Chapter XII: Siberia and Kamchatka 275 (7)

From the time of leaving Graciosa the horizon continued so hazy
that, notwithstanding the considerable height of the mountains of
Canary,[18] we did not discover that island till the 18th of June. On
the morning of the 19th we discovered the point of Naga, but the peak
of Teneriffe was still invisible. The land, obscured by a thick mist,
presented forms that were vague and confused. As we approached the
road of Santa Cruz we observed that the mist, driven by the winds,
drew nearer to us. The sea was strongly agitated, as it most commonly
is in these latitudes. We anchored after several soundings, for the
mist was so thick that we could scarcely distinguish objects at a few
cables’ distance, but at the moment we began to salute the place the
fog was instantly dispelled. The peak of Teyde appeared in a break
above the clouds, and the first rays of the sun, which had not yet
risen on us, illumined the summit of the volcano. We hastened to the
prow of the vessel to behold the magnificent spectacle, and at the
same instant we saw four English vessels lying to and very near our
stern. We had passed without being perceived, and the same mist which
had concealed the peak from our view had saved us from the risk of
being carried back to Europe.[19]

The Pizarro stood in as close as possible to the fort, to be under
its protection. It was on this shore that in the landing attempted
by the English two years before our arrival, in July, 1797, Admiral
Nelson had his arm carried off by a cannon-ball....

Though the captain had orders to stop at Teneriffe to give us time
to scale the summit of the peak, if the snows did not prevent our
ascent, we received notice, on account of the blockade of the English
ships, not to expect a longer delay than four or five days. We
consequently hastened our departure for the port of Orotavo, which is
situated on the western declivity of the volcano, where we were sure
of finding guides. I could find no one at Santa Cruz who had mounted
the peak, and I was not surprised at this. The most curious objects
become less interesting in proportion as they are near to us; and I
have known inhabitants of Schaffhausen, in Switzerland, who had never
seen the fall of the Rhine but at a distance....

About three in the morning, by the sombrous light of a few
pine-torches, we started on our journey to the summit of the Piton.
We scaled the volcano on the northeast side, where the declivities
are extremely steep; and after two hours’ toil we reached a small
plain, which, on account of its elevated position, bears the name
of Alta Vista. This is the station of the _neveros_, those natives
whose occupation is to collect ice and snow, which they sell in
the neighboring towns. Their mules, better practised in climbing
mountains than those hired by travellers, reach Alta Vista, and the
_neveros_ are obliged to transport the snow to that place on their
backs. We turned to the right to examine the cavern of ice, which is
at the elevation of 1,728 toises, consequently below the limit of
perpetual snows in this zone. Probably the cold which prevails in
this cavern is owing to the same causes which perpetuate the ice in
the crevices of Mount Jura and the Apennines.... Day was beginning to
dawn when we left the ice-cavern. We observed, during the twilight,
a phenomenon which is not unusual on high mountains, but which the
position of the volcano we were scaling rendered very striking. A
layer of white and fleecy clouds concealed from us the sight of
the ocean and the lower region of the island. This layer did not
appear above eight hundred toises high; the clouds were so uniformly
spread, and kept so perfect a level, that they wore the appearance
of a vast plain covered with snow. The colossal pyramid of the peak,
the volcanic summits of Lancerota, of Forteventura, and the isle of
Palma, were like rocks amidst the sea of vapors, and their black
tints were in fine contrast with the whiteness of the clouds.

While we were climbing over the broken lavas of the Malpays, we
perceived a very curious optical phenomenon, which lasted eight
minutes. We thought we saw on the east side small rockets thrown
into the air. Luminous points, about seven or eight degrees above
the horizon, appeared first to move in a vertical direction; but
the motion was gradually changed into a horizontal oscillation.
Our fellow-travellers, our guides even, were astonished at this
phenomenon, without our having made any remark on it to them. We
thought, at first sight, that these points which floated in the air
indicated some new eruption of the great volcano of Lancerota, for
we recollected that Bouguer and La Condamine, in scaling the volcano
of Pichincha, were witnesses of the eruption of Cotopaxi. But the
illusion soon ceased, and we found that the luminous points were the
images of stars magnified by the vapors....

The road, which we were obliged to clear for ourselves, across the
Malpays, was extremely fatiguing. The ascent is steep, and the blocks
of lava rolled beneath our feet. Unfortunately the listlessness of
our guides contributed to increase the difficulty of the ascent.
Unlike the guides of the valley of Chamouni, or the nimble-footed
Guanches, who could, it is asserted, seize the rabbit or the
wild goat in its course, our Canarian guides were models of the
phlegmatic. They had wished to persuade us on the preceding evening
not to go beyond the station of the rocks. Every ten minutes they
sat down to rest themselves, and when unobserved they threw away the
specimens we had collected. We discovered at length that none of them
had ever visited the summit of the volcano....

We had yet to scale the steepest part of the mountain, the Piton,
which forms the summit. The slope of this small cone, covered with
volcanic ashes and fragments of pumice-stone, is so steep that
it would have been almost impossible to reach the top had we not
ascended by the old current of lava, the _débris_ of which have
resisted the ravages of time. We ascended the Piton by grasping these
half-decomposed scoriæ, which often broke in our hands.

Vesuvius, three times lower than the peak of Teneriffe, is
terminated by a cone of ashes almost three times higher, but with
a more accessible and easy slope. Of all the volcanos which I have
visited, that of Jorullo, in Mexico, is the only one that is more
difficult to climb than the peak, because the whole mountain is
covered with loose ashes.

When we gained the summit of the Piton, we were surprised to find
scarcely room to seat ourselves conveniently. We were stopped by
a small circular wall of lava, with a base of pitchstone, which
concealed from us the view of the crater. The west wind blew
with such violence that we could scarcely stand. It was eight in
the morning, and we suffered severely from the cold, though the
thermometer kept a little above freezing point. For a long time we
had been accustomed to a very high temperature, and the dry wind
increased the feeling of cold....

Notwithstanding the heat we felt in our feet on the edge of the
crater, the cone of ashes remains covered with snow during several
months in winter. The cold and violent wind, which blew from the time
of sunrise, induced us to seek shelter at the foot of the Piton. Our
hands and faces were nearly frozen, while our boots were burnt by the
soil on which we walked. We descended in the space of a few minutes
the Sugar-Loaf which we had scaled with so much toil, and this
rapidity was in some respects involuntary, for we often rolled down
on the ashes....

As we approached the town of Orotava, we met great flocks of
canaries. These birds, well known in Europe, were in general
uniformly green; some, however, had a yellow tinge on their backs;
their note was the same as the tame canary. The yellow canaries are a
variety, which has taken birth in Europe, and those we saw in cages
at Orotava and Santa Cruz had been bought at Cadiz, and in other
parts of Spain. But of all the birds of the Canary Islands, that
which has the most heart-soothing song is unknown in Europe. It is
the capirote, which no effort has succeeded in taming, so sacred is
its soul to liberty. I have stood listening in admiration of his soft
and melodious warbling in a garden at Orotava, but I have never seen
him sufficiently near to ascertain to what family he belongs....

* * * * *

On the 3d and 4th of July, we crossed that part of the Atlantic where
the charts indicate the bank of the maalstrom, and towards night we
altered our course to avoid the danger, the existence of which is
however doubted. It would have been, perhaps, as prudent to have
continued our course. The old charts are filled with rocks, some of
which really exist, though most of them are merely the offspring of
those optical illusions which are more frequent at sea than in inland
places.

From the time we entered the torrid zone we were never weary of
admiring at night the beauty of the southern sky, which as we
advanced to the south opened new constellations to our view. The
pleasure we felt in discovering the Southern Cross was warmly shared
by those of our crew who had visited the colonies. In the solitude
of the seas we hail a star as a friend, from whom we have been
long separated. The Portuguese and the Spaniards are peculiarly
susceptible of this feeling; a religious sentiment attaches them to
a constellation, the form of which recalls the sign of the faith
planted by their ancestors in the deserts of the New World. The
two stars which mark the summit and the foot of the cross having
nearly the same right ascension, it follows that the constellation is
almost perpendicular at the moment when it passes the meridian. This
circumstance is known to the people of every nation situated beyond
the tropics or in the Southern Hemisphere. It has been observed at
what hour of the night, in different seasons, the cross is erect
or inclined. It is a time-piece which advances very regularly four
minutes a day, and no other group of stars affords to the naked eye
an observation of time so easily made. How often have we heard our
guides exclaim in the savannahs of Venezuela, or in the deserts
extending from Lima to Truxillo, “Midnight is past, the cross
begins to bend.” How often these words remind us of that affecting
scene, where Paul and Virginia, seated near the source of the river
Lataniers, conversed together for the last time, and when the old
man, at the sight of the Southern Cross, warns them that it is time
to separate....

* * * * *

The banks of the Manzanares are very pleasant, and are shaded
by mimosas and other trees of a gigantic growth. A river, the
temperature of which in the season of the floods, descends as low as
twenty-two degrees,[20] while the air is at thirty and thirty-three
degrees, is an inestimable benefit in a country where the heat is
excessive during the whole year, and where it is so agreeable to
bathe several times in a day. The children pass a considerable part
of their lives in the water; all the inhabitants, even the women of
the most opulent families, know how to swim; and in a country where
man is so near the state of nature, one of the first questions asked
on meeting in the morning is, whether the water is cooler than on the
preceding evening. One of the modes of bathing is curious. We every
evening visited a family in the suburb of the Guayquerias. In a fine
moonlight night, chairs were placed in the water; the men and women
were lightly dressed, and the family and strangers assembled in the
river, passed some hours in smoking cigars and talking, according to
the custom of the country, of the extreme dryness of the season, of
the abundant rains in the neighboring districts, and particularly
of extravagances of which the ladies of Cumana accuse those of the
Caracas and the Havannah. The company were under no apprehension of
the crocodiles, which are now extremely scarce, and which approach
men without attacking them. We never met with them in the Manzanares,
but with a great number of dolphins, which sometimes ascend the river
in the night, and frighten the bathers by spouting water.

The pearl-breeding oyster abounds on the shoals which extend from
Cape Paria to Cape la Vela. It is warmly alleged by some historians
that the natives of America were unacquainted with the luxury of
pearls. The first Spaniards who landed in Terra Firma found the
savages decked with pearl necklaces and bracelets; and among the
civilized people of Mexico and Peru pearls of a beautiful form
were extremely sought after. Benzoni relates the adventure of one
Luigi Lampagnano, to whom Charles the Fifth granted the privilege
of proceeding with five carvels to the coast of Cumana to fish for
pearls. The colonists sent him back with this bold message,--“that
the emperor was too liberal of what was not his own, and he had no
right to dispose of the oysters which live at the bottom of the sea.”

Among the mulattoes whose huts surround the salt lake we found a
shoemaker of Castilian descent. He received us with an air of gravity
and self-sufficiency which in those countries characterize almost
all persons who are conscious of possessing some particular talent.
He was employed in stretching the string of his bow and sharpening
his arrows, to shoot birds. His trade of shoemaker could not be very
lucrative in a country where the greater part of the inhabitants go
barefooted, and he only complained that, on account of the dearness
of European gunpowder, a man of his quality was reduced to use
the same weapons as the Indians. He was the sage of the plain; he
understood the formation of the salt by the influence of the sun and
full moon; the symptoms of earthquakes; the marks by means of which
mines of gold and silver are discovered, and the medicinal plants,
which, like all the other colonists from Chili to California, he
classified into hot and cold. Having collected the traditions of his
country he gave us some curious accounts of the pearls of Cubagua,
objects of luxury which he treated with the utmost contempt. To show
us how familiar to him were the sacred writings, he took a pride in
reminding us that Job preferred wisdom to the pearls of the Indies.
After a long discourse on the emptiness of human grandeur, he drew
from a leathern pouch a few very small opaque pearls, which he forced
us to accept, enjoining upon us at the same time to notice on our
tablets that a poor shoemaker of Araya, but a white man, and of noble
Castilian race, had been enabled to give us something which, on the
other side of the sea, was sought for as very precious. I here
acquit myself of the promise I made to this worthy man, who refused
to accept of the slightest recompense.

When a traveller, newly arrived from Europe, penetrates for the
first time into the forests of South America, he beholds nature
under an unexpected aspect. He feels at every step that he is not
on the confines, but in the centre of the torrid zone; not in one
of the West India Islands, but on a vast continent where everything
is gigantic,--mountains, rivers, and the mass of vegetation. If he
feels deeply the beauty of picturesque scenery, he can scarcely
distinguish what most excites his admiration, the deep silence of
these solitudes, the individual beauty and contrast of forms, or that
vigor and freshness of vegetable life which characterize the climate
of the tropics. We walked for some hours under the shade of arcades
which scarcely admit a glimpse of the sky; the latter appeared to
me of an indigo-blue, the deeper in shade because the green of the
equinoctial plants is generally of a stronger hue, with somewhat of a
brownish tint. In this place we were struck, for the first time, with
the sight of those nests in the shape of bottles or small bags which
are suspended from the branches of the lowest trees, and which attest
the wonderful industry of the orioles, which mingle their warblings
with the hoarse cries of the parrots and the maccaws. These last, so
well known for their vivid colors, fly only in pairs, while the real
parrots wander about in flocks of several hundreds. A man must have
lived in those regions, particularly in the hot valleys of the Andes,
to conceive how these birds sometimes drown with their voices the
noise of the torrents which dash down from rock to rock....

The road skirted with bamboos led us to the small village of San
Fernando, situated in a warm place, surrounded by very steep rocks.
This was the first mission we saw in America. The missionary was
a Capuchin, a native of Aragon, far advanced in years, but strong
and healthy. His extreme corpulency, his hilarity, the interest he
took in battles and sieges, ill accorded with the ideas we form in
northern countries of the melancholy reveries and the contemplative
life of the missionaries. Though extremely busy about a cow which
was to be killed next day, the old monk received us with kindness
and permitted us to hang up our hammocks in a gallery of his house.
Seated, without doing anything the greater part of the day, in an
arm-chair of redwood, he complained bitterly of what he called the
indolence and ignorance of his countrymen. Our missionary, however,
seemed well satisfied with his situation; he treated the Indians
with mildness, he beheld his mission prosper, and he praised with
enthusiasm the waters, the bananas, and the dairy produce of the
district. The sight of our instruments, our books, and our dried
plants drew from him a sarcastic smile, and he acknowledged, with a
_naïveté_ peculiar to the inhabitants of those countries that, of all
the enjoyments of life, not excepting sleep, none were comparable
to the pleasure of eating good beef; thus does sensuality obtain an
ascendency where there is no occupation for the mind.

The days we passed at the Capuchin convent in the mountains of
Caripe glided swiftly away, though our manner of living was simple
and uniform. From sunrise to nightfall we traversed the forests
and neighboring mountains to collect plants. When the winter rains
prevented us from undertaking distant expeditions we visited
the huts of the Indians or those assemblies in which the alcaldes
every evening arrange the labors of the succeeding day. We returned
to the monastery only when the sound of the bell called us to the
refectory to share the repast of the missionaries. Sometimes,
early in the morning, we followed them to the church, to attend
the _doctrina_,--that is to say, the religious instruction of the
Indians. It was rather a difficult task to explain dogmas to these
neophytes, especially those who had but a very imperfect knowledge
of the Spanish language. On the other hand, the monks are yet almost
totally ignorant of the language of the Chaymas; and the resembling
sounds confuse the poor Indians, and suggest to them the most
whimsical ideas. I saw a missionary laboring earnestly to prove
that _inferno_, hell, and _invierno_, winter, were not one and the
same thing. The Chaymas are acquainted with no other winter than
the season of rains, and consequently they imagined the “hell of
the whites” to be a place where the wicked are exposed to frequent
showers. The missionary harangued to no purpose; it was impossible
to efface the first impression produced by the analogy between the
two consonants. He could not separate in the mind of the neophyte the
ideas of _rain_ and _hell_. The same men who manifest quickness of
intellect, and who are tolerably well acquainted with the Spanish,
were unable to connect their ideas, when, in our excursions around
the convent, we put questions to them through the intervention of the
monks. They were made to affirm or deny whatever the monks pleased;
and that wily civility, to which the least cultivated Indian is no
stranger, induced them sometimes to give to their answers the turn
that seemed to be suggested by our questions. Travellers cannot be
enough on their guard against this officious assent when they seek
to confirm their own opinions by the testimony of the natives. To put
an Indian alcalde to the proof, I asked him one day whether he did
not think the little river of Caripe, which issues from the cavern of
the Guacharo, returned into it on the opposite side by some unknown
entrance after having ascended the slope of the mountain. The Indian
seemed greatly to reflect on the subject, and then answered, by way
of supporting my hypothesis, “How else, if it were not so, would
there always be water in the bed of the river, at the mouth of the
cavern?”

We remained a month longer at Cumana, employing ourselves in the
necessary preparations for our proposed visit to the Orinoco and the
Rio Negro. We had to choose such instruments as could be most easily
transported in narrow boats, and to engage guides for an inland
journey of ten months, across a country without communication with
the coasts. The astronomical determination of places being the most
important object of this undertaking, I felt desirous not to miss the
observation of an eclipse of the sun which was to be visible at the
end of October; and in consequence I preferred remaining till that
period at Cumana, where the sky is generally clear and serene. It was
now too late to reach the banks of the Orinoco before October, and
the high valleys of Caracas promised less favorable opportunities,
on account of the vapors which accumulate round the neighboring
mountains. I was, however, near being compelled by a deplorable
occurrence to renounce, or at least to delay for a long time, my
journey to the Orinoco. On the 27th of October, the day before the
eclipse, we went as usual to take the air on the shore of the gulf.
It was eight in the evening, and the breeze was not yet stirring. The
sky was cloudy, and during a dead calm it was excessively hot.

We crossed the beach which separates the suburb of the Guayqueria
Indians from the embarcadero. I heard some one walking behind us, and
on turning I saw a tall man of the color of the Zambos, naked to the
waist. He held almost over my head a great stick of palm-tree wood,
enlarged to the end like a club. I avoided the stroke by leaping
towards the left; but M. Bonpland, who walked on my right, was less
fortunate. He did not see the Zambo so soon as I did, and received
a stroke above the temple, which levelled him with the ground. We
were alone, without arms, half a league from any habitation, on a
vast plain bounded by the sea. The Zambo, instead of attacking me,
moved off slowly to pick up M. Bonpland’s hat, which, having somewhat
deadened the violence of the blow, had fallen off and lay at some
distance. Alarmed at seeing my companion on the ground, and for some
moments senseless, I thought of him only. I helped him to raise
himself, and pain and anger doubled his strength. We ran towards
the Zambo, who, either from cowardice, common enough in people of
this caste, or because he perceived at a distance some men on the
beach, did not wait for us, but ran off in the direction of the
Tunal, a little thicket of cactus. He chanced to fall in running,
and M. Bonpland, who reached him first, seized him round the body.
The Zambo drew a large knife; and in this unequal struggle we should
infallibly have been wounded if some Biscayan merchants, who were
taking the air on the beach, had not come to our assistance. The
Zambo, seeing himself surrounded, thought no longer of defence. He
again ran away, and we pursued him through the thorny cactuses. At
length, tired out, he took shelter in a cow-house, whence he suffered
himself to be quietly led to prison. M. Bonpland was seized with
fever during the night; but, being endowed with great energy and
fortitude, and possessing that cheerful disposition which is one of
the most precious gifts of nature, he continued his labors the next
day. The inhabitants of Cumana showed us the kindest interest. It was
ascertained that the Zambo was a native of one of the Indian villages
which surround the great lake of Maracaibo. He had served on board a
privateer belonging to the Island of St. Domingo, and in consequence
of a quarrel with the captain he had been left on the coast of
Cumana, when the ship quitted the port. Having seen the signal which
we had fixed up for the purpose of observing the height of the tides,
he had watched the moment when he could attack us on the beach. But
why, after knocking one of us down, was he satisfied with simply
stealing a hat? In an examination he underwent his answers were so
confused and stupid that it was impossible to clear up our doubts.
Sometimes he maintained that his intention was not to rob us; but
that, irritated by the bad treatment he had suffered on board the
privateer of St. Domingo, he could not resist the desire of attacking
us when he heard us speak French. Justice is so tardy in this country
that prisoners, of whom the jail is full, may remain seven or eight
years without being brought to trial; we learned, therefore, with
some satisfaction, that a few days after our departure from Cumana
the Zambo had succeeded in breaking out of the castle.

We quitted the shores of Cumana as if it had been our home. This was
the first land we had trodden in a zone towards which my thoughts had
been directed from earliest youth. There is a powerful charm in the
impression produced by the scenery and climate of these regions, and
after an abode of a few months we seemed to have lived there during a
long succession of years.

AROMATIC SHRUBS.

We spent a long time in examining the fine resinous and fragrant
plants of the Pejual. Wandering in this thick wood we suddenly found
ourselves enveloped in a thick mist; the compass alone could guide
us; but in advancing northward we were in danger at every step of
finding ourselves on the bank of that enormous wall of rocks, which
descends perpendicularly to the depth of six thousand feet towards
the sea. We were obliged to halt. Surrounded by clouds sweeping
the ground, we began to doubt whether we should reach the eastern
peak before night. Happily the negroes who carried our water and
provisions rejoined us, and we resolved to take some refreshment.
Our repast did not last long. Possibly the Capuchin brother had not
thought of the great number of persons who accompanied us, or perhaps
the slaves had made free with our provisions on the way; be that as
it may, we found nothing but olives and scarcely any bread. Horace,
in his retreat at Tibur, never boasted of a repast more light and
frugal; but olives, which might have offered a satisfactory meal to
a poet, devoted to study, and leading a sedentary life, appeared an
aliment by no means substantial for travellers climbing mountains.
We had watched the greater part of the night, and we walked for nine
hours without finding a single opening. Our guides were discouraged;
they wished to go back, and we had great difficulty in preventing
them. We sent off half our servants with orders to hasten the next
morning to meet us, not with olives, but with salt beef.

COW-TREE.

In returning from Porto Cabello to Aragua, we 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. It was
offered to us in 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. Among 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. It is at the rising of the sun that
this vegetable fountain is most abundant. The negroes and natives
are seen hastening from all quarters, furnished with large bowls to
receive the milk, which grows yellow and thickens at the surface;
some empty their bowls under the tree itself, others carry the juice
home to their children.

HOWLING MONKEYS.

Before I trace the scenery of the llanos I will briefly describe the
road we took from Nueva Valencia, to the little village of Ortiz, at
the entrance of the steppes. We left the valley of Aragua on the 6th
of March before sunrise. We passed over a plain richly cultivated,
keeping along the southwest side, by 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. Wherever
the branches of the neighboring trees do not touch each other, the
male who leads the party suspends himself by the callous part of
his tail, and, letting fall the rest of his body, swings himself
till he reaches the neighboring branch. The whole file performs
the same movements in 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 monkeys with a
prehensile tail form a sort of chain, in order to reach the opposite
side of a river. 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 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 relating the
marvels of his country. He says he has seen what he imagines may
have been seen by another. Every savage is a hunter, and the stories
of hunters borrow from imagination in proportion as the animals of
which they boast the artifices are endowed with a high degree of
intelligence.

FINDING WATER.

After having passed two weary nights on horseback, and having sought
in vain by day for some shelter from the heat of the sun, we arrived
before night at the little Hato del Caymen,[21] 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 bear the mark
of their proprietor. These mulattoes, who are known by the name of
_peones llaneros_, are partly freedmen and partly slaves. 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 exertion on foot. We found an
old negro slave, who managed the farm in the absence of his master.
He told us of herds of several thousand cows that were grazing on
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 neighboring 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
red sandstone. After suffering one half the year from the effects 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 deposited 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 beds of sand, or
half-buried in the mud.

No sooner were our instruments safely placed than our mules were set
at liberty to go, as they say here, “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 sense 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 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.

ELECTRICAL EELS.

Having obtained very uncertain results from an electric eel which
had been brought to us alive, but much enfeebled, we repaired to the
Caño de Bera, to make our experiments in the open air, and at the
edge of the water. The Indians told us that they would “fish with
horses” (embarbascar con caballos).[22] 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 aquatic
serpents, swim on the surface of the water, and crowd under the
bellies of the horses. 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
over 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. 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 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 end 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. In a few minutes we had five
large eels, most of which were but slightly wounded.

CROCODILES.

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 the crocodiles. 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.

JAGUARS.

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.[23]
It had just killed a chiguire, but had not yet touched its prey, on
which it kept one of its paws. The 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 bushes that bordered
the shore. The vultures tried to profit by this moment of absence to
devour the chiguire, but the tiger 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.

We passed the night in the open air, 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 daughter Doña Isabella and Doña 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 color of his skin, had not taken the trouble of constructing
even a 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. 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. Doña 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 Ignatio congratulated us on our good fortune
in not sleeping on the shore, but finding ourselves in his domain,
among whites and persons of respectability. 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 valor he
had displayed in a sanguinary combat with the Guahibo Indians, and
“the services that he had rendered to God and the king, in carrying
away Indian children 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!

A COMFORTABLE NIGHT.

On the 1st of April, at sunrise, we quitted Señor Don Ignatio and
Señora Doña Isabella, his wife.... 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 beach. The forest being
impenetrable we had the greatest difficulty in finding dry wood to
light fires, near which the Indians believe themselves in safety from
the nocturnal attacks of the tiger. 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 light. We thought we saw that its blaze attracted them, as it
attracts 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 neighboring 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 soft little 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
which 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
do not attack a man lying in his hammock.

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.

A PLEASANT WALK.

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 shore 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. This excursion had nearly proved
fatal to me. I had kept my eyes constantly fixed 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 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 towards 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, peccaries, 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.

ONE-EYED MEN.

Beyond the Great Cataracts of the Orinoco an unknown land begins.
It is partly mountainous, receiving at once the confluents of the
Amazon and the Orinoco. We found but three Christian establishments
above the Great Cataracts, along the shore 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 eyes in the centre of
the forehead, while others have dogs’ heads, and mouths below the
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 animated description of
remote things. These stories, which the Spanish colonists call “tales
of travellers and of monks,” 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, if 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.”

PLAGUE OF FLIES.