the rocks with symbolic figures.
+
+These notions of a great convulsion of nature; of two human beings
+saved on the summit of a mountain, and casting behind them the fruits
+of the mauritia palm-tree, to repeople the earth; of that national
+divinity, Amalivaca, who arrived by water from a distant land, who
+prescribed laws to nature, and forced the nations to renounce their
+migrations; these various features of a very ancient system of belief,
+are well worthy of attention. What the Tamanacs, and the tribes whose
+languages are analogous to the Tamanac tongue, now relate to us, they
+have no doubt learned from other people, who inhabited before them the
+same regions. The name of Amalivaca is spread over a region of more
+than five thousand square leagues; he is found designated as the
+father of mankind, or our great grandfather, as far as to the Caribbee
+nations, whose idiom approaches the Tamanac only in the same degree as
+the German approaches the Greek, the Persian, and the Sanscrit.
+Amalivaca is not originally the Great Spirit, the Aged of Heaven, the
+invisible being, whose worship springs from that of the powers of
+nature, when nations rise insensibly to the consciousness of the unity
+of these powers; he is rather a personage of the heroic times, a man,
+who, coming from afar, lived in the land of the Tamanacs and the
+Caribs, sculptured symbolic figures upon the rocks, and disappeared by
+going back to the country he had previously inhabited beyond the
+ocean. The anthropomorphism of the divinity has two sources
+diametrically opposite; and this opposition seems to arise less from
+the various degrees of intellectual culture, than from the different
+dispositions of nations, some of which are more inclined to mysticism,
+and others more governed by the senses, and by external impressions.
+Sometimes man makes the divinities descend upon earth, charging them
+with the care of ruling nations, and giving them laws, as in the
+fables of the East; sometimes, as among the Greeks and other nations
+of the West, they are the first monarchs, priest-kings, who are
+stripped of what is human in their nature, to be raised to the rank of
+national divinities. Amalivaca was a stranger, like Manco-Capac,
+Bochica, and Quetzalcohuatl; those extraordinary men, who, in the
+alpine or civilized part of America, on the tablelands of Peru, New
+Grenada, and Anahuac, organized civil society, regulated the order of
+sacrifices, and founded religious congregations. The Mexican
+Quetzalcohuatl, whose descendants Montezuma* (* The second king of
+this name, of the race of Acamapitzin, properly called
+Montezuma-Ilhuicamina.) thought he recognized in the companions of
+Cortez, displays an additional resemblance to Amalivaca, the
+mythologic personage of savage America or the plains of the torrid
+zone. When advanced in age, the high-priest of Tula left the country
+of Anahuac, which he had filled with his miracles, to return to an
+unknown region, called Tlalpallan. When the monk Bernard de Sahagun
+arrived in Mexico, the same questions were put to him, as those which
+were addressed to Father Gili two hundred years later, in the forests
+of the Orinoco; he was asked whether he came from the other shore (del
+otro lado), from the countries to which Quetzalcohuatl had retired.
+
+The region of sculptured rocks, or of painted stones, extends far
+beyond the Lower Orinoco, beyond the country (latitude 7 degrees 5
+minutes to 7 degrees 40 minutes, longitude 68 degrees 50 minutes to 69
+degrees 45 minutes) to which belongs what may be called the local
+fables of the Tamanacs. We again find these same sculptured rocks
+between the Cassiquiare and the Atabapo (latitude 2 degrees 5 minutes
+to 3 degrees 20 minutes; longitude 69 to 70 degrees); and between the
+sources of the Essequibo and the Rio Branco (latitude 3 degrees 50
+minutes; longitude 62 degrees 32 minutes). I do not assert that these
+figures prove the knowledge of the use of iron, or that they denote a
+very advanced degree of culture; but even on the supposition that,
+instead of being symbolical, they are the fruits of the idleness of
+hunting nations, we must still admit an anterior race of men, very
+different from those who now inhabit the banks of the Orinoco and the
+Rupunuri. The more a country is destitute of remembrances of
+generations that are extinct, the more important it becomes to follow
+the least traces of what appears to be monumental. The eastern plains
+of North America display only those extraordinary circumvallations
+that remind us of the fortified camps (the pretended cities of vast
+extent) of the ancient and modern nomad tribes of Asia. In the
+oriental plains of South America, the force of vegetation, the heat of
+the climate, and the too lavish gifts of nature, have opposed
+obstacles still more powerful to the progress of human civilization.
+Between the Orinoco and the Amazon I heard no mention of any wall of
+earth, vestige of a dyke, or sepulchral tumulus; the rocks alone show
+us (and this through a great extent of country), rude sketches which
+the hand of man has traced in times unknown, and which are connected
+with religious traditions.
+
+Before I quitted the wildest part of the Upper Orinoco, I thought it
+desirable to mention facts which are important only when they are
+considered in their connection with each other. All I could relate of
+our navigation from Esmeralda to the mouth of the Atabapo would be
+merely an enumeration of rivers and uninhabited places. From the 24th
+to the 27th of May, we slept but twice on land; our first
+resting-place was at the confluence of the Rio Jao, and our second
+below the mission of Santa Barbara, in the island of Minisi. The
+Orinoco being free from shoals, the Indian pilot pursued his course
+all night, abandoning the boat to the current of the river. Setting
+apart the time which we spent on the shore in preparing the rice and
+plantains that served us for food, we took but thirty-five hours in
+going from Esmeralda to Santa Barbara. The chronometer gave me for the
+longitude of the latter mission 70 degrees 3 minutes; we had therefore
+made near four miles an hour, a velocity which was partly owing to the
+current, and partly to the action of the oars. The Indians assert that
+the crocodiles do not go up the Orinoco above the mouth of the Rio
+Jao, and that the manatees are not even found above the cataract of
+Maypures.
+
+The mission of Santa Barbara is situated a little to the west of the
+mouth of the Rio Ventuari, or Venituari, examined in 1800 by Father
+Francisco Valor. We found in this small village of one hundred and
+twenty inhabitants some traces of industry; but the produce of this
+industry is of little profit to the natives; it is reserved for the
+monks, or, as they say in these countries, for the church and the
+convent. We were assured that a great lamp of massive silver,
+purchased at the expense of the neophytes, is expected from Madrid.
+Let us hope that, after the arrival of this treasure, they will think
+also of clothing the Indians, of procuring for them some instruments
+of agriculture, and assembling their children in a school. Although
+there are a few oxen in the savannahs round the mission, they are
+rarely employed in turning the mill (trapiche), to express the juice
+of the sugar-cane; this is the occupation of the Indians, who work
+without pay here as they do everywhere when they are understood to
+work for the church. The pasturages at the foot of the mountains round
+Santa Barbara are not so rich as at Esmeralda, but superior to those
+at San Fernando de Atabapo. The grass is short and thick, yet the
+upper stratum of earth furnishes only a dry and parched granitic sand.
+The savannahs (far from fertile) of the banks of the Guaviare, the
+Meta, and the Upper Orinoco, are equally destitute of the mould which
+abounds in the surrounding forests, and of the thick stratum of clay,
+which covers the sandstone of the Llanos, or steppes of Venezuela. The
+small herbaceous mimosas contribute in this zone to fatten the cattle,
+but are very rare between the Rio Jao and the mouth of the Guaviare.
+
+During the few hours of our stay at the mission of Santa Barbara, we
+obtained pretty accurate ideas respecting the Rio Ventuari, which,
+next to the Guaviare, appeared to me to be the most considerable
+tributary of the Orinoco. Its banks, heretofore occupied by the
+Maypures, are still peopled by a great number of independent nations.
+On going up by the mouth of the Ventuari, which forms a delta covered
+with palm-trees, you find in the east, after three days' journey, the
+Cumaruita and the Paru, two streams that rise at the foot of the lofty
+mountains of Cuneva. Higher up, on the west, lie the Mariata and the
+Manipiare, inhabited by the Macos and Curacicanas. The latter nation
+is remarkable for their active cultivation of cotton. In a hostile
+incursion (entrada) a large house was found containing more than
+thirty or forty hammocks of a very fine texture of spun cotton,
+cordage, and fishing implements. The natives had fled; and Father
+Valor informed us, that the Indians of the mission who accompanied him
+had set fire to the house before he could save these productions of
+the industry of the Curacicanas. The neophytes of Santa Barbara, who
+think themselves very superior to these supposed savages, appeared to
+me far less industrious. The Rio Manipiare, one of the principal
+branches of the Ventuari, approaches near its source those lofty
+mountains, the northern ridge of which gives birth to the Cuchivero.
+It is a prolongation of the chain of Baraguan; and there Father Gili
+places the table-land of Siamacu, of which he vaunts the temperate
+climate. The upper course of the Rio Ventuari, beyond the confluence
+of the Asisi, and the Great Raudales, is almost unknown. I was
+informed only that the Upper Ventuari bends so much towards the east
+that the ancient road from Esmeralda to the Rio Caura crosses the bed
+of the river. The proximity of the tributary streams of the Carony,
+the Caura, and the Ventuari, has facilitated for ages the access of
+the Caribs to the banks of the Upper Orinoco. Bands of this warlike
+and trading people went up from the Rio Carony, by the Paragua, to the
+sources of the Paruspa. A portage conducted them to the Chavarro, an
+eastern tributary stream of the Rio Caura; they descended with their
+canoes first this stream, and then the Caura itself as far as the
+mouth of the Erevato. After having gone up this last river south-west,
+and traversed vast savannahs for three days, they entered by the
+Manipiare into the great Rio Ventuari. I trace this road with
+precision not only because it was that by which the traffic of native
+slaves was carried on, but also to call the attention of those, who at
+some future day may rule the destiny of Guiana, to the high importance
+of this labyrinth of rivers.
+
+It is by the four largest tributary streams, which the majestic river
+of the Orinoco receives on the right (the Carony, the Caura, the
+Padamo, and the Ventuari), that European civilization will one day
+penetrate into this region of forests and mountains, which has a
+surface of ten thousand six hundred square leagues, and which is
+bounded by the Orinoco on the north, the west, and the south. The
+Capuchins of Catalonia and the Observantins of Andalusia and Valencia,
+have already made settlements in the valleys of the Carony and the
+Caura. The tributary streams of the Lower Orinoco, being the nearest
+to the coast and to the cultivated region of Venezuela, were naturally
+the first to receive missionaries, and with them some germs of social
+life. Corresponding to the Carony and the Caura, which flow toward the
+north, are two great tributary streams of the Upper Orinoco, that send
+their waters toward the south; these are the Padamo and the Ventuari.
+No village has hitherto risen on their banks, though they offer
+advantages for agriculture and pasturage, which would be sought in
+vain in the valley of the immense river to which they are tributary.
+In the centre of these wild countries, where there will long be no
+other road than the rivers, every project of civilization should be
+founded on an intimate knowledge of the hydraulic features of the
+country, and the relative importance of the tributary streams.
+
+In the morning of the 26th of May we left the little village of Santa
+Barbara, where we found several Indians of Esmeralda, who had come
+reluctantly, by order of the missionary, to construct for him a house
+of two stories. During the whole day we enjoyed the view of the fine
+mountains of Sipapo, which rise at a distance of more than eighteen
+leagues in the direction of north-north-west. The vegetation of the
+banks of the Orinoco is singularly varied in this part of the country;
+the aborescent ferns* descend from the mountains, and mingle with the
+palm-trees of the plain. (* The geographical distribution of these
+plants is extremely singular. Scarcely any are found on the eastern
+coast of Brazil. See the interesting work of Prince Maximilian of
+Neuwied, Reise nach Brasilien volume 1 page 274.) We rested that night
+on the island of Minisi; and, after having passed the mouths of the
+little rivers Quejanuma, Ubua, and Masao, we arrived, on the 27th of
+May, at San Fernando de Atabapo. We lodged in the same house which we
+had occupied a month previously, when going up the Rio Negro. We then
+directed our course towards the south, by the Atabapo and the Temi; we
+were now returning from the west, having made a long circuit by the
+Cassiquiare and the Upper Orinoco.
+
+We remained only one day at San Fernando de Atabapo, although that
+village, adorned as it was by the pirijao palm-tree, with fruit like
+peaches, appeared to us a delicious abode. Tame pauxis* (* Not the
+ourax of Cuvier, Crax pauxi Linn., but the Crax alector.) surrounded
+the Indian huts; in one of which we saw a very rare monkey, which
+inhabits the banks of the Guaviare. This monkey is the caparro, which
+I have made known in my Observations on Zoology and comparative
+Anatomy; it forms, as Geoffroy believes, a new genus (Lagothrix)
+between the ateles and the alouates. The hair of this monkey is grey,
+like that of the marten, and extremely soft to the touch. The caparro
+is distinguished by a round head, and a mild and agreeable expression
+of countenance. I believe the missionary Gili is the only author who
+has made mention before me of this curious animal, around which
+zoologists begin to group other monkeys of Brazil. Having quitted San
+Fernando on the 27th of May, we arrived, by help of the rapid current
+of the Orinoco, in seven hours, at the mouth of the Rio Mataveni. We
+passed the night in the open air, under the granitic rock El
+Castillito, which rises in the middle of the river, and the form of
+which reminded us of the ruin called the Mouse-tower (Mausethurm), on
+the Rhine, opposite Bingen. Here, as on the banks of the Atabapo, we
+were struck by the sight of a small species of drosera, having exactly
+the appearance of the drosera of Europe.
+
+The Orinoco had sensibly swelled during the night; and the current,
+strongly accelerated, bore us, in ten hours, from the mouth of the
+Mataveni to the Upper Great Cataract, that of Maypures, or Quituna.
+The distance which we passed over was thirteen leagues. We recalled to
+mind, with much satisfaction, the scenes where we had reposed in going
+up the river. We again found the Indians who had accompanied us in our
+herborizations; and we visited anew the fine spring that issues from a
+rock of stratified granite behind the house of the missionary: its
+temperature was not changed more than 0.3 degrees. From the mouth of
+the Atabapo as far as that of the Apure we seemed to be travelling as
+through a country which we had long inhabited. We were reduced to the
+same abstinence; we were stung by the same mosquitos; but the
+certainty of reaching in a few weeks the term of our physical
+sufferings kept up our spirits.
+
+The passage of the canoe through the Great Cataract obliged us to stop
+two days at Maypures. Father Bernardo Zea, missionary at the Raudales,
+who had accompanied us to the Rio Negro, though ill, insisted on
+conducting us with his Indians as far as Atures. One of these Indians,
+Zerepe, the interpreter, who had been so unmercifully punished at the
+beach of Pararuma, rivetted our attention by his appearance of deep
+sorrow. We learned that his grief was caused by the loss of a young
+girl to whom he was engaged, and that he had lost her in consequence
+of false intelligence which had been spread respecting the direction
+of our journey. Zerepe, who was a native of Maypures, had been brought
+up in the woods by his parents, who were of the tribe of the Macos. He
+had brought with him to the mission a girl of twelve years of age,
+whom he intended to marry at our return from the Cataracts. The Indian
+girl was little pleased with the life of the missions, and she was
+told that the whites would go to the country of the Portuguese
+(Brazil), and would take Zerepe with them. Disappointed in her hopes,
+she seized a boat, and with another girl of her own age, crossed the
+Great Cataract, and fled al monte. The recital of this courageous
+adventure was the great news of the place. The affliction of Zerepe,
+however, was not of long duration. Born among the Christians, having
+travelled as far as the foot of the Rio Negro, understanding Spanish
+and the language of the Macos, he thought himself superior to the
+people of his tribe, and he no doubt soon forgot his forest love.
+
+On the 31st of May we passed the rapids of Guahibos and Garcita. The
+islands which rise in the middle of the waters of the river were
+overspread with the purest verdure. The rains of winter had unfolded
+the spathes of the vadgiai palm-tree, the leaves of which rise
+straight toward the sky. The eye is never wearied of the view of those
+scenes, where the trees and rocks give the landscape that grand and
+severe character which we admire in the background of the pictures of
+Salvator Rosa. We landed before sunset on the eastern bank of the
+Orinoco, at the Puerto de la Expedicion, in order to visit the cavern
+of Ataruipe, which is the place of sepulchre of a whole nation
+destroyed. I shall attempt to describe this cavern, so celebrated
+among the natives.
+
+We climbed with difficulty, and not without some danger, a steep rock
+of granite, entirely bare. It would have been almost impossible to fix
+the foot on its smooth and sloping surface, if large crystals of
+feldspar, resisting decomposition, did not stand out from the rock,
+and furnish points of support. Scarcely had we attained the summit of
+the mountain when we beheld with astonishment the singular aspect of
+the surrounding country. The foamy bed of the waters is filled with an
+archipelago of islands covered with palm-trees. Westward, on the left
+bank of the Orinoco, the wide-stretching savannahs of the Meta and the
+Casanare resembled a sea of verdure. The setting sun seemed like a
+globe of fire suspended over the plain, and the solitary Peak of
+Uniana, which appeared more lofty from being wrapped in vapours which
+softened its outline, all contributed to augment the majesty of the
+scene. Immediately below us lay a deep valley, enclosed on every side.
+Birds of prey and goatsuckers winged their lonely flight in this
+inaccessible circus. We found a pleasure in following with the eye
+their fleeting shadows, as they glided slowly over the flanks of the
+rock.
+
+A narrow ridge led us to a neighbouring mountain, the rounded summit
+of which supported immense blocks of granite. These masses are more
+than forty or fifty feet in diameter; and their form is so perfectly
+spherical, that, as they appear to touch the soil only by a small
+number of points, it might be supposed, at the least shock of an
+earthquake, they would roll into the abyss. I do not remember to have
+seen anywhere else a similar phenomenon, amid the decompositions of
+granitic soils. If the balls rested on a rock of a different nature,
+as in the blocks of Jura, we might suppose that they had been rounded
+by the action of water, or thrown out by the force of an elastic
+fluid; but their position on the summit of a hill alike granitic,
+makes it more probable that they owe their origin to the progressive
+decomposition of the rock.
+
+The most remote part of the valley is covered by a thick forest. In
+this shady and solitary spot, on the declivity of a steep mountain,
+the cavern of Ataruipe opens to the view. It is less a cavern than a
+jutting rock in which the waters have scooped a vast hollow when, in
+the ancient revolutions of our planet, they attained that height.* (*
+I saw no vein, no hole (four) filled with crystals. The decomposition
+of granitic rocks, and their separation into large masses, dispersed
+in the plains and valleys in the form of blocks and balls with
+concentric layers, appear to favour the enlarging of these natural
+excavations, which resemble real caverns.) In this tomb of a whole
+extinct tribe we soon counted nearly six hundred skeletons well
+preserved, and regularly placed. Every skeleton reposes in a sort of
+basket made of the petioles of the palm-tree. These baskets, which the
+natives call mapires, have the form of a square bag. Their size is
+proportioned to the age of the dead; there are some for infants cut
+off at the moment of their birth. We saw them from ten inches to three
+feet four inches long, the skeletons in them being bent together. They
+are all ranged near each other, and are so entire that not a rib or a
+phalanx is wanting. The bones have been prepared in three different
+manners, either whitened in the air and the sun, dyed red with anoto,
+or, like mummies, varnished with odoriferous resins, and enveloped in
+leaves of the heliconia or of the plantain-tree. The Indians informed
+us that the fresh corpse is placed in damp ground, that the flesh may
+be consumed by degrees; some months afterwards it is taken out, and
+the flesh remaining on the bones is scraped off with sharp stones.
+Several hordes in Guiana still observe this custom. Earthen vases
+half-baked are found near the mapires or baskets. They appear to
+contain the bones of the same family. The largest of these vases, or
+funeral urns, are five feet high, and three feet three inches long.
+Their colour is greenish-grey, and their oval form is pleasing to the
+eye. The handles are made in the shape of crocodiles or serpents; the
+edges are bordered with painted meanders, labyrinths, and grecques, in
+rows variously combined. Such designs are found in every zone among
+nations the farthest removed from each other, either with respect to
+their respective positions on the globe, or to the degree of
+civilization which they have attained. They still adorn the common
+pottery made by the inhabitants of the little mission of Maypures;
+they ornament the bucklers of the Otaheitans, the fishing-implements
+of the Esquimaux, the walls of the Mexican palace of Mitla, and the
+vases of ancient Greece.
+
+We could not acquire any precise idea of the period to which the
+origin of the mapires and the painted vases, contained in the
+bone-cavern of Ataruipe, can be traced. The greater part seemed not to
+be more than a century old; but it may be supposed that, sheltered
+from all humidity under the influence of a uniform temperature, the
+preservation of these articles would be no less perfect if their
+origin dated from a period far more remote. A tradition circulates
+among the Guahibos, that the warlike Atures, pursued by the Caribs,
+escaped to the rocks that rise in the middle of the Great Cataracts;
+and there that nation, heretofore so numerous, became gradually
+extinct, as well as its language. The last families of the Atures
+still existed in 1767, in the time of the missionary Gili. At the
+period of our voyage an old parrot was shown at Maypures, of which the
+inhabitants said, and the fact is worthy of observation, that they did
+not understand what it said, because it spoke the language of the
+Atures.
+
+We opened, to the great concern of our guides, several mapires, for
+the purpose of examining attentively the form of the skulls. They were
+all marked by the characteristics of the American race, with the
+exception of two or three, which approached indubitably to the
+Caucasian. In the middle of the Cataracts, in the most inaccessible
+spots, cases are found strengthened with iron bands, and filled with
+European tools, vestiges of clothes, and glass trinkets. These
+articles, which have given rise to the most absurd reports of
+treasures hidden by the Jesuits, probably belonged to Portuguese
+traders who had penetrated into these savage countries. May we suppose
+that the skulls of European race, which we saw mingled with the
+skeletons of the natives, and preserved with the same care, were the
+remains of some Portuguese travellers who had died of sickness, or had
+been killed in battle? The aversion evinced by the natives for
+whatever is not of their own race renders this hypothesis little
+probable. Perhaps fugitive mestizos of the missions of the Meta and
+Apure may have come and settled near the Cataracts, marrying women of
+the tribe of the Atures. Such mixed marriages sometimes take place in
+this zone, though they are more rare than in Canada, and in the whole
+of North America, where hunters of European origin unite themselves
+with savages, assume their habits, and sometimes acquire great
+political influence.
+
+We took several skulls, the skeleton of a child of six or seven years
+old, and two of full-grown men of the nation of the Atures, from the
+cavern of Ataruipe. All these bones, partly painted red, partly
+varnished with odoriferous resins, were placed in the baskets (mapires
+or canastos) which we have just described. They made almost the whole
+load of a mule; and as we knew the superstitious feelings of the
+Indians in reference to the remains of the dead after burial, we
+carefully enveloped the canastos in mats recently woven. Unfortunately
+for us, the penetration of the Indians, and the extreme quickness of
+their sense of smelling, rendered all our precautions useless.
+Wherever we stopped, in the missions of the Caribbees, amid the
+Llanos, between Angostura and Nueva Barcelona, the natives assembled
+round our mules to admire the monkeys which we had purchased at the
+Orinoco. These good people had scarcely touched our baggage, when they
+announced the approaching death of the beast of burden that carried
+the dead. In vain we told them that they were deceived in their
+conjectures; and that the baskets contained the bones of crocodiles
+and manatees; they persisted in repeating that they smelt the resin
+that surrounded the skeletons, and that they were their old relations.
+We were obliged to request that the monks would interpose their
+authority, to overcome the aversion of the natives, and procure for us
+a change of mules.
+
+One of the skulls, which we took from the cavern of Ataruipe, has
+appeared in the fine work published by my old master, Blumenbach, on
+the varieties of the human species. The skeletons of the Indians were
+lost on the coast of Africa, together with a considerable part of our
+collections, in a shipwreck, in which perished our friend and
+fellow-traveller, Fray Juan Gonzales, the young monk of the order of
+Saint Francis.
+
+We withdrew in silence from the cavern of Ataruipe. It was one of
+those calm and serene nights which are so common in the torrid zone.
+The stars shone with a mild and planetary light. Their scintillation
+was scarcely sensible at the horizon, which seemed illumined by the
+great nebulae of the southern hemisphere. An innumerable multitude of
+insects spread a reddish light upon the ground, loaded with plants,
+and resplendent with these living and moving fires, as if the stars of
+the firmament had sunk down on the savannah. On quitting the cavern we
+stopped several times to admire the beauty of this singular scene. The
+odoriferous vanilla and festoons of bignonia decorated the entrance;
+and above, on the summit of the hill, the arrowy branches of the
+palm-trees waved murmuring in the air. We descended towards the river,
+to take the road to the mission, where we arrived late in the night.
+Our imagination was struck by all we had just seen. Occupied
+continually by the present, in a country where the traveller is
+tempted to regard human society as a new institution, he is more
+powerfully interested by remembrances of times past. These
+remembrances were not indeed of a distant date; but in all that is
+monumental antiquity is a relative idea, and we easily confound what
+is ancient with what is obscure and problematic. The Egyptians
+considered the historical remembrances of the Greeks as very recent.
+If the Chinese, or, as they prefer calling themselves, the inhabitants
+of the Celestial Empire, could have communicated with the priests of
+Heliopolis, they would have smiled at those pretensions of the
+Egyptians to antiquity. Contrasts not less striking are found in the
+north of Europe and of Asia, in the New World, and in every region
+where the human race has not preserved a long consciousness of itself.
+The migration of the Toltecs, the most ancient historical event on the
+tableland of Mexico, dates only in the sixth century of our era. The
+introduction of a good system of intercalation, and the reform of the
+calendars, the indispensable basis of an accurate chronology, took
+place in the year 1091. These epochs, which to us appear so modern,
+fall on fabulous times, when we reflect on the history of our species
+between the banks of the Orinoco and the Amazon. We there see symbolic
+figures sculptured on the rocks, but no tradition throws light upon
+their origin. In the hot part of Guiana we can go back only to the
+period when the Castilian and Portuguese conquerors, and more recently
+peaceful monks, penetrated amid so many barbarous nations.
+
+It appears that to the north of the Cataracts, in the strait of
+Baraguan, there are caverns filled with bones, similar to those I have
+just described: but I was informed of this fact only after my return;
+our Indian pilots did not mention it when we landed at the strait.
+These tombs no doubt have given rise to a fable of the Ottomacs,
+according to which the granitic and solitary rocks of Baraguan, the
+forms of which are very singular, are regarded as the grandfathers,
+the ancient chiefs of the tribe. The custom of separating the flesh
+from the bones, very anciently practised by the Massagetes, is still
+known among several hordes of the Orinoco. It is even asserted, and
+with some probability, that the Guaraons plunge their dead bodies
+under water enveloped in nets; and that the small caribe-fishes, of
+which we saw everywhere an innumerable quantity, devour in a few days
+the muscular flesh, and thus prepare the skeleton. It may be supposed
+that this operation can be practised only in places where crocodiles
+are not common. Some tribes, for instance the Tamanacs, are accustomed
+to lay waste the fields of a deceased relative, and cut down the trees
+which he has planted. They say that the sight of objects which
+belonged to their relation makes them melancholy. They like better to
+efface than to preserve remembrances. These effects of Indian
+sensibility are very detrimental to agriculture, and the monks oppose
+with energy these superstitious practices, to which the natives
+converted to Christianity still adhere in the missions.
+
+The tombs of the Indians of the Orinoco have not been very closely
+examined, because they do not contain valuable articles like those of
+Peru; and even on the spot no faith is now lent to the chimerical
+ideas, which were heretofore formed of the wealth of the ancient
+inhabitants of El Dorado. The thirst of gold everywhere precedes the
+desire of instruction, and a taste for researches into antiquity; in
+all the mountainous part of South America, from Merida and Santa
+Martha to the table-lands of Quito and Upper Peru, the labours of
+absolute mining have been undertaken to discover tombs, or, as the
+Creoles say, employing a word altered from the Inca language, guacas.
+When in Peru, at Mancichi, I went into the guaca from which, in the
+sixteenth century, masses of gold of great value were extracted. No
+trace of the precious metals has been found in the caverns which have
+served the natives of Guiana for ages as sepulchres. This circumstance
+proves that even at the period when the Caribs, and other travelling
+nations, made incursions to the south-west, gold had flowed in very
+small quantities from the mountains of Peru towards the eastern
+plains.
+
+Wherever the granitic rocks do not present any of those large cavities
+caused by their decomposition, or by an accumulation of their blocks,
+the Indians deposit their dead in the earth. The hammock (chinchorro),
+a kind of net in which the deceased had reposed during his life,
+serves for a coffin. This net is fastened tight round the body, a hole
+is dug in the hut, and there the body is laid. This is the most usual
+method, according to the account of the missionary Gili, and it
+accords with what I myself learned from Father Zea. I do not believe
+that there exists one tumulus in Guiana, not even in the plains of the
+Cassiquiare and the Essequibo. Some, however, are to be met with in
+the savannahs of Varinas, as in Canada, to the west of the
+Alleghenies.* (* Mummies and skeletons contained in baskets were
+recently discovered in a cavern in the United States. It is believed
+they belong to a race of men analogous to that of the Sandwich
+Islands. The description of these tombs has some similitude with that
+of the tombs of Ataruipe.) It seems remarkable enough that,
+notwithstanding the extreme abundance of wood in those countries, the
+natives of the Orinoco were as little accustomed as the ancient
+Scythians to burn the dead. Sometimes they formed funeral piles for
+that purpose; but only after a battle, when the number of the dead was
+considerable. In 1748, the Parecas burned not only the bodies of their
+enemies, the Tamanacs, but also those of their own people who fell on
+the field of battle. The Indians of South America, like all nations in
+a state of nature, are strongly attached to the spots where the bones
+of their fathers repose. This feeling, which a great writer has
+beautifully painted in the episode of Atala, is cherished in all its
+primitive ardour by the Chinese. These people among whom everything is
+the produce of art, or rather of the most ancient civilization, do not
+change their dwelling without carrying along with them the bones of
+their ancestors. Coffins are seen deposited on the banks of great
+rivers, to be transported, with the furniture of the family, to a
+remote province. These removals of bones, heretofore more common among
+the savages of North America, are not practised among the tribes of
+Guiana; but these are not nomad, like nations who live exclusively by
+hunting.
+
+We stayed at the mission of Atures only during the time necessary for
+passing the canoe through the Great Cataract. The bottom of our frail
+bark had become so thin that it required great care to prevent it from
+splitting. We took leave of the missionary, Bernardo Zea, who remained
+at Atures, after having accompanied us during two months, and shared
+all our sufferings. This poor monk still continued to have fits of
+tertian ague; they had become to him an habitual evil, to which he
+paid little attention. Other fevers of a more fatal kind prevailed at
+Atures on our second visit. The greater part of the Indians could not
+leave their hammocks, and we were obliged to send in search of
+cassava-bread, the most indispensable food of the country, to the
+independent but neighbouring tribe of the Piraoas. We had hitherto
+escaped these malignant fevers, which I believe to be always
+contagious.
+
+We ventured to pass in our canoe through the latter half of the Raudal
+of Atures. We landed here and there, to climb upon the rocks, which
+like narrow dikes joined the islands to one another. Sometimes the
+waters force their way over the dikes, sometimes they fall within them
+with a hollow noise. A considerable portion of the Orinoco was dry,
+because the river had found an issue by subterraneous caverns. In
+these solitary haunts the rock-manakin with gilded plumage (Pipra
+rupicola), one of the most beautiful birds of the tropics, builds its
+nest. The Raudalito of Carucari is caused by an accumulation of
+enormous blocks of granite, several of which are spheroids of five or
+six feet in diameter, and they are piled together in such a manner, as
+to form spacious caverns. We entered one of these caverns to gather
+the confervas that were spread over the clefts and humid sides of the
+rock. This spot displayed one of the most extraordinary scenes of
+nature that we had contemplated on the banks of the Orinoco. The river
+rolled its waters turbulently over our heads. It seemed like the sea
+dashing against reefs of rocks; but at the entrance of the cavern we
+could remain dry beneath a large sheet of water that precipitated
+itself in an arch from above the barrier. In other cavities, deeper,
+but less spacious, the rock was pierced by the effect of successive
+filtrations. We saw columns of water, eight or nine inches broad,
+descending from the top of the vault, and finding an issue by clefts,
+that seemed to communicate at great distances with each other.
+
+The cascades of Europe, forming only one fall, or several falls close
+to each other, can never produce such variety in the shifting
+landscape. This variety is peculiar to rapids, to a succession of
+small cataracts several miles in length, to rivers that force their
+way across rocky dikes and accumulated blocks of granite. We had the
+opportunity of viewing this extraordinary sight longer than we wished.
+Our boat was to coast the eastern bank of a narrow island, and to take
+us in again after a long circuit. We passed an hour and a half in vain
+expectation of it. Night approached, and with it a tremendous storm.
+It rained with violence. We began to fear that our frail bark had been
+wrecked against the rocks, and that the Indians, conformably to their
+habitual indifference for the evils of others, had returned tranquilly
+to the mission. There were only three of us: we were completely wet,
+and uneasy respecting the fate of our boat: it appeared far from
+agreeable to pass, without sleep, a long night of the torrid zone amid
+the noise of the Raudales. M. Bonpland proposed to leave me in the
+island with Don Nicolas Soto, and to swim across the branches of the
+river that are separated by the granitic dikes. He hoped to reach the
+forest, and seek assistance at Atures from Father Zea. We dissuaded
+him with difficulty from undertaking this hazardous enterprise. He
+knew little of the labyrinth of small channels, into which the Orinoco
+is divided. Most of them have strong whirlpools, and what passed
+before our eyes while we were deliberating on our situation, proved
+sufficiently that the natives had deceived us respecting the absence
+of crocodiles in the cataracts. The little monkeys which we had
+carried along with us for months were deposited on the point of our
+island. Wet by the rains and sensible of the least lowering of the
+temperature, these delicate animals sent forth plaintive cries, and
+attracted to the spot two crocodiles, the size and leaden colour of
+which denoted their great age. Their unexpected appearance made us
+reflect on the danger we had incurred by bathing, at our first passing
+by the mission of Atures, in the middle of the Raudal. After long
+waiting, the Indians at length arrived at the close of day. The
+natural coffer-dam by which they had endeavoured to descend in order
+to make the circuit of the island, had become impassable owing to the
+shallowness of the water. The pilot sought long for a more accessible
+passage in this labyrinth of rocks and islands. Happily our canoe was
+not damaged and in less than half an hour our instruments, provision,
+and animals, were embarked.
+
+We pursued our course during a part of the night, to pitch our tent
+again in the island of Panumana. We recognized with pleasure the spots
+where we had botanized when going up the Orinoco. We examined once
+more on the beach of Guachaco that small formation of sandstone, which
+reposes directly on granite. Its position is the same as that of the
+sandstone which Burckhardt observed at the entrance of Nubia,
+superimposed on the granite of Syene. We passed, without visiting it,
+the new mission of San Borga, where (as we learned with regret a few
+days after) the little colony of Guahibos had fled al monte, from the
+chimerical fear that we should carry them off; to sell them as poitos,
+or slaves. After having passed the rapids of Tabaje, and the Raudal of
+Cariven, near the mouth of the great Rio Meta, we arrived without
+accident at Carichana. The missionary received us with that kind
+hospitality which he extended to us on our first passage. The sky was
+unfavourable for astronomical observations; we had obtained some new
+ones in the two Great Cataracts; but thence, as far as the mouth of
+the Apure, we were obliged to renounce the attempt. M. Bonpland had
+the satisfaction at Carichana of dissecting a manatee more than nine
+feet long. It was a female, and the flesh appeared to us not
+unsavoury. I have spoken in another place of the manner of catching
+this herbivorous cetacea. The Piraoas, some families of whom inhabit
+the mission of Carichana, detest this animal to such a degree, that
+they hid themselves, to avoid being obliged to touch it, whilst it was
+being conveyed to our hut. They said that the people of their tribe
+die infallibly when they eat of it. This prejudice is the more
+singular, as the neighbours of the Piraoas, the Guamos and the
+Ottomacs, are very fond of the flesh of the manatee. The flesh of the
+crocodile is also an object of horror to some tribes, and of
+predilection to others.
+
+The island of Cuba furnishes a fact little known in the history of the
+manatee. South of the port of Xagua, several miles from the coast,
+there are springs of fresh water in the middle of the sea. They are
+supposed to be owing to a hydrostatic pressure existing in
+subterraneous channels, communicating with the lofty mountains of
+Trinidad. Small vessels sometimes take in water there; and, what is
+well worthy of observation, large manatees remain habitually in those
+spots. I have already called the attention of naturalists to the
+crocodiles which advance from the mouth of rivers far into the sea.
+Analogous circumstances may have caused, in the ancient catastrophes
+of our planet, that singular mixture of pelagian and fluviatile bones
+and petrifactions, which is observed in some rocks of recent
+formation.
+
+Our stay at Carichana was very useful in recruiting our strength after
+our fatigues. M. Bonpland bore with him the germs of a cruel malady;
+he needed repose; but as the delta of the tributary streams included
+between the Horeda and Paruasi is covered with a rich vegetation, he
+made long herbalizations, and was wet through several times in a day.
+We found, fortunately, in the house of the missionary, the most
+attentive care; we were supplied with bread made of maize flour, and
+even with milk. The cows yield milk plentifully enough in the lower
+regions of the torrid zone, wherever good pasturage is found. I call
+attention to this fact, because local circumstances have spread
+through the Indian Archipelago the prejudice of considering hot
+climates as repugnant to the secretion of milk. We may conceive the
+indifference of the inhabitants of the New World for a milk diet, the
+country having been originally destitute of animals capable of
+furnishing it*; (* The reindeer are not domesticated in Greenland as
+they are in Lapland; and the Esquimaux care little for their milk. The
+bisons taken very young accustom themselves, on the west of the
+Alleghenies, to graze with herds of European cows. The females in some
+districts of India yield a little milk, but the natives have never
+thought of milking them. What is the origin of that fabulous story
+related by Gomara (chapter 43 page 36) according to which the first
+Spanish navigators saw, on the coast of South Carolina, stags led to
+the savannahs by herdsmen? The female bisons, according to Mr.
+Buchanan and the philosophical historian of the Indian Archipelago,
+Mr. Crawford, yield more milk than common cows.) but how can we avoid
+being astonished at this indifference in the immense Chinese
+population, living in great part beyond the tropics, and in the same
+latitude with the nomad and pastoral tribes of central Asia? If the
+Chinese have ever been a pastoral people, how have they lost the
+tastes and habits so intimately connected with that state, which
+precedes agricultural institutions? These questions are interesting
+with respect both to the history of the nations of oriental Asia, and
+to the ancient communications that are supposed to have existed
+between that part of the world and the north of Mexico.
+
+We went down the Orinoco in two days, from Carichana to the mission of
+Uruana, after having again passed the celebrated strait of Baraguan.
+We stopped several times to determine the velocity of the river, and
+its temperature at the surface, which was 27.4 degrees. The velocity
+was found to be two feet in a second (sixty-two toises in 3 minutes 6
+seconds) in places where the bed of the Orinoco was more than twelve
+thousand feet broad, and from ten to twelve fathoms deep. The slope of
+the river is in fact extremely gentle from the Great Cataracts to
+Angostura; and, if a barometric measurement were wanting, the
+difference of height might be determined by approximation, by
+measuring from time to time the velocity of the stream, and the extent
+of the section in breadth and depth. We had some observations of the
+stars at Uruana. I found the latitude of the mission to be 7 degrees 8
+minutes; but the results from different stars left a doubt of more
+than 1 minute. The stratum of mosquitos, which hovered over the
+ground, was so thick that I could not succeed in rectifying properly
+the artificial horizon. I tormented myself in vain; and regretted that
+I was not provided with a mercurial horizon. On the 7th of June, good
+absolute altitudes of the sun gave me 69 degrees 40 minutes for the
+longitude. We had advanced from Esmeralda 1 degree 17 minutes toward
+the west, and this chronometric determination merits entire confidence
+on account of the double observations, made in going and returning, at
+the Great Cataracts, and at the confluence of the Atabapo and of the
+Apure.
+
+The situation of the mission of Uruana is extremely picturesque. The
+little Indian village stands at the foot of a lofty granitic mountain.
+Rocks everywhere appear in the form of pillars above the forest,
+rising higher than the tops of the tallest trees. The aspect of the
+Orinoco is nowhere more majestic than when viewed from the hut of the
+missionary, Fray Ramon Bueno. It is more than two thousand six hundred
+toises broad, and it runs without any winding, like a vast canal,
+straight toward the east. Two long and narrow islands (Isla de Uruana
+and Isla vieja de la Manteca) contribute to give extent to the bed of
+the river; the two banks are parallel, and we cannot call it divided
+into different branches. The mission is inhabited by the Ottomacs, a
+tribe in the rudest state, and presenting one of the most
+extraordinary physiological phenomena. They eat earth; that is, they
+swallow every day, during several months, very considerable
+quantities, to appease hunger, and this practice does not appear to
+have any injurious effect on their health. Though we could stay only
+one day at Uruana, this short space of time sufficed to make us
+acquainted with the preparation of the poya, or balls of earth. I also
+found some traces of this vitiated appetite among the Guamos; and
+between the confluence of the Meta and the Apure, where everybody
+speaks of dirt-eating as of a thing anciently known. I shall here
+confine myself to an account of what we ourselves saw or heard from
+the missionary, who had been doomed to live for twelve years among the
+savage and turbulent tribe of the Ottomacs.
+
+The inhabitants of Uruana belong to those nations of the savannahs
+called wandering Indians (Indios andantes) who, more difficult to
+civilize than the nations of the forest (Indios del monte), have a
+decided aversion to cultivate the land, and live almost exclusively by
+hunting and fishing. They are men of very robust constitution; but
+ill-looking, savage, vindictive, and passionately fond of fermented
+liquors. They are omnivorous animals in the highest degree; and
+therefore the other Indians, who consider them as barbarians, have a
+common saying, nothing is so loathsome but that an Ottomac will eat
+it. While the waters of the Orinoco and its tributary streams are low,
+the Ottomacs subsist on fish and turtles. The former they kill with
+surprising dexterity, by shooting them with an arrow when they appear
+at the surface of the water. When the rivers swell fishing almost
+entirely ceases.* (* In South America, as in Egypt and Nubia, the
+swelling of the rivers, which occurs periodically in every part of the
+torrid zone, is erroneously attributed to the melting of the snows.)
+It is then very difficult to procure fish, which often fails the poor
+missionaries, on fast-days as well as flesh-days, though all the young
+Indians are under the obligation of fishing for the convent. During
+the period of these inundations, which last two or three months, the
+Ottomacs swallow a prodigious quantity of earth. We found heaps of
+earth-balls in their huts, piled up in pyramids three or four feet
+high. These balls were five or six inches in diameter. The earth which
+the Ottomacs eat is a very fine and unctuous clay of a yellowish grey
+colour; and, when being slightly baked at the fire, the hardened crust
+has a tint inclining to red, owing to the oxide of iron which is
+mingled with it. We brought away some of this earth, which we took
+from the winter-provision of the Indians; and it is a mistake to
+suppose that it is steatitic, and that it contains magnesia. Vauquelin
+did not discover any traces of that substance in it but he found that
+it contained more silex than alumina, and three or four per cent of
+lime.
+
+The Ottomacs do not eat every kind of clay indifferently; they choose
+the alluvial beds or strata, which contain the most unctuous earth,
+and the smoothest to the touch. I inquired of the missionary whether
+the moistened clay were made to undergo that peculiar decomposition
+which is indicated by a disengagement of carbonic acid and
+sulphuretted hydrogen, and which is designated in every language by
+the term of putrefaction; but he assured us that the natives neither
+cause the clay to rot, nor do they mingle it with flour of maize, oil
+of turtle's eggs, or fat of the crocodile. We ourselves examined, both
+at the Orinoco and after our return to Paris, the balls of earth which
+we brought away with us, and found no trace of the mixture of any
+organic substance, whether oily or farinaceous. The savage regards
+every thing as nourishing that appeases hunger: when, therefore, you
+inquire of an Ottomac on what he subsists during the two months when
+the river is at its highest flood he shows you his balls of clayey
+earth. This he calls his principal food at the period when he can
+seldom procure a lizard, a root of fern, or a dead fish swimming at
+the surface of the water. If necessity force the Indians to eat earth
+during two months (and from three quarters to five quarters of a pound
+in twenty-four hours), he eats it from choice during the rest of the
+year. Every day in the season of drought, when fishing is most
+abundant, he scrapes his balls of poya, and mingles a little clay with
+his other aliment. It is most surprising that the Ottomacs do not
+become lean by swallowing such quantities of earth: they are, on the
+contrary, extremely robust. The missionary Fray Ramon Bueno asserts
+that he never remarked any alteration in the health of the natives at
+the period of the great risings of the Orinoco.
+
+The Ottomacs during some months eat daily three-quarters of a pound of
+clay slightly hardened by fire, but which they moisten before
+swallowing it. It has not been possible to verify hitherto with
+precision how much nutritious vegetable or animal matter they take in
+a week at the same time; but they attribute the sensation of satiety
+which they feel to the clay, and not to the wretched aliments which
+they take with it occasionally.
+
+No physiological phenomenon being entirely insulated, it may be
+interesting to examine several analogous phenomena, which I have been
+able to collect. I observed everywhere within the torrid zone, in a
+great number of individuals, children, women, and sometimes even
+full-grown men, an inordinate and almost irresistible desire of
+swallowing earth; not an alkaline or calcareous earth to neutralize
+(as it is said) acid juices, but a fat clay, unctuous, and exhaling a
+strong smell. It is often found necessary to tie the children's hands
+or to confine them to prevent them eating earth when the rain ceases
+to fall. At the village of Banco, on the bank of the river Magdalena,
+I saw the Indian women who make pottery continually swallowing great
+pieces of clay. These women were not in a state of pregnancy; and they
+affirmed that earth is an aliment which they do not find hurtful. In
+other American tribes, people soon fall sick, and waste away, when
+they yield too much to this mania of eating earth. We found at the
+mission of San Borja an Indian child of the Guahiba nation, who was as
+thin as a skeleton. The mother informed us that the little girl was
+reduced to this lamentable state of atrophy in consequence of a
+disordered appetite, she having refused during four months to take
+almost any other food than clay. Yet San Borja is only twenty-five
+leagues distant from the mission of Uruana, inhabited by that tribe of
+the Ottomacs, who, from the effect no doubt of a habit progressively
+acquired, swallow the poya without experiencing any pernicious
+effects. Father Gumilla asserts that the Ottomacs take as an aperient,
+oil, or rather the melted fat of the crocodile, when they feel any
+gastric obstructions; but the missionary whom we found among them was
+little disposed to confirm this assertion. It may be asked, why the
+mania of eating earth is much more rare in the frigid and temperate
+than in the torrid zones; and why in Europe it is found only among
+women in a state of pregnancy, and sickly children. This difference
+between hot and temperate climates arises perhaps only from the inert
+state of the functions of the stomach caused by strong cutaneous
+perspiration. It has been supposed to be observed that the inordinate
+taste for eating earth augments among the African slaves, and becomes
+more pernicious when they are restricted to a regimen purely vegetable
+and deprived of spirituous liquors.
+
+The negroes on the coast of Guinea delight in eating a yellowish
+earth, which they call caouac. The slaves who are taken to America
+endeavour to indulge in this habit; but it proves detrimental to their
+health. They say that the earth of the West Indies is not so easy of
+digestion as that of their country. Thibaut de Chanvalon, in his
+Voyage to Martinico, expresses himself very judiciously on this
+pathological phenomenon. "Another cause," he says, "of this pain in
+the stomach is that several of the negroes, who come from the coast of
+Guinea, eat earth; not from a depraved taste, or in consequence of
+disease, but from a habit contracted at home in Africa, where they
+eat, they say, a particular earth, the taste of which they find
+agreeable, without suffering any inconvenience. They seek in our
+islands for the earth most similar to this, and prefer a yellowish red
+volcanic tufa. It is sold secretly in our public markets; but this is
+an abuse which the police ought to correct. The negroes who have this
+habit are so fond of caouac, that no chastisement will prevent their
+eating it."
+
+In the Indian Archipelago, at the island of Java, Labillardiere saw,
+between Surabaya and Samarang, little square and reddish cakes exposed
+for sale. These cakes called tanaampo, were cakes of clay, slightly
+baked, which the natives eat with relish. The attention of
+physiologists, since my return from the Orinoco, having been
+powerfully directed to these phenomena of geophagy, M. Leschenault
+(one of the naturalists of the expedition to the Antarctic regions
+under the command of captain Baudin) has published some curious
+details on the tanaampo, or ampo, of the Javanese. "The reddish and
+somewhat ferruginous clay," he says "which the inhabitants of Java are
+fond of eating occasionally, is spread on a plate of iron, and baked,
+after having been rolled into little cylinders in the form of the bark
+of cinnamon. In this state it takes the name of ampo, and is sold in
+the public markets. This clay has a peculiar taste, which is owing to
+the baking: it is very absorbent, and adheres to the tongue, which it
+dries. In general it is only the Javanese women who eat the ampo,
+either in the time of pregnancy, or in order to grow thin; the absence
+of plumpness being there regarded as a kind of beauty. The use of this
+earth is fatal to health; the women lose their appetite imperceptibly,
+and take only with relish a very small quantity of food; but the
+desire of becoming thin, and of preserving a slender shape, induces
+them to brave these dangers, and maintains the credit of the ampo."
+The savage inhabitants of New Caledonia also, to appease their hunger
+in times of scarcity, eat great pieces of a friable Lapis ollaris.
+Vauquelin analysed this stone, and found in it, beside magnesia and
+silex in equal portions, a small quantity of oxide of copper. M.
+Goldberry had seen the negroes in Africa, in the islands of Bunck and
+Los Idolos, eat an earth of which he had himself eaten, without being
+incommoded by it, and which also was a white and friable steatite.
+These examples of earth-eating in the torrid zone appear very strange.
+We are struck by the anomaly of finding a taste, which might seem to
+belong only to the inhabitants of the most sterile regions, prevailing
+among races of rude and indolent men, who live in the finest and most
+fertile countries on the globe. We saw at Popayan, and in several
+mountainous parts of Peru, lime reduced to a very fine powder, sold in
+the public markets to the natives among other articles of food. This
+powder, when eaten, is mingled with coca, that is, with the leaves of
+the Erythroxylon peruvianum. It is well known that Indian messengers
+take no other aliment for whole days than lime and coca: both excite
+the secretion of saliva, and of the gastric juice; they take away the
+appetite, without affording any nourishment to the body. In other
+parts of South America, on the coast of Rio de la Hacha, the Guajiros
+swallow lime alone, without adding any vegetable matter to it. They
+carry with them a little box filled with lime, as we do snuff-boxes,
+and as in Asia people carry a betel-box. This American custom excited
+the curiosity of the first Spanish navigators. Lime blackens the
+teeth; and in the Indian Archipelago, as among several American
+hordes, to blacken the teeth is to beautify them. In the cold regions
+of the kingdom of Quito, the natives of Tigua eat habitually from
+choice, and without any injurious consequences, a very fine clay,
+mixed with quartzose sand. This clay, suspended in water, renders it
+milky. We find in their huts large vessels filled with this water,
+which serves as a beverage, and which the Indians call agua or leche
+de llanka.* (* Water or milk of clay. Llanka is a word of the general
+language of the Incas, signifying fine clay.)
+
+When we reflect on these facts, we perceive that the appetite for
+clayey, magnesian, and calcareous earth is most common among the
+people of the torrid zone; that it is not always a cause of disease;
+and that some tribes eat earth from choice, whilst others (as the
+Ottomacs in America, and the inhabitants of New Caledonia in the
+Pacific) eat it from want and to appease hunger. A great number of
+physiological phenomena prove that a temporary cessation of hunger may
+be produced though the substances that are submitted to the organs of
+digestion may not be, properly speaking, nutritive. The earth of the
+Ottomacs, composed of alumine and silex, furnishes probably nothing,
+or almost nothing, to the composition of the organs of man. These
+organs contain lime and magnesia in the bones, in the lymph of the
+thoracic duct, in the colouring matter of the blood, and in white
+hairs; they afford very small quantities of silex in black hair; and,
+according to Vauquelin, but a few atoms of alumine in the bones,
+though this is contained abundantly in the greater part of those
+vegetable substances which form part of our nourishment. It is not the
+same with man as with animated beings placed lower in the scale of
+organization. In the former, assimilation is exerted only on those
+substances that enter essentially into the composition of the bones,
+the muscles, and the medullary matter of the nerves and the brain.
+Plants, on the contrary, draw from the soil the salts that are found
+accidentally mixed in it; and their fibrous texture varies according
+to the nature of the earths that predominate in the spots which they
+inhabit. An object well worthy of research, and which has long fixed
+my attention, is the small number of simple substances (earthy and
+metallic) that enter into the composition of animated beings, and
+which alone appear fitted to maintain what we may call the chemical
+movement of vitality.
+
+We must not confound the sensations of hunger with that vague feeling
+of debility which is produced by want of nutrition, and by other
+pathologic causes. The sensation of hunger ceases long before
+digestion takes place, or the chyme is converted into chyle. It ceases
+either by a nervous and tonic impression exerted by the aliments on
+the coats of the stomach; or, because the digestive apparatus is
+filled with substances that excite the mucous membranes to an abundant
+secretion of the gastric juice. To this tonic impression on the nerves
+of the stomach the prompt and salutary effects of what are called
+nutritive medicaments may be attributed, such as chocolate, and every
+substance that gently stimulates and nourishes at the same time. It is
+the absence of a nervous stimulant that renders the solitary use of a
+nutritive substance (as starch, gum, or sugar) less favourable to
+assimilation, and to the reparation of the losses which the human body
+undergoes. Opium, which is not nutritive, is employed with success in
+Asia, in times of great scarcity; it acts as a tonic. But when the
+matter which fills the stomach can be regarded neither as an aliment,
+that is, as proper to be assimilated, nor as a tonic stimulating the
+nerves, the cessation of hunger is probably owing only to the
+secretion of the gastric juice. We here touch upon a problem of
+physiology which has not been sufficiently investigated. Hunger is
+appeased, the painful feeling of inanition ceases, when the stomach is
+filled. It is said that this viscus stands in need of ballast; and
+every language furnishes figurative expressions which convey the idea
+that a mechanical distension of the stomach causes an agreeable
+sensation. Recent works of physiology still speak of the painful
+contraction which the stomach experiences during hunger, the friction
+of its sides against one another, and the action of the gastric juice
+on the texture of the digestive apparatus. The observations of Bichat,
+and more particularly the fine experiments of Majendie, are in
+contradiction to these superannuated hypotheses. After twenty-four,
+forty-eight, or even sixty hours of abstinence, no contraction of the
+stomach is observed; it is only on the fourth or fifth day that this
+organ appears to change in a small degree its dimensions. The quantity
+of the gastric juice diminishes with the duration of abstinence. It is
+probable that this juice, far from accumulating, is digested as an
+alimentary substance. If a cat or dog be made to swallow a substance
+which is not susceptible of being digested, a pebble for instance, a
+mucous and acid liquid is formed abundantly in the cavity of the
+stomach, somewhat resembling in its composition the gastric juice of
+the human body. It appears to me very probable, that when the want of
+aliments compels the Ottomacs and the inhabitants of New Caledonia to
+swallow clay and steatite during a part of the year, these earths
+occasion a powerful secretion of the gastric and pancreatic juices in
+the digestive apparatus of these people. The observations which I made
+on the banks of the Orinoco, have been recently confirmed by the
+direct experiments of two distinguished young physiologists, MM.
+Cloquet and Breschet. After long fasting they ate as much as five
+ounces of a silvery green and very flexible laminar talc. Their hunger
+was completely satisfied, and they felt no inconvenience from a kind
+of food to which their organs were unaccustomed. It is known that
+great use is still made in the East of the bolar and sigillated earths
+of Lemnos, which are clay mingled with oxide of iron. In Germany the
+workmen employed in the quarries of sandstone worked at the mountain
+of Kiffhauser spread a very fine clay upon their bread, instead of
+butter, which they call steinbutter* (stone-butter). (* This
+steinbutter must not be confounded with the mountain butter
+(bergbutter) which is a saline substance, produced by a decomposition
+of aluminous schists.)
+
+The state of perfect health enjoyed by the Ottomacs during the time
+when they use little muscular exercise, and are subjected to so
+extraordinary a regimen, is a phenomenon difficult to be explained. It
+can be attributed only to a habit prolonged from generation to
+generation. The structure of the digestive apparatus differs much in
+animals that feed exclusively on flesh or on seeds; it is even
+probable that the gastric juice changes its nature, according as it is
+employed in effecting the digestion of animal or vegetable substances;
+yet we are able gradually to change the regimen of herbivorous and
+carnivorous animals, to feed the former with flesh, and the latter
+with vegetables. Man can accustom himself to an extraordinary
+abstinence and find it but little painful if he employ tonic or
+stimulating substances (various drugs, small quantities of opium,
+betel, tobacco, or leaves of coca); or if he supply his stomach, from
+time to time, with earthy insipid substances that are not in
+themselves fit for nutrition. Like man in a savage state some animals,
+when pressed by hunger in winter, swallow clay or friable steatites;
+such are the wolves in the northeast of Europe, the reindeer and,
+according to the testimony of M. Patrin, the kids in Siberia. The
+Russian hunters, on the banks of the Yenisei and the Amour, use a
+clayey matter which they call rock-butter, as a bait. The animals
+scent this clay from afar, and are fond of the smell; as the clays of
+bucaro, known in Portugal and Spain by the name of odoriferous earths
+(tierras olorosas), have an odour agreeable to women.* (* Bucaro (vas
+fictile odoriferum). People are fond of drinking out of these vessels
+on account of the smell of the clay. The women of the province of
+Alentejo acquire a habit of masticating the bucaro earth; and feel a
+great privation when they cannot indulge this vitiated taste.) Brown
+relates in his History of Jamaica that the crocodiles of South America
+swallow small stones and pieces of very hard wood, when the lakes
+which they inhabit are dry, or when they are in want of food. M.
+Bonpland and I observed in a crocodile, eleven feet long, which we
+dissected at Batallez, on the banks of the Rio Magdalena, that the
+stomach of this reptile contained half-digested fish, and rounded
+fragments of granite three or four inches in diameter. It is difficult
+to admit that the crocodiles swallow these stony masses accidentally,
+for they do not catch fish with their lower jaw resting on the ground
+at the bottom of the river. The Indians have framed the absurd
+hypothesis that these indolent animals like to augment their weight,
+that they may have less trouble in diving. I rather think that they
+load their stomach with large pebbles to excite an abundant secretion
+of the gastric juice. The experiments of Majendie render this
+explanation extremely probable. With respect to the habit of the
+granivorous birds, particularly the gallinaceae and ostriches, of
+swallowing sand and small pebbles, it has been hitherto attributed to
+an instinctive desire of accelerating the trituration of the aliments
+in a muscular and thick stomach.
+
+We have mentioned that tribes of Negroes on the Gambia mingle clay
+with their rice. Some families of Ottomacs were perhaps formerly
+accustomed to cause the maize and other farinaceous seeds to rot in
+their poya, in order to eat earth and amylaceous matter together:
+possibly it was a preparation of this kind, that Father Gumilla
+described indistinctly in the first volume of his work when he affirms
+that the Guamos and the Ottomacs feed upon earth only because it is
+impregnated with the sustancia del maiz (substance of maize) and the
+fat of the cayman. I have already observed that neither the present
+missionary of Uruana, nor Fray Juan Gonzales, who lived long in those
+countries, knew anything of this mixture of animal and vegetable
+substances with the poya. Perhaps Father Gumilla has confounded the
+preparation of the earth which the natives swallow with the custom
+they still retain (of which M. Bonpland acquired the certainty on the
+spot) of burying in the ground the beans of a species of mimosacea,*
+(* Of the genus Inga.) to cause them to enter into decomposition so as
+to reduce them into a white bread, savoury, but difficult of
+digestion. I repeat that the balls of poya, which we took from the
+winter stores of the Indians, contained no trace of animal fat, or of
+amylaceous matter. Gumilla being one of the most credulous travellers
+we know, it almost perplexes us to credit facts which even he has
+thought fit to reject. In the second volume of his work he however
+gainsays a great part of what he advanced in the first; he no longer
+doubts that half at least (a lo menos) of the bread of the Ottomacs
+and the Guamos is clay. He asserts, that children and full grown
+persons not only eat this bread without suffering in their health, but
+also great pieces of pure clay (muchos terrones de pura greda.) He
+adds that those who feel a weight on the stomach physic themselves
+with the fat of the crocodile which restores their appetite and
+enables them to continue to eat pure earth.* (* Gumilla volume 2 page
+260.) It is certain that the Guamos are very fond, if not of the fat,
+at least of the flesh of the crocodile, which appeared to us white,
+and without any smell of musk. In Sennaar, according to Burckhardt, it
+is equally esteemed, and sold in the markets.
+
+The little village of Uruana is more difficult to govern than most of
+the other missions. The Ottomacs are a restless, turbulent people,
+with unbridled passions. They are not only fond to excess of the
+fermented liquors prepared from cassava and maize, and of palm-wine,
+but they throw themselves into a peculiar state of intoxication, we
+might say of madness, by the use of the powder of niopo. They gather
+the long pods of a mimosacea which we have made known by the name of
+Acacia niopo,* cut them into pieces, moisten them, and cause them to
+ferment. (* It is an acacia with very delicate leaves, and not an
+Inga. We brought home another species of mimosacea (the chiga of the
+Ottomacs and the sepa of the Maypures) that yields seeds, the flour of
+which is eaten at Uruana like cassava. From this flour the chiga bread
+is prepared, which is so common at Cunariche, and on the banks of the
+Lower Orinoco. The chiga is a species of Inga, and I know of no other
+mimosacea that can supply the place of the cerealia.) When the
+softened seeds begin to grow black, they are kneaded like a paste;
+mixed with some flour of cassava and lime procured from the shell of a
+helix, and the whole mass is exposed to a very brisk fire, on a
+gridiron made of hard wood. The hardened paste takes the form of small
+cakes. When it is to be used, it is reduced to a fine powder, and
+placed on a dish five or six inches wide. The Ottomac holds this dish,
+which has a handle, in his right hand, while he inhales the niopo by
+the nose, through the forked bone of a bird, the two extremities of
+which are applied to the nostrils. This bone, without which the
+Ottomac believes that he could not take this kind of snuff, is seven
+inches long: it appeared to me to be the leg-bone of a large sort of
+plover. The niopo is so stimulating that the smallest portions of it
+produce violent sneezing in those who are not accustomed to its use.
+Father Gumilla says this diabolical powder of the Ottomacs, furnished
+by an arborescent tobacco-plant, intoxicates them through the nostrils
+(emboracha por las narices), deprives them of reason for some hours,
+and renders them furious in battle. However varied may be the family
+of the leguminous plants in the chemical and medical properties of
+their seeds, juices, and roots, we cannot believe, from what we know
+hitherto of the group of mimosaceae, that it is principally the pod of
+the Acacia niopo which imparts the stimulant power to the snuff of the
+Ottomacs. This power is owing, no doubt, to the freshly calcined lime.
+We have shown above that the mountaineers of the Andes of Popayan, and
+the Guajiros, who wander between the lake of Maracaybo and the Rio la
+Hacha, are also fond of swallowing lime as a stimulant, to augment the
+secretion of the saliva and the gastric juice.
+
+A custom analogous to the use of the niopo just described was observed
+by La Condamine among the natives of the Upper Maranon. The Omaguas,
+whose name is rendered celebrated by the expeditions attempted in
+search of El Dorado, have like the Ottomacs a dish, and the hollow
+bone of a bird, by which they convey to their nostrils their powder of
+curupa. The seed that yields this powder is no doubt also a mimosacea;
+for the Ottomacs, according to Father Gili, designate even now, at the
+distance of one hundred and sixty leagues from the Amazon, the Acacia
+niopo by the name of curupa. Since the geographical researches which I
+have recently made on the scene of the exploits of Philip von Huten,
+and the real situation of the province of Papamene, or of the Omaguas,
+the probability of an ancient communication between the Ottomacs of
+the Orinoco and the Omaguas of the Maranon has become more interesting
+and more probable. The former came from the Meta, perhaps from the
+country between the Meta and the Guaviare; the latter assert that they
+descended in great numbers to the Maranon by the Rio Jupura, coming
+from the eastern declivity of the Andes of New Grenada. Now, it is
+precisely between the Guayavero (which joins the Guaviare) and the
+Caqueta (which takes lower down the name of Japura) that the country
+of the Omagua appears to be situate, of which the adventurers of Coro
+and Tocuyo in vain attempted the conquest. There is no doubt a
+striking contrast between the present barbarism of the Ottomacs and
+the ancient civilization of the Omaguas; but all parts of the latter
+nation were not perhaps alike advanced in civilization, and the
+example of tribes fallen into complete barbarism are unhappily but too
+common in the history of our species. Another point of resemblance may
+be remarked between the Ottomacs and the Omaguas. Both of these
+nations are celebrated among all the tribes of the Orinoco and the
+Amazon for their employment of caoutchouc in the manufacture of
+various articles of utility.
+
+The real herbaceous tobacco* (for the missionaries have the habit of
+calling the niopo or curupa tree-tobacco) has been cultivated from
+time immemorial by all the native people of the Orinoco; and at the
+period of the conquest the habit of smoking was found to be alike
+spread over both North and South America.
+
+(* The word tobacco (tabacco), like the words savannah, maize,
+cacique, maguey (agave), and manati, belongs to the ancient language
+of Haiti, or St. Domingo. It did not properly denote the herb but the
+tube through which the smoke was inhaled. It seems surprising that a
+vegetable production so universally spread should have different names
+among neighbouring people. The pete-ma of the Omaguas is, no doubt,
+the pety of the Guaranos; but the analogy between the Cabre and
+Algonkin (or Lenni-Lenape) words which denote tobacco may be merely
+accidental. The following are the synonyms in thirteen languages.
+
+North America. Aztec or Mexican; yetl: Algonkin; sema: Huron; oyngoua.
+
+South America. Peruvian or Quichua; sayri: Chiquito; pais. Guarany;
+pety: Vilela; tusup: Mbaja (west of the Paraguay), nalodagadi: Moxo
+(between the Rio Ucayale and the Rio Madeira); sabare. Omagua; petema.
+Tamanac; cavas. Maypure; jema. Cabre; scema.)
+
+The Tamanacs and the Maypures of Guiana wrap maize-leaves round their
+cigars, as the Mexicans did at the time of the arrival of Cortes. The
+Spaniards have substituted paper for the leaves of maize in imitation
+of them. The poor Indians of the forests of the Orinoco know as well
+as did the great nobles at the court of Montezuma that the smoke of
+tobacco is an excellent narcotic; and they use it not only to procure
+their afternoon nap, but also to put themselves into that state of
+quiescence, which they call dreaming with the eyes open, or
+day-dreaming. The use of tobacco appears to me to be now very rare in
+the missions; and in New Spain, to the great regret of the
+revenue-officers, the natives, who are almost all descended from the
+lowest class of the Aztec people, do not smoke at all. Father Gili
+affirms that the practice of chewing tobacco is unknown to the Indians
+of the Lower Orinoco. I rather doubt the truth of this assertion,
+having been told that the Sercucumas of the Erevato and the Caura,
+neighbours of the whitish Taparitos, swallow tobacco chopped small,
+and impregnated with some other very stimulant juices, to prepare
+themselves for battle. Of the four species of nicotiana cultivated in
+Europe* (* Nicotiana tabacum, N. rustica, N. paniculata, and N.
+glutinosa.) we found only two growing wild; but the Nicotiana
+loxensis, and the Nicotiana andicola, which I found on the back of the
+Andes, at the height of eighteen hundred and fifty toises (almost the
+height of the Peak of Teneriffe), are very similar to the N. tabacum
+and N. rustica. The whole genus, however, is almost exclusively
+American, and the greater number of the species appeared to me to
+belong to the mountainous and temperate region of the tropics.
+
+It was neither from Virginia, nor from South America, but from the
+Mexican province of Yucatan, that Europe received the first tobacco
+seeds, about the year 1559.* (* The Spaniards became acquainted with
+tobacco in the West India Islands at the end of the 15th century. I
+have already mentioned that the cultivation of this narcotic plant
+preceded the cultivation of the potato in Europe more than 120 or 140
+years. When Raleigh brought tobacco from Virginia to England in 1586,
+whole fields of it were already cultivated in Portugal. It was also
+previously known in France, where it was brought into fashion by
+Catherine de Medicis, from whom it received the name of herbe a la
+reine, the queen's herb.) The celebrated Raleigh contributed most to
+introduce the custom of smoking among the nations of the north. As
+early as the end of the sixteenth century bitter complaints were made
+in England of this imitation of the manners of a savage people. It was
+feared that, by the practice of smoking tobacco, Englishmen would
+degenerate into a barbarous state.* (* This remarkable passage of
+Camden is as follows, Annal. Elizabet. page 143 1585; "ex illo sane
+tempore [tabacum] usu cepit esse creberrimo in Anglia et magno pretio
+dum quamplurimi graveolentem illius fumum per tubulum testaceum
+hauriunt et mox e naribus efflant; adeo ut Auglornm corporum in
+barbarorum naturam degenerasse videantur, quum iidem ac barbari
+delectentur." We may see from this passage that they emitted the smoke
+through the nose; but at the court of Montezuma the pipe was held in
+one hand, while the nostrils were stopped with the other, in order
+that the smoke might be more easily swallowed. Life of Raleigh volume
+1 page 82.)
+
+When the Ottomacs of Uruana, by the use of niopo (their arborescent
+tobacco), and of fermented liquors, have thrown themselves into a
+state of intoxication, which lasts several days, they kill one another
+without ostensibly fighting. The most vindictive among them poison the
+nail of their thumb with curare; and, according to the testimony of
+the missionary, the mere impression of this poisoned nail may become a
+mortal wound if the curare be very active and immediately mingle with
+the mass of the blood. When the Indians, after a quarrel at night,
+commit a murder, they throw the dead body into the river, fearing that
+some indications of the violence committed on the deceased may be
+observed. "Every time," said Father Bueno, "that I see the women fetch
+water from a part of the shore to which they are not accustomed to go,
+I suspect that a murder has been committed in my mission."
+
+We found in the Indian huts at Uruana the vegetable substance called
+touchwood of ants,* (* Yesca de hormigas.) with which we had become
+acquainted at the Great Cataracts, and which is employed to stop
+bleeding. This substance, which might less improperly be called ants'
+nests, is in much request in a region whose inhabitants are of so
+turbulent a character. A new species of ant, of a fine emerald-green
+(Formica spinicollis), collects for its habitation a cotton-down, of a
+yellowish-brown colour, and very soft to the touch, from the leaves of
+a melastomacea. I have no doubt that the yesca or touchwood of ants of
+the Upper Orinoco (the animal is found, we were assured, only south of
+Atures) will one day become an article of trade. This substance is
+very superior to the ants' nests of Cayenne, which are employed in the
+hospitals of Europe, but can rarely be procured.
+
+On the 7th of June we took leave with regret of Father Ramon Bueno. Of
+the ten missionaries whom we had found in different parts of the vast
+extent of Guiana, he alone appeared to me to be earnestly attentive to
+all that regarded the natives. He hoped to return in a short time to
+Madrid, where he intended to publish the result of his researches on
+the figures and characters that cover the rocks of Uruana.
+
+In the countries we had just passed through, between the Meta, the
+Arauca, and the Apure, there were found, at the time of the first
+expeditions to the Orinoco, in 1535, those mute dogs, called by the
+natives maios, and auries. This fact is curious in many points of
+view. We cannot doubt that the dog, whatever Father Gili may assert,
+is indigenous in South America. The different Indian languages furnish
+words to designate this animal, which are scarcely derived from any
+European tongue. To this day the word auri, mentioned three hundred
+years ago by Alonzo de Herrera, is found in the Maypure. The dogs we
+saw at the Orinoco may perhaps have descended from those that the
+Spaniards carried to the coast of Caracas; but it is not less certain
+that there existed a race of dogs before the conquest, in Peru, in New
+Granada, and in Guiana, resembling our shepherds' dogs. The allco of
+the natives of Peru, and in general all the dogs that we found in the
+wildest countries of South America, bark frequently. The first
+historians, however, all speak of mute dogs (perros mudos). They still
+exist in Canada; and, what appears to me worthy of attention, it was
+this dumb variety that was eaten in preference in Mexico,* and at the
+Orinoco. (* See on the Mexican techichi and on the numerous
+difficulties that occur in the history of mute dogs and dogs destitute
+of hair the Views of Nature Bohn's edition page 85.) A very well
+informed traveller, M. Giesecke, who resided six years in Greenland,
+assured me that the dogs of the Esquimaux, which pass their lives in
+the open air and bury themselves in winter beneath the snow, do not
+bark, but howl like wolves.* (* They sit down in a circle, one of them
+begins to howl alone and the others follow in the same tone. The
+groups of alouate monkeys howl in the same manner, and among them the
+Indians distinguish the leader of the band. It was the practice at
+Mexico to castrate the mute dogs in order to fatten them. This
+operation must have contributed to alter the organ of the voice.)
+
+The practice of eating the flesh of dogs is now entirely unknown on
+the banks of the Orinoco; but as it is a Tartar custom spread through
+all the eastern part of Asia, it appears to me highly interesting for
+the history of nations to have ascertained that it existed heretofore
+in the hot regions of Guiana and on the table-lands of Mexico. I must
+observe, also, that on the confines of the province of Durango, at the
+northern extremity of New Spain, the Comanches have preserved the
+habit of loading the backs of the great dogs that accompany them in
+their migrations with their tents of buffalo-leather. It is well known
+that employing dogs as beasts of burthen and of draught is equally
+common near the Slave Lake and in Siberia. I dwell on these features
+of conformity in the manners of nations, which become of some weight
+when they are not solitary, and are connected with the analogies
+furnished by the structure of languages, the division of time, and
+religious creeds and institutions.
+
+We passed the night at the island of Cucuruparu, called also Playa de
+la Tortuga, because the Indians of Uruana go thither to collect the
+turtles' eggs. It is one of the best determined points of latitude
+along the banks of the Orinoco. I was there fortunate enough to
+observe the passage of three stars over the meridian. To the east of
+the island is the mouth of the Cano de la Tortuga, which descends from
+the mountains of Cerbatana, continually wrapped in electric clouds. On
+the southern bank of the Cano, between the tributary streams Parapara
+and Oche, lies the almost ruined mission of San Miguel de la Tortuga.
+The Indians assured us that the environs of this little mission abound
+in otters with a very fine fur, called by the Portuguese water-dogs
+(perritos de agua); and what is still more remarkable, in lizards
+(lagartos) with only two feet. The whole of this country, which is
+very accessible between the Rio Cuchivero and the strait of Baraguan,
+is worthy of being visited by a well-informed zoologist. The lagarto
+destitute of hinder extremities is perhaps a species of Siren,
+different from the Siren lacertina of Carolina. If it were a saurian,
+a real Bimanis (Chirotes, Cuvier), the natives would not have compared
+it to a lizard. Besides the arrau turtles, of which I have in a former
+place given a detailed account, an innumerable quantity of land
+tortoises also, called morocoi, are found on the banks of the Orinoco,
+between Uruana and Encaramada. During the great heats of summer, in
+the time of drought, these animals remain without taking food, hidden
+beneath stones, or in the holes they have dug. They issue from their
+shelter and begin to eat, only when the humidity of the first rains
+penetrates into the earth. The terekay, or tajelu turtle which lives
+in fresh water, has the same habits. I have already spoken of the
+summer-sleep of some animals of the tropics. As the natives know the
+holes in which the tortoises sleep amidst the dried lands, they get
+out a great number at once, by digging fifteen or eighteen inches
+deep. Father Gili says that this operation, which he had seen, is not
+without danger, because serpents often bury themselves in summer with
+the terekays.
+
+From the island of Cucuruparu, to the capital of Guiana, commonly
+called Angostura, we were but nine days on the water. The distance is
+somewhat less than ninety-five leagues. We seldom slept on shore but
+the torment of the mosquitos diminished in proportion as we advanced.
+We landed on the 8th of June at a farm (Hato de San Rafael del
+Capuchino) opposite the mouth of the Rio Apure. I obtained some good
+observations of latitude and longitude.* (* I had found, on the 4th of
+April, for the Boca del Rio Apure (on the western bank of the
+Orinoco), the latitude 7 degrees 36 minutes 30 seconds, the longitude
+59 degrees 7 minutes 30 seconds; on the 8th of June I found, for the
+Hato del Capuchino (on the eastern bank of the Orinoco), the latitude
+7 degrees 37 minutes 45 seconds, the longitude 69 degrees 5 minutes 30
+seconds.) Having two months before taken horary angles on the bank
+opposite Capuchino, these observations were important for determining
+the rate of my chronometer, and connecting the situations on the
+Orinoco with those on the shore of Venezuela. The situation of this
+farm, being at the point where the Orinoco changes its course (which
+had previously been from south to north), and runs from west to east,
+is extremely picturesque. Granite rocks rise like islets amidst vast
+meadows. From their tops we discerned towards the north the Llanos of
+Calabozo bounding the horizon. We had been so long accustomed to the
+aspect of forests, that this view made a powerful impression on us.
+The steppes after sunset assume a tint of greenish gray. The visual
+ray being intercepted only by the rotundity of the earth, the stars
+seemed to rise as from the bosom of the ocean, and the most
+experienced mariner would have fancied himself placed on a projecting
+cape of a rocky coast. Our host was a Frenchman who lived amidst his
+numerous herds. Though he had forgotten his native language, he seemed
+pleased to learn that we came from his country, which he had left
+forty years before; and he wished to retain us for some days at his
+farm. The small towns of Caycara and Cabruta were only a few miles
+distant from the farm; but during part of the year our host was in
+complete solitude. The Capuchino becomes an island by the inundations
+of the Apure and the Orinoco, and the communication with the
+neighbouring farms can be kept up only by means of a boat. The horned
+cattle then seek the higher grounds which extend on the south toward
+the chain of the mountains of Encaramada. This granitic chain is
+intersected by valleys which contain magnetic sands (granulary
+oxidulated iron), owing no doubt to the decomposition of some
+amphibolic or chloritic strata.
+
+On the morning of the 9th of June we met a great number of boats laden
+with merchandize sailing up the Orinoco, in order to enter the Apure.
+This is a commercial road much frequented between Angostura and the
+port of Torunos in the province of Varinas. Our fellow-traveller, Don
+Nicolas Soto, brother-in-law of the governor of Varinas, took the same
+course to return to his family. At the period of the high waters,
+several months are lost in contending with the currents of the
+Orinoco, the Apure, and the Rio de Santo Domingo. The boatmen are
+forced to carry out ropes to the trunks of trees and thus warp their
+canoes up. In the great sinuosities of the river whole days are
+sometimes passed without advancing more than two or three hundred
+toises. Since my return to Europe the communications between the mouth
+of the Orinoco and the provinces situated on the eastern slope of the
+mountains of Merida, Pamplona, and Santa Fe de Bogota, have become
+more active; and it may be hoped that steamboats will facilitate these
+long voyages on the Lower Orinoco, the Portuguesa, the Rio Santo
+Domingo, the Orivante, the Meta, and the Guaviare. Magazines of cleft
+wood might be formed, as on the banks of the great rivers of the
+United States, sheltering them under sheds. This precaution would be
+indispensable, as, in the country through which we passed, it is not
+easy to procure dry fuel fit to keep up a fire beneath the boiler of a
+steam-engine.
+
+We disembarked below San Rafael del Capuchino, on the right, at the
+Villa de Caycara, near a cove called Puerto Sedeno. The Villa is
+merely a few houses grouped together. Alta Gracia, la Ciudad de la
+Piedra, Real Corona, Borbon, in short all the towns or villas lying
+between the mouth of the Apure and Angostura, are equally miserable.
+The presidents of the missions, and the governors of the provinces,
+were formerly accustomed to demand the privileges of villas and
+ciudades at Madrid, the moment the first foundations of a church were
+laid. This was a means of persuading the ministry that the colonies
+were augmenting rapidly in population and prosperity. Sculptured
+figures of the sun and moon, such as I have already mentioned, are
+found near Caycara, at the Cerro del Tirano.* (* The tyrant after whom
+these mountains are named is not Lope de Aguirre, but probably, as the
+name of the neighbouring cove seems to prove, the celebrated
+conquistador Antonio Sedeno, who, after the expedition of Herrera,
+sought to penetrate by the Orinoco to the Rio Meta. He was in a state
+of rebellion against the audiencia of Santo Domingo. I know not how
+Sedeno came to Caycara; for historians relate that he was poisoned on
+the banks of the Rio Tisnado, one of the tributary streams of the
+Portuguesa.) It is the work of the old people (that is of our
+fathers), say the natives. On a rock more distant from the shore, and
+called Tecoma, the symbolic figures are found, it is said, at the
+height of a hundred feet. The Indians knew heretofore a road, that led
+by land from Caycara to Demerara and Essequibo.
+
+On the northern bank of the Orinoco, opposite Caycara, is the mission
+of Cabruta, founded by the Jesuit Rotella, in 1740, as an advanced
+post against the Caribs. An Indian village, known by the name of
+Cabritu,* had existed on the same spot for several ages. (* A cacique
+of Cabritu received Alonzo de Herrera at his dwelling, on the
+expedition undertaken by Herrera for ascending the Orinoco in 1535.)
+At the time when this little place became a Christian settlement, it
+was believed to be situate in 5 degrees latitude, or two degrees forty
+minutes more to the south than I found it by direct observations made
+at San Rafael, and at La Boca del Rio Apure. No idea was then
+conceived of the direction of a road that could lead by land to Nueva
+Valencia and Caracas, which were supposed to be at an immense
+distance. The merit of having first crossed the Llanos to go to
+Cabruta from the Villa de San Juan Baptista del Pao belongs to a
+woman. Father Gili relates that Dona Maria Bargas was so devoted to
+the Jesuits that she attempted herself to discover the way to the
+missions. She was seen with astonishment to arrive at Cabruta from the
+north. She took up her abode near the fathers of St. Ignatius, and
+died in their settlements on the banks of the Orinoco. Since that
+period the northern part of the Llanos has been considerably peopled;
+and the road leading from the valleys of Aragua by Calabozo to San
+Fernando de Apure and Cabruta is much frequented. The chief of the
+famous expedition of the boundaries made choice of the latter place in
+1754 to establish dock-yards for building the vessels necessary for
+conveying his troops intended for the Upper Orinoco. The little
+mountain that rises northeast of Cabruta can be discerned from afar in
+the steppes and serves as a landmark for travellers.
+
+We embarked in the morning at Caycara; and driving with the current of
+the Orinoco, we soon passed the mouth of the Rio Cuchivero, which
+according to ancient tradition is the country of the Aikeambenanos, or
+women without husbands; and we there reached the paltry village of
+Alta Gracia, which is called a Spanish town. It was near this place
+that Jose de Iturriaga founded the Pueblo de Ciudad Real, which still
+figures on the most modern maps, though it has not existed for fifty
+years past, on account of the insalubrity of its situation. Beyond the
+point where the Orinoco turns to the east, forests are constantly seen
+on the right bank, and the llanos or steppes of Venezuela on the left.
+The forests which border the river are not however so thick as those
+of the Upper Orinoco. The population, which augments perceptibly as
+you advance toward the capital, comprises but few Indians, and is
+composed chiefly of whites, negroes, and men of mixed descent. The
+number of the negroes is not great; but here, as everywhere else, the
+poverty of their masters does not tend to procure for them more humane
+treatment. An inhabitant of Caycara had just been condemned to four
+years' imprisonment, and a fine of one hundred piastres for having, in
+a paroxysm of rage, tied a negress by the legs to the tail of his
+horse, and dragged her at full gallop through the savannah till she
+expired. It is gratifying to record that the Audiencia was generally
+blamed in the country for not having punished more severely so
+atrocious an action. Yet some few persons, who pretended to be the
+most enlightened and most sagacious of the community, deemed the
+punishment of a white contrary to sound policy, at the moment when the
+blacks of St. Domingo were in complete insurrection. Since I left
+those countries, civil dissensions have put arms into the hands of the
+slaves; and fatal experience has led the inhabitants of Venezuela to
+regret that they refused to listen to Don Domingo Tovar, and other
+right-thinking men, who, as early as the year 1795, lifted up their
+voices in the cabildo of Caracas, to prevent the introduction of
+blacks, and to propose means that might ameliorate their condition.
+
+After having slept on the 10th of June in an island in the middle of
+the river (I believe that called Acaru by Father Caulin), we passed
+the mouth of the Rio Caura. This, the Aruy and the Carony, are the
+largest tributary streams which the Orinoco receives on its right
+bank. All the Christian settlements are near the mouth of the river;
+and the villages of San Pedro, Aripao, Urbani, and Guaraguaraico,
+succeed each other at the distance of a few leagues. The first and the
+most populous contains only about two hundred and fifty souls. San
+Luis de Guaraguaraico is a colony of negroes, some freed and others
+fugitives from Essequibo. This colony merits the particular attention
+of the Spanish Government, for it can never be sufficiently
+recommended to endeavour to attach the slaves to the soil, and suffer
+them to enjoy as farmers the fruits of their agricultural labours. The
+land on the Caura, for the most part a virgin soil, is extremely
+fertile. There are pasturages for more than 15,000 beasts; but the
+poor inhabitants have neither horses nor horned cattle. More than
+five-sixths of the banks of the Caura are either desert, or occupied
+by independent and savage tribes. The bed of the river is twice choked
+up by rocks: these obstructions occasion the famous Raudales of Mura
+and of Para or Paru, the latter of which has a portage, because it
+cannot be passed by canoes. At the time of the expedition of the
+boundaries, a small fort was erected on the northern cataract, that of
+Mura; and the governor, Don Manuel Centurion, gave the name of Ciudad
+de San Carlos to a few houses which some families, consisting of
+whites and mulattos, had constructed near the fort. South of the
+cataract of Para, at the confluence of the Caura and the Erevato, the
+mission of San Luis was then situated; and a road by land led thence
+to Angostura, the capital of the province. All these attempts at
+civilization have been fruitless. No village now exists above the
+Raudal of Mura; and here, as in many other parts of the colonies, the
+natives may be said to have reconquered the country from the
+Spaniards. The valley of Caura may become one day or other highly
+interesting from the value of its productions, and the communications
+which it affords with the Rio Ventuari, the Carony, and the Cuyuni. I
+have shown above the importance of the four tributary streams which
+the Orinoco receives from the mountains of Parima. Near the mouth of
+the Caura, between the villages of San Pedro de Alcantara and San
+Francisco de Aripao, a small lake of four hundred toises in diameter
+was formed in 1790, by the sinking of the ground, consequent on an
+earthquake. It was a portion of the forest of Aripao, which sunk to
+the depth of eighty or a hundred feet below the level of the
+neighbouring land. The trees remained green for several months; and
+some of them, it was believed, continued to push forth leaves beneath
+the water. This phenomenon is the more worthy of attention as the soil
+of these countries is probably granitic. I doubt the secondary
+formations of the Llanos being continued southward as far as the
+valley of Caura.
+
+On the 11th of June we landed on the right bank of the Orinoco at
+Puerto de los Frailes, at the distance of three leagues above the
+Ciudad de la Piedra, to take altitudes of the sun. The longitude of
+this point is 67 degrees 26 minutes 20 seconds, or 1 degree 41 minutes
+east of the mouth of the Apure. Farther on, between the towns of La
+Piedra and Muitaco, or Real Corona, are the Torno and Boca del
+Infierno, two points formerly dreaded by travellers. The Orinoco
+suddenly changes its direction; it flows first east, then
+north-north-west, and then again east. A little above the Cano
+Marapiche, which opens on the northern bank, a very long island
+divides the river into two branches. We passed on the south of this
+island without difficulty; northward, a chain of small rocks, half
+covered at high water, forms whirlpools and rapids. This is La Boca
+del Infierno, and the Raudal de Camiseta. The first expeditions of
+Diego Ordaz (1531) and Alonzo de Herrera (1535) have given celebrity
+to this bar. The Great Cataracts of the Atures and Maypures were then
+unknown; and the clumsy vessels (vergantines), in which travellers
+persisted in going up the river, rendered the passage through the
+rapids extremely difficult. At present no apprehension is felt in
+ascending or descending the Orinoco, at any season, from its mouth as
+far as the confluence of the Apure and the Meta. The only falls of
+water in this space are those of Torno or Camiseta, Marimara, and
+Cariven or Carichana Vieja. Neither of these three obstacles is to be
+feared with experienced Indian pilots. I dwell on these hydrographic
+details because a great political and commercial interest is now
+connected with the communications between Angostura and the banks of
+the Meta and the Apure, two rivers that lead to the eastern side of
+the Cordilleras of New Grenada. The navigation from the mouth of the
+Lower Orinoco to the province of Varinas is difficult only on account
+of the current. The bed of the river nowhere presents obstacles more
+difficult to be surmounted than those of the Danube between Vienna and
+Linz. We meet with no great bars, no real cataracts, until we get
+above the Meta. The Upper Orinoco, therefore, with the Cassiquiare and
+the Rio Negro, forms a particular system of rivers, where the active
+industry of Angostura and the shore of Caracas will remain long
+unknown.
+
+I obtained horary angles of the sun in an island in the midst of the
+Boca del Infierno, where we had set up our instruments. The longitude
+of this point according to the chronometer is 67 degrees 10 minutes 31
+seconds. I attempted to determine the magnetic dip and intensity, but
+was prevented by a heavy storm of rain. As the sky again became serene
+in the afternoon, we lay down to rest that night on a vast beach, on
+the southern bank of the Orinoco, nearly in the meridian of the little
+town of Muitaco, or Real Corona. I found the latitude by three stars
+to be 8 degrees 0 minutes 26 seconds, and the longitude 67 degrees 5
+minutes 19 seconds. When the Observantin monks in 1752 made their
+first entradas on the territory of the Caribs, they constructed on
+this spot a small fort. The proximity of the lofty mountains of
+Araguacais renders Muitaco one of the most healthy places on the Lower
+Orinoco. There Iturriaga took up his abode in 1756, to repose after
+the fatigues of the expedition of the boundaries; and as he attributed
+his recovery to this hot rather than humid climate, the town, or more
+properly the village, of Real Corona took the name of Pueblo del
+Puerto sano. Going down the Orinoco more to the east, we left the
+mouth of the Rio Pao on the north, and that of the Arui on the south.
+The latter river, which is somewhat considerable, is often mentioned
+by Raleigh. The current of the Orinoco diminished in velocity as we
+advanced. I measured several times a base along the beach, to
+ascertain the time taken by floating bodies in traversing a known
+distance. Above Alta Gracia, near the mouth of the Rio Ujape, I had
+found the velocity of the Orinoco 2.3 feet in a second; between
+Muitaco and Borbon it was only 1.7 foot. The barometric observations
+made in the neighbouring steppes prove the small slope of the ground
+from the longitude of 69 degrees to the eastern coast of Guiana. We
+found in this country, on the right bank of the Orinoco, small
+formations of primitive grunstein, superimposed on granite (perhaps
+even embedded in the rock). We saw between Muitaco and the island of
+Ceiba a hill entirely composed of balls with concentric layers, in
+which we perceived a close mixture of hornblende and feldspar, with
+some traces of pyrites. The grunstein resembles that in the vicinity
+of Caracas; but it was impossible to ascertain the position of a
+formation which appeared to me to be of the same age as the granite of
+Parima. Muitaco was the last spot where we slept in the open air on
+the shore of the Orinoco: we proceeded along the river two nights more
+before we reached Angostura, which terminated our voyage.
+
+It would be difficult for me to express the satisfaction we felt on
+landing at Angostura, the capital of Spanish Guiana. The
+inconveniences endured at sea in small vessels are trivial in
+comparison with those that are suffered under a burning sky,
+surrounded by swarms of mosquitos, and lying stretched in a canoe,
+without the possibility of taking the least bodily exercise. In
+seventy-five days we had performed a passage of five hundred leagues
+(twenty to a degree) on the five great rivers, Apure, Orinoco,
+Atabapo, Rio Negro, and Cassiquiare; and in this vast extent we had
+found but a very small number of inhabited places. After the life we
+had led in the woods, our dress was not in the very best order, yet
+nevertheless M. Bonpland and I hastened to present ourselves to Don
+Felipe de Ynciarte, the governor of the province of Guiana. He
+received us in the most cordial manner, and lodged us in the house of
+the secretary of the Intendencia. Coming from an almost desert
+country, we were struck with the bustle of the town, though it
+contained only six thousand inhabitants. We admired the conveniences
+which industry and commerce furnish to civilized man. Humble dwellings
+appeared to us magnificent; and every person with whom we conversed
+seemed to be endowed with superior intelligence. Long privations give
+a value to the smallest enjoyments; and I cannot express the pleasure
+we felt when we saw for the first time wheaten bread on the governor's
+table. Sensations of this sort are doubtless familiar to all who have
+made distant voyages.
+
+A painful circumstance obliged us to sojourn a whole month in the town
+of Angostura. We felt ourselves on the first days after our arrival
+tired and enfeebled, but in perfect health. M. Bonpland began to
+examine the small number of plants which he had been able to save from
+the influence of the damp climate; and I was occupied in settling by
+astronomical observations the longitude and latitude of the capital,*
+as well as the dip of the magnetic needle. (* I found the latitude of
+Santo Tomas de la Nueva Guiana, commonly called Angostura, or the
+Strait, near the cathedral, 8 degrees 8 minutes 11 seconds, the
+longitude 66 degrees 15 minutes 21 seconds.) These labours were soon
+interrupted. We were both attacked almost on the same day by a
+disorder which with my fellow-traveller took the character of a
+debilitating fever. At this period the air was in a state of the
+greatest salubrity at Angostura; and as the only mulatto servant we
+had brought from Cumana felt symptoms of the same disorder, it was
+suspected that we had imbibed the germs of typhus in the damp forests
+of Cassiquiare. It is common enough for travellers to feel no effects
+from miasmata till, on arriving in a purer atmosphere, they begin to
+enjoy repose. A certain excitement of the mental powers may suspend
+for some time the action of pathogenic causes. Our mulatto servant
+having been much more exposed to the rains than we were, his disorder
+increased with frightful rapidity. His prostration of strength was
+excessive, and on the ninth day his death was announced to us. He was
+however only in a state of swooning, which lasted several hours, and
+was followed by a salutary crisis. I was attacked at the same time
+with a violent fit of fever, during which I was made to take a mixture
+of honey and bark (the cortex Angosturae): a remedy much extolled in
+the country by the Capuchin missionaries. The intensity of the fever
+augmented but it left me on the following day. M. Bonpland remained in
+a very alarming state which during several weeks caused us the most
+serious inquietude. Fortunately he preserved sufficient
+self-possession to prescribe for himself; and he preferred gentler
+remedies better adapted to his constitution. The fever was continual
+and, as almost always happens within the tropics, it was accompanied
+by dysentery. M. Bonpland displayed that courage and mildness of
+character which never forsook him in the most trying situations. I was
+agitated by sad presages for I remembered that the botanist Loefling,
+a pupil of Linnaeus, died not far from Angostura, near the banks of
+the Carony, a victim of his zeal for the progress of natural history.
+We had not yet passed a year in the torrid zone and my too faithful
+memory conjured up everything I had read in Europe on the dangers of
+the atmosphere inhaled in the forests. Instead of going up the Orinoco
+we might have sojourned some months in the temperate and salubrious
+climate of the Sierra Nevada de Merida. It was I who had chosen the
+path of the rivers; and the danger of my fellow-traveller presented
+itself to my mind as the fatal consequence of this imprudent choice.
+
+After having attained in a few days an extraordinary degree of
+exacerbation the fever assumed a less alarming character. The
+inflammation of the intestines yielded to the use of emollients
+obtained from malvaceous plants. The sidas and the melochias have
+singularly active properties in the torrid zone. The recovery of the
+patient however was extremely slow, as it always happens with
+Europeans who are not thoroughly seasoned to the climate. The period
+of the rains drew near; and in order to return to the coast of Cumana,
+it was necessary again to cross the Llanos, where, amidst
+half-inundated lands, it is rare to find shelter, or any other food
+than meat dried in the sun. To avoid exposing M. Bonpland to a
+dangerous relapse, we resolved to stay at Angostura till the 10th of
+July. We spent part of this time at a neighbouring plantation, where
+mango-trees and bread-fruit trees* were cultivated. (* Artocarpus
+incisa. Father Andujar, Capuchin missionary of the province of
+Caracas, zealous in the pursuit of natural history, has introduced the
+bread-fruit tree from Spanish Guiana at Varinas, and thence into the
+kingdom of New Grenada. Thus the western Coasts of America, washed by
+the Pacific, receive from the English Settlements in the West Indies a
+production of the Friendly Islands.) The latter had attained in the
+tenth year a height of more than forty feet. We measured several
+leaves of the Artocarpus that were three feet long and eighteen inches
+broad, remarkable dimensions in a plant of the family of the
+dicotyledons.
+
+
+
+END OF VOLUME 2.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Equinoctial Regions of America V2
+by Alexander von Humboldt
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EQUINOCTIAL REGIONS OF AMERICA V2 ***
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