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Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equi-noctial Regions of the New Continent,during the
years 1799—1804. By Alexander de Humboldt, and
Aimé Bonpland,&c. &c. London, 1821, 8vo. 2 Vols.pp. 864.
These volumes, translated by H. MariaWilliams,
terminate the second volume(in quarto) of M. Humboldt’s
personalnarrative; and belong to a work so univer-sally celebrated, that we need only say,they
are, if possible, more thickly studdedwith pieces of valuable
information andcurious matter, than the parts which havepreceded them.
We never take up Humboldt but he re-minds us of Othello, who
—Spake of most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents, by flood, and field;
Of hair-breadth ’scapes—
And portance in his travel’s history;
Wherein of antres vast, and deserts idle,
Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose headstouch
heaven,—
And of the cannibals that each other eat;
The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders,
he told the marvellous stories. Our au-thor is hardly a
trace behind him; and,like the fair Desdemona, we, with
greedyear, devour up his discourse; whence,without further preface, we shall now pro-ceed to draw for the
benefit of our readers.
The natives near the cataracts or rau-dales of the Oroonoko, up
which river M.de Humboldt made his way to a heightlittle known to Europeans, are distin-guished
by several remarkable prejudices,among which, none are more
fatal thanthose narrated in the following:—“Among the causes of the depopulationof
the Raudales, I have not reckoned thesmall pox; that malady
which, in otherparts of America, makes such cruel ravages,that the natives, seized with dismay, burntheir huts, kill their children, and renounceevery kind of
society. This scourge isalmost unknown on the banks of theOronoko. What depopulates
the Chris-tian settlements is, the repugnance of theIndians for the regulations of the missions,the insalubrity of a climate at once hot anddamp, bad
nourishment, want of care inthe diseases of children, and the
guiltypractice of mothers of preventing pregnancyby the use of deleterious herbs. Amongthe
barbarous people of Guyana, as well asthose of the
half-civilized islands of the|Spaltenumbruch|South Sea, young wives will
not becomemothers. If they have children, their off-spring are exposed, not only to the dangersof
savage life, but also to the dangers aris-ing from the strangest
popular prejudices.When twins are born, false notions of
pro-priety and family honour require, that oneof them should be destroyed. ‘To bringtwins into the world, is to be exposed topublic scorn; it is
to resemble rats, opos-sums, and the vilest animals, which
bringforth a great number of young at a time.’Nay more: ‘two children born at thesame
time cannot belong to the same fa-ther.’ This is an axiom
of physiology ofthe Salivas; and in every zone, and in dif-ferent states of society, when the vulgarseize
upon an axiom, they adhere to itwith more stedfastness than the
betterinformed men, by whom it was first ha-zarded. To avoid a disturbance of con-jugal tranquillity, the
old female relationsof the mother, or the mure japoic-nei (mid-wives,) take care, that one of
the twinsshall disappear. If the new-born infant,though not a twin, have any physical de-formity, the father instantly puts it todeath. They will have
only robust andwell-made children, for deformities indicatesome influence of the evil spirit Ioloquiamo,or the bird Tikitiki, the enemy of the hu-man race. Sometimes children of a feebleconstitution undergo the same fate. Whenthe father is asked,
what is become of oneof his sons, he will pretend, that he
haslost him by a natural death. He will dis-avow an action, that appears to him blame-able, but not
criminal. ’The poor mure,”he will tell you, ’could not follow us; wemust have waited for him every moment;he has
not been seen again, he did notcome to sleep where we passed
the night.’Such is the candour and simplicity of man-ners, such the boasted happiness of manin the
state of nature! He kills his son,to escape the ridicule of having twins, orto avoid journeying
more slowly; in fact,to avoid a little
inconvenience.”
Amid the prodigality and magnificenceof nature, such are the
moral evils whichdeform the scene; and we are often com-pelled to leave the author’s glowing des-criptions of superb landscape in the torridzone, to vex our
spirits with similar details.But, the able manner in which
distant ob-jects and remote similitudes are brought tobear on almost every subject discussed, isthe
great charm of this work; and we haveso vast a quantity of
intelligence combinedwith so rich a fund of amusing
anecdote,that the mind never tires. It has been|Spaltenumbruch|alleged, that Mr. H. is too prone to thissort of classification, and to theories builtupon it; but
however that may be in aphilosophical point of view, as a
popularperformance, it wonderfully enhances theattractions of his narrative. He is, intruth,
the very Jacques of travellers; andhis way is delectable,
“ compounded ofmany simples, extracted from many ob-jects; and, indeed, the sundry contempla-tion of
his travels, in which his often ru-mination wraps him in a most
humouroussadness.” He morals on every thing;
forexample:—
“The inhabitants of Atures and May-pures, whatever the
missionaries may haveasserted in their works, are not more
struckwith deafness by the noise of the greatcataracts, than the catadupes of the Nile.When
this noise is heard in the plain thatsurrounds the mission, at
the distance ofmore than a league, you seem to be neara coast skirted by reefs and breakers. Thenoise is three times as loud by night as byday, and gives an
inexpressible charm tothese solitary scenes. What can be thecause of this increased intensity of soundin a
desert, where nothing seems to inter-rupt the silence of nature?
The velocityof the propagation of sound, far from aug-menting, decreases with the lowering of thetemperature. The intensity diminishes inair, agitated by a
wind, which is contraryto the direction of the sound; it
diminishesalso by dilatation of the air, and is weakerin the higher than in the lower regions ofthe
atmosphere, where the number of par-ticles of air in motion is
greater in thesame radius. The intensity is the same indry air, and in air mingled with vapours;but
it is feebler in carbonic acid gas, thanin mixtures of azot and
oxygen. Fromthese facts, which are all we know withany certainty, it is difficult to explain aphenomenon observed near every cascadein Europe, and which,
long before our ar-rival in the village of Atures, had struckthe missionary and the Indians. The noc-turnal
temperature of the atmosphere is3° less than the temperature of
the day;at the same time the apparent humidityaugments at night, and the mist that coversthe cataracts
becomes thicker. We havejust seen, that the hygroscopic state
of theair has no influence on the propagation ofthe sound, and that the cooling of the airdiminishes its
swiftness.
“It may be thought, that, even in placesnot inhabited by
man, the hum of insects,the song of birds, the rustling of
leavesagitated by the feeblest winds, occasion,during the day, a confused noise, which weperceive the less because it is uniform, andconstantly
strikes the ear. Now this noise,
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however slightly perceptible it may be,may diminish the
intensity of a louder,noise; and this diminution may cease,
ifduring the calm of the night the song ofbirds, the hum of insects, and the action ofthe wind upon the
leaves, be interrupted.But this reasoning, even admitting its
just-ness, can scarcely be applied to the forestsof the Oroonoko, where the air is con-stantly
filled by an innumerable quantityof moschettoes, where the hum
of insectsis much louder by night than by day, andwhere the breeze, if ever it be felt, blowsonly after sunset.
“I rather think, that the presence ofthe sun acts upon
the propagation and in-tensity of the sound by the obstacles
whichthey find in the currents of air differentdensity, and the partial undulations of theatmosphere caused by the unequal heatingof different parts of
the soil. In calm air,whether it be dry, or mingled with
vesi-cular vapours equally distributed, the so-norous undulation is propagated
withoutdifficulty. But when the air is crossed inevery direction by small currents of hotterair, the sonorous undulation is divided intotwo undulations;
where the density of themedium changes abruptly, partial
echoesare formed, that weaken the sound, becauseone of the streams comes back upon itself;and
those divisions of undulations takeplace, of which Mr. Poisson
has recentlydeveloped the theory with great sagacity.It is not therefore the movement of theparticles of air from below to above in theascending current,
or the small obliquecurrents, that we consider as opposing
bya shock the propagation of the sonorousundulations. A shock, given to the sur-face of a liquid, will
form circles aroundthe center of percussion, even then theliquid is agitated. Several kinds of undu-lations may cross each other in water, as inair, without
being disturbed in their pro-pagation; little movements may ride overeach other, and the real cause
of the lessintensity of sound during the day appearsto be the interruption of homogeneity inthe
elastic medium. During the day,there is a sudden interruption
of density,where ever small streamlets of air of a hightemperature rise over parts of the soil un-equally heated. The sonorous undulationsare divided, as the
rays of light are re-fracted, and form the mirage (looming),wherever strata of air of unequal
densityare contiguous. The propagation of soundis altered, when a stratum hydrogen gasis made
to rise in a tube closed at oneend above a stratum of
atmospheric air;and Mr. Biot has well explained, by the in-terposition of bubbles of carbonic acid gas,why
a glass filled with Champagne wineis little sonorous so long as
the gas isevolved, and continues to pass throughthe strata of the liquid.”
This hypothesis is well worth furtherinvestigations; but we must
surrender it tothe scientific journals, and continue ourmore mixed career.
“The Indians of Atures,” says Mr. H.,“are
mild, moderate, and accustomed, fromthe effects of their
idleness, to the greatest|Spaltenumbruch|privations. Formerly, excited to
labourby the Jesuits, they did not want for food.The fathers cultivated maize, French beans,(frisoles), and other European vegetables;they even planted sweet oranges and ta-marinds
round the villages ; and they pos-sessed twenty or thirty
thousand head ofcows and horses, in the savannahs ofAtures and Carichana. They had at theirservice
a great number of slaves and ser-vants (peones), to take care of their herds.Nothing is now
cultivated but a little cas-sava, and a few plantains. The
fertilityof the soil however is such, that at AturesI counted on a single branch of musa 108fruits, 4 or 5 of which would almost sufficefor the daily
nourishment of a man. Theculture of maize is entirely
neglected, andthe horses and cows have disappeared.Near the raudal, a part of the village
stillbears the name of Passo del
ganado (fordof the cattle), while the descendants
ofthose very Indians, whom the Jesuits hadassembled in a mission, speak of hornedcattle as of animals
of a race that is lost.In going up the Oroonoko, toward SanCarlos del Rio Negro, we saw the last cowat
Carichana. The fathers of the Observ-ance, who now govern these
vast countries,did not immediately succeed the Jesuits.During an interregnum of eighteen years,the
missions were visited only from timeto time, and by Capuchin
monks. Theagents of the secular government, underthe title of Commissioners of the King,
ma-naged the hatos or farms of the
Jesuitswith culpable negligence. They killed thecattle in order to sell the hides. Manyheifers
were devoured by tigers, and agreater number perished in
consequenceof wounds made by the bats of the
raudales, which are much less, but farbolder than the bats of the Llanos. Atthe time of the
expedition of the bounda-ries, the horses of Encaramada,
Carichana,and Atures, were conveyed as far as SanJose of Maravitanos, where, on the banksof the
Rio Negro, the Portugueze couldonly procure them after a long
passage,and of a very inferior quality, by the riverAmazon and Grand Para. Since the year1795, the
cattle of the Jesuits have entirelydisappeared. There now
remains in tes-timony of the ancient cultivation of thesecountries, and the industrious activity ofthe
first missionaries, only a few trunks ofthe orange and tamarind
in the savannahs, surrounded by wild trees.
“The tigers, or jaguars, which are lessdangerous for the
cattle than the bats,come into the village at Atures, and
devourthe pigs of the poor Indians. The mis-sionary related to us a striking instance ofthe familiarity
of these animals, upon thewhole so ferocious. Some months
beforeour arrival, a jaguar, which was thought tobe young, though of a large size, hadwounded a
child in playing with him; I use confidently this expression,
which mayseem strange, having on the spot verifiedfacts which are not without interest in thehistory of the manners of animals. TwoIndian children, a boy
and a girl, abouteight and nine years of age, were seated|Spaltenumbruch|on the grass near the village of Atures, inthe middle of a savannah, which we haveoften traversed. At
two o’clock in the af-ternoon, a jaguar issued from the
forest,and approached the children, boundingaround them; sometimes he hid himselfin the high grass,
sometimes he sprangforward, his back bent, his head hungdown, in the manner of our cats. Thelittle
boy, ignorant of his danger, seemedto be sensible of it only
when the jaguarwith one of bis paws gave him some blowson the head. These blows, at first slight,became ruder and ruder; the claws of thejaguar wounded the
child, and the bloodflowed with violence. The little girl
thentook a branch of a tree, struck the animal,and it fled from her. The Indians ran upat the
cries of the children, and saw thejaguar, which retired
bounding, without theleast show of resistance.
“The little boy was brought to us, whoappeared lively
and intelligent. The clawof the jaguar had taken away the skin
fromthe lower part of the forehead, and therewas a second scar at the top of the head.”
“Among the monkeys,” the authorcontinues,
“which we saw at the missionof the Atures, we found one
new speciesof the tribe of sais and sajous, which theCreoles vulgarly call
machis. It is the
ouavapavi with grey hair and a bluish face.It has the orbits of the eyes and foreheadas
white as snow, which at first sight dis-tinguish it from the simia capucina, the
simia apella, the simia trepida,
and theother weeping monkeys hitherto so con-fusedly described. This little animal is asgentle as it is
ugly. Every day in thecourt-yard of the missionary it seized a
pig,upon which it remained from morning tillnight, traversing the savannahs. We havealso seen it upon the
back of a large cat,which bad been brought up with it in fa-ther Zea's house.
“It was among the cataracts that we beganto hear of the
hairy man of the woods, calledsalvaje, that carries off women,
constructshuts, and sometimes eats human flesh. TheTamanacks call it achi, and the
Maypures
vasitri, or great devil. The
natives and themissionaries have no doubt of the exist-ence of this anthropomorphous monkey,which they
singularly dread. Father Giligravely relates the history of a
lady in thetown of San Carlos, who much praised thegentle character and attentions of the manof
the woods. She lived several years withone in great domestic
harmony, and onlyrequested some hunters to take her back,‘because she was tired, she and her chil-dren (a little hairy also), of living far fromthe church and
the sacraments.” Thesame author, notwithstanding his
credulity,confesses, that he had not been able tofind an Indian, who asserted positively thathe
had seen the salvaje with his own eyes.This fable, which the missionaries, the Eu-ropean planters,
and the negroes of Africa,have no doubt embellished with many
fea-tures taken from the description of themanners of the ourang outang, the gibbon,the jocko or
chimpanzee, and the pongo,pursued us during five years from the
north-
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ern to the southern hemisphere; and wewere every where blamed,
in the most cul-tivated class of society, for being the onlypersons to doubt the existence of the greatanthropomorphous monkey of America.We shall first observe,
that there are cer-tain regions, where this belief is
particu-larly prevalent among the people; suchare the banks of the Upper Oroonoko, thevalley
of Upar near the Lake of Maracaybo,the mountains of Santa
Martha and of Me-rida, the provinces of Quixos, and thebanks of the Amazon near Tomependa.In all
these places, so distant one from theother, it is repeated,
that the salvaje iseasily recognized by
the traces of its feet,the toes of which are turned
backward. But if there exist a monkey of a large sizein the New Continent, how has it hap-pened,
that during three centuries no man worthy of belief has been
able to procurethe skin of one? Several hypotheses pre-sent themselves to the mind, in order toexplain
the source of so ancient an erroror belief. Has the famous capuchin mon-key of Esmeralda, the
canine teeth ofwhich are more than six lines and a half
long,the physiognomy much more like man’sthan that of the ourang outang, and which,
when irritated, rubs its beard with its hand, give rise to the
fable of the salvaje? Itis not so large
indeed as the coaita(simia paniscus);
but when seen atthe top of a tree, and the head onlyvisible, it might easily be taken fora human
being. It may be also (andthis opinion appears to me the most
pro-bable), that the man of the woods was oneof those large bears, the footsteps of whichresemble those of
a man, and which is be-lieved in every country to attack
women. The animal killed in my time at the foot of the mountains of Merida, and sent, by thename
of salvaje, to Colonel Ungaro, the go-vernor of the province Varinas, was in facta bear with black
and smooth fur.”
These extraordinary accounts are suc-ceeded by a detailed history
of the Moschet-toes of this region; perhaps the most re-markable of all its animal phenomena.
“Persons who have not navigated thegreat rivers of
equinoctial America, for in-stance, the Oroonoko and the Rio
Magda-lena, can scarcely conceive, how without in-terruption, at every instant of life, you maybe
tormented by insects flying in the air,and how the multitude of
these little ani-mals may render vast regions wholly unin-habitable. However accustomed you may be to
endure pain without complaint, however lively an interest you
may take in the ob-jects of your researches, it is impossible
notto be constantly disturbed by the moschet-toes, zancudoes, jejens and tempraneroes, thatcover the face and hands, pierce
the clotheswith their long sucker in the form of a nee-dle, and, getting into the mouth and nos-trils,
set you coughing and sneezing when-ever you attempt to speak in
the open air.In the missions of the Oroonoko, in the vil-lages placed on the banks of the river, sur-rounded by immense forests, the plaga delas moscas, the plague of the flies, affords aninexhaustible subject of conversation. When|Spaltenumbruch|two persons
meet in the morning, the firstquestions they address to each
other are,‘How did you find the zancudoes duringthe night? How are we to day for themoschettoes.’ These questions remindus of a Chinese
form of politeness, which indicates the ancient state of thecountry where it took birth. Salutationswere
made heretofore in the celestialempire,
in the following words, vou-tou-hou, ‘Have you been incommoded in thenight by
the serpents?’ We
shall soon see,that on the banks of the Tuamini, in the river Magdalena, and still more atChoco,
the country of gold and platina, theChinese compliment on the
serpents mightbe added to that of the moschettoes.”
Other curious facts are recorded, and il-lustrate this subject.
Mr. H. says—
“At Mandavaca we found an old mis-sionary, who told us
with an air of sadness,that he bad spent his
twenty years of mos-chettoes in America. He desired us
to lookwell at his legs, that we might be able to tell one day, ‘poor alla (beyond sea), whatthe poor monks suffer in the forests ofCassiquiare.’ Every sting leaving a smalldarkish brown
point, his legs were sospeckled, that it was difficult to
recognizethe whiteness of his skin through the spotsof coagulated blood. If the insects of the
simulium genus abound in the Cassiquiare,which has white waters, the culices, or
zancudoes, are so much the more rare;you scarcely find any there, while on therivers of black waters, in the Atabapo andthe Rio
Negro, there are generally some
zancudoes and no moschettoes.”
(To be continued).
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HUMBOLDT’S TRAVELS,
(Continued.)
Our last number left us in the midst of aswarm
of moschettoes, and, however pain-ful it has been to remain a
week amongthese pestiferous insects, there we arestill. Proceeding with his anecdotes to il-lustrate their natural history, our authorsays:“I have just shown, from my own obser-vations, how much the geographical distri-bution of venomous
insects varies in this la-byrinth of rivers with white and black
waters.It were to be wished, that a learned entomo-logist could study on the spot the specificdifferences of these noxious insects, whichin the torrid
zone, in spite of their little-ness, act an important part in
the economyof nature. What appeared to us very re-markable, and is a fact, known to all themissionaries, is, that the different speciesdo not associate
together, and that at dif-ferent hours of the day you are stung
by adistinct species. Every time that the scenechanges, and to use the simple expressionof the missionaries,
other insects ‘mountguard,’ you have a few minutes, often
aquarter of an hour, of repose. The insectsthat disappear have not their places in-stantly supplied in
equal numbers by theirsuccessors. From half after six in themorning till five in the afternoon, the air is
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filled with moschettoes; which have not, aswe find related in
some travels, the form ofour gnats, but that of a small fly.
They aresimuliums of the family nemoceræ of thesystem of Latreille. Their sting is as pain-ful
as that of stomoxes. It leaves a little red-dish-brown spot, which is extravasated andcoagulated blood, where their proboscis haspierced the skin.
An hour before sun-set aspecies of small gnats, called tempraneros,because they appear also at
sun-rise, takethe place of the moschettoes. Their pre-sence scarcely lasts an hour and a half;they
disappear between six and seven in theevening; or, as they say
here, after the An-gelus(a la oracion). After a few minutesrepose, you feel yourself stung by zancudoes,another species of gnat (culex) with verylong
legs. The zancudo, the proboscis ofwhich contains a sharp
pointed sucker,causes the most acute pain, and a swellingthat remains several weeks. Its hum re-sembles
that of our gnats in Europe, but islouder and more prolonged.
The Indianspretend to distinguish ‘by their song’
the
zancudoes and the tempraneroes;
the latterof which are real twilight
insects, while the
zancudoes are most frequently nocturnal in-sects, and disappear towards
sun-rise.
“The culices of South America, have ge-nerally the wings, corselet, and legs of anazure colour, annulated, and variable froma mixture of spots
of a metallic lustre.Here, as in Europe, the males, which
aredistinguished by their feathered antennæ,are extremely rare; you are seldom stungexcept
by females. The preponderance ofthis sex explains the immense
increase ofthe species, each female laying several hun-dred eggs. In going up one of the greatrivers
of America, it is observed, that theappearance of a new species
of culex denotesthe approximity of a
new stream flowingin.’
“The whites born in the torrid zone walkbarefoot with
impunity in the same apart-ment where a European recently landed
isexposed to the attack of the niguas or chegoes
(pulex penetrans). These animals,
almostinvisible to the eye, get under the nails ofthe feet, and there acquire the size of asmall
pea by the quick increase of its eggs,which are placed in a bag
under the bellyof the insect. The nigua, therefore, distin-guishes, what the most delicate
chemicalanalysis could not distinguish, the cellularmembrane and blood of a European fromthose of
a Creole white. It is not so withthe moschettoes.
“In the day, even when labouring atthe oar, the natives,
in order to chase theinsects, are continually giving one
anothersmart slaps with the palm of the hand.Rude in all their movements, they strikethemselves and their comrades mechanicallyduring their sleep.
The violence of theirblows reminds us of the Persian tale of
thebear, that tried to kill with his paw the in-sects on the forehead of his sleeping mas-ter.
Near Maypures we saw some young In-dians seated in a circle and
rubbing cruellyeach others backs with the bark of treesdried at the fire. Indian women were oc-cupied
with a degree of patience, of which|Spaltenumbruch|the copper-coloured
race alone are capable,in extirpating by means of a sharp
bonethe little mass of coagulated blood, thatforms the centre of every sting, andgives the
skin a speckled appearance.One of the most barbarous nations of
theOroonoko, that of the Otomacs, is ac-quainted with the use of moschetto curtains(mosquiteros) formed of a tissue of fibres ofthe palm tree, murichi. We had lately
seen,that at Higuerote, on the coast of Caraccas,the people of a copper colour sleep buried inthe sand. In the villages of the Rio Mag-dalena the Indians
often invited us tostretch ourselves with them on ox-skins,near the church, in the middle of the plazagrande, where they had assembled all thecows in the neighbourhood. The proximityof
cattle give some repose to man. TheIndians of the Upper
Oroonoko and theCassiquiare, seeing that Mr. Bonpland couldnot prepare his herbal, on account of thecontinual torment of the moschettoes, in-vited him to enter
their ovens, (hornitos).Thus they call
little chambers, withoutdoors or windows, into which they
creephorizontally through a very small opening.When they have driven away the insectsby means
of a fire of wet brush-wood,which emits a great deal of smoke,
theyclose the opening of the oven. The ab-sence of moschettoes is purchased dearlyenough by the
excessive heat of stagnantair, and the smoke of a torch of copal,which lights the oven during your
stay init. Mr. Bonpland, with courage and pa-tience well worthy of praise, dried hundredsof plants, shut
up in these hornitos of theIndians.
“It is difficult not to smile at hearing themissionaries
dispute on the size and vora-city of the moschettoes at
different parts ofthe same river. In the centre of acountry ignorant of what is passing in therest
of the world, this is the favourite sub-ject of conversation.
‘How I pity your si-tuation!’ said the missionary
of the rau-dales to the missionary of Cassiquiare, atour departure; ‘you are alone, like me, inthis country of tigers and monkeys; withyou
fish is still more rare, and the heatmore violent; but as for
my flies, (mia mos-cas) I can boast,
that with one of mine Iwould beat three of yours.’
“This voracity of insects in certain spots,the rage with
which they attack man,the activity of the venom varying in
thesame species, are very remarkable facts;which find their analogy, however, in theclasses of large
animals. The crocodile ofAngostura pursues men, while at
NuevaBarcelona, in the Rio Neveri, you maybathe tranquilly in the midst of these car-nivorous reptiles.
The jaguars of Maturin,Cumanacoa, and the isthmus of Panama,are cowardly in comparison to those of theUpper Oroonoko. The Indians well know,that the monkeys of some
valleys can easilybe tamed, while others of the same
species,caught elsewhere, will rather die of hunger,than submit to slavery.”|Spaltenumbruch|
By this time we fancy our readers areas well acquainted with the
habits of themoschettoes, as if they had been bitten bythem all over; and further knowledge beingunnecessary, we shall advance to othersubjects.
Above the cataract of Atures, at themouth of the Rio Calaniapo,
Mr. Humboldtgives the following account of an extincttribe:
“We were shown at a distance, on theright of the river,
the rocks that surround thecavern of Ataruipe; but we had not
time tovisit the cemetry of the destroyed tribe ofthe Atures. We regretted this so much themore,
as father Zea was never weary oftalking to us of the skeletons
painted withanotta, which this cavern contained; ofthe large vases of baked earth, in which thebones of separate families appeared to becollected; and of
many other curious ob-jects, which we proposed to examine at
ourreturn from the Rio Negro.”
At Maypure, higher up, we hear more ofthe pottery of the
Indians:
“In every part of the forests, far fromany human
habitation, on digging the earth,fragments of pottery and delft
are found.The taste for this kind of fabrication seemsto have been common heretofore to the na-tives
of both Americas. To the north ofMexico,—on the banks of
the Rio Gala—among the ruins of an Azteck city—in
theUnited States—near the tumuli of the Mia-mis; in Florida—and in every
place whereany trace of ancient civilization could befound, the soil covers fragments of paintedpottery; and the extreme resemblances ofthe ornaments they
display is striking.Savage nations, and those civilized
people,who are condemned by their politicaland religious institutions always to imi-tate themselves,
strive, as if by instinct, toperpetuate the same forms, to
preserve apeculiar type or style, and to follow themethods and processes which were employedby
their ancestors. In North America,fragments of delft have been
discovered inplaces where lines of fortification are found,and the walls of towns constructed by anunknown nation, now entirely extinct.The paintings on these
fragments have agreat similitude to those which are executedin our days on earthenware by the nativesof
Louisiana and Florida. Thus too theIndians of Maypure often
painted beforeour eyes the same ornaments as we hadobserved in the cavern of Ataroipe, on thevases
containing human bones. They arereal grecques, meandrites, and figures ofcrocodiles,
of monkeys, and of a large qua-
|376|
druped, which I could not recognize, thoughit has always the
same squat form.”
Above Maypure this is indeed a “NewWorld,”: Mr.
Humboldt says:—
“When the traveller has passed thegreat cataracts, he
feels as if he were in anew world; and had overstepped the
bar-riers which nature seems to have raised be-tween the civilized countries of the coast andthe savage and unknown interior. Towardthe east, in the
bluish distance, appearedfor the last time, the high chain of
the Cu-navami mountains. Its long horizontal ridgereminded us of the Mesa of Bergantin, nearCumana; but it terminates by a truncatedsummit. The peak of
Calitamini (the namegiven to this summit) glows at sun-set
aswith a reddish fire. This appearance isevery day the same. No one ever ap-proached the summit of this
mountain, theheight of which does not exceed six hun-dred toises. I believe this splendor, com-monly
reddish and sometimes silvery, to bea reflexion produced by
large plates of talc,or by gneiss passing into mica-slate.
Thewhole of this country contains graniticrocks, on which here and there, in littleplains, an
argillaceous grit-stone immediatelyreposes, containing
fragments of quartz,and of brown iron ore.
“In going to the embarcadere” he con-tinues, “we caught on the trunk of a
heveaa new species of tree frog, remarkable forits
beautiful colours; it had a yellow belly,the back and head of a
fine velvetty purple,and a very narrow stripe of white from
thepoint of the nose to the hinder extremities.This frog was two inches long, and allied tothe rana tinctoria, the blood of which, it isasserted, introduced into the skin of aparrot,
in places where the feathers havebeen plucked out, occasions
the growth offrizzled feathers of a yellow or red colour.
But this is not only the region of realwonders; it has its
fictions also.
“The forests of Sipapo are altogether un-known, and there
the missionaries placethe nation of Rayas, who have their mouthin the navel. An old
Indian, whom wemet at Carichano, and who boasted ofhaving often eaten human flesh, had seenthese
acephali ‘with his own eyes.’ Theseabsurd fables are spread as far as the Llanos,where you are not always permitted to doubtthe existence of
the Raya Indians. Inevery zone
intolerance accompanies cre-dulity; and it might be said, that
the fic-tions of ancient geographers had passed fromone hemisphere to the other, did we notknow,
that the most fantastic productions ofthe imagination, like the
works of nature,furnish every where a certain analogy ofaspect and form.”
|389|
humboldt’s travels,(Continued.)
We cannot, even in the midst of the in-teresting works which are at present
almostdaily issuing from the press, do better thancontinue
to devote a page of our Gazette tothe agreeable narrative of this
enterprisingand intelligent traveller. In a precedingpaper
we have remarked upon the extraor-dinary degree of general
knowledge whichhe brings to bear on any topic he is
illus-trating. The following is an admirableexample of the
truth of this position:“Every hemisphere produces plants
ofa different species; and it is not by thediversity of climates that we can
attemptto explain why equinoctial Africa has nolaurineæ, and the New World no
heaths;why the calceolariæ are found only in thesouthern hemisphere; why the
birds ofthe continent of India glow with coloursless splendid than the birds
of the hot partsof America; finally, why the tiger is pecu-liar to Asia, and the
ornithorhincus to New-Holland. In the vegetable as well as inthe animal
kingdom, the causes of the dis-tribution of the species are among thenumber of
mysteries, which natural philo-sophy cannot reach. This science is notoccupied in
the investigation of the originof beings, but of the laws according towhich
they are distributed on the globe.It examines the things that are, the
co-existence of vegetable and animal forms ineach latitude, at different
heights, and atdifferent degrees of temperature; it stu-dies the relations under
which particularorganizations are more vigorously deve-loped, multiplied, or
modified; but it ap-proaches not problems, the solution ofwhich is impossible,
since they touch the|Spaltenumbruch|origin, the first existence of a germe oflife. We may add,
that the attempts whichhave been made, to explain the distributionof various
species on the globe by the soleinfluence of climate, date at a period whenphysical geography was still in its infancy;when, recurring incessantly to
pretendedcontrasts between the two worlds, it wasimagined, that the whole of
Africa andof America resembled the deserts of Egyptand the marshes of
Cayenne. At present,when men judge of the state of things notfrom one type
arbitrarily chosen, but frompositive knowledge, it is ascertained, thatthe two
continents, in their immense ex-tent, contain countries that are altogetheranalogous. There are regions of America asbarren and burning as the interior
of Africa.The islands that produce the spices ofIndia are scarcely remarkable
for theirdryness; and it is not on account of the hu-midity of the climate, as
it has been affirmedin recent works, that the New Continentis deprived of
those fine species of laurineæand myristicæ, which are found united inone
little corner of the earth in the Archi-pelago of India. For some years past,
thereal cinnamon has been cultivated withsuccess in several parts of the New
Con-tinent; and a zone, that produces the cou-marouna, the vanilla, the pucheri,
the pine-apple, the myrtus pimenta, the balsam oftolu, the myroxylon
peruvianum, the cro-tons, the citrosmas, the pejoa, the inciensoof the Silla of
Caraccas, the quereme, thepancratium, and so many majestic liliaceousplants,
cannot be considered as destitute ofaromatics. Besides, a dry air favours thedevelopement of the aromatic, or excitingproperties, only in certain species of plants.The most cruel poisons are produced in themost humid zone of America;
and it is pre-cisely under the influence of the long rains ofthe tropics, that
the American pimento, cap-sicum baccatum, the fruit of which is oftenas caustic
and fiery as Indian pepper, vege-tates best. From the whole of these
con-siderations it follows, 1st, that the New Con-tinent possesses spices,
aromatics, and veryactive vegetable poisons, that are peculiarto itself,
differing specifically from those ofthe ancient world; 2dly, that the primi-tive
distribution of species in the torridzone cannot be explained by the influenceof climate solely, or by the distribution oftemperature, which we observe in
the pre-sent state of our planet; but that this dif-ference of climates leads us to
perceive,why a given type of organization developesitself more vigorously in
such or such localcircumstances. We can conceive, that asmall number of the
families of plants, forinstance the musaceæ and the palms, can-not belong to
very cold regions, on accountof their internal structure and the import-ance of
certain organs; but we cannot ex-plain why no one of the family of melas-tomas
vegetates north of the parallel ofthirty degrees, or why no rose-tree belongsto the southern hemisphere. Analogy ofclimates is often found in the two
continents,without identity of productions.”
Here follow some very curious observationson the difference of colours in rivers, springs,|Spaltenumbruch||390|and lakes; but we must pass them, andfrom the Oroonoko portage our readersacross by Pimichin to the Rio Negro, onthe frontiert of Brazil. Here is seen in allits majesty the phiguao of pirajao palm.
“Its trunk,
armed with thorns, is morethan sixty feet high; its leaves are pin-nated,
very thin, undulated, and frizzledtowards the points. Nothing is more ex-traordinary than the fruits of this tree;every cluster contains from fifty to eighty;they are yellow like apples, grow purple inproportion as they ripen, two or
threeinches thick; and generally, from abortion,without a kernel. Among
the eighty orninety species of palm-trees that are pecu-liar to the New Continent,” adds Mr. H.,“which I have enumerated in the NovaGenera Plantarum æquinoctialum, thereare none in which the sarcocarp is deve-loped in a manner so extraordinary.
Thefruit of the pirijao furnishes a farinaceoussubstance, as yellow as the
yolk of an egg,slightly saccharine, and extremely nutri-tious. It is eaten
like plantains or potatoes,boiled or roasted in the ashes, and affordsan aliment as wholesome as it is agreeable.The Indians and the missionaries are
un-wearied in their praises of this noble palm-tree, which might be called
the peach palm,and which we found cultivated in abundanceat San Fernando, San
Balthasar, SantaBarbara, and wherever we advanced towardthe south or the
east along the banks ofthe Atabapo and the Upper Oroonoko.In those wild
regions are we involuntarilyreminded of the assertion of Linnæus, thatthe
country of palm-trees was the firstabode of our species, and that man is
es-sentially palmivorous. On examining theprovision accumulated in the huts
of theIndians, we perceive, that their subsistence,during several months of
the year, dependsas much on the farinaceous fruit of thepirijao, as on the
cassava and plantain.The tree bears fruit but once a year, but tothe
amount of three clusters, consequentlyfrom one hundred and fifty, to two
hun-dred fruits.”Here, also, is the gigantic bombax (bom-bax ceila) one of which, as they sailed along,attracted the notice of the travellers, andthey
landed to measure it. “The height(we are told) was nearly one hundred andtwenty
feet, and the diameter betweenfourteen and fifteen. This enormous effortof vegetation surprised us the more, as wehad, till then, seen on the banks
of the Ata-bapo, only small trees with slender trunks,which from afar
resembled young cherry-trees. The Indians assured us, that thesesmall trees do
not form a very extensivegroup. They are checked in their growthby the
inundations of the river; while thedry grounds near the Atabapo, the Temi,and the Tuamini, furnish excellent timberfor building.”Nor is
animal inferior to vegetable life.“The river Atabapo displays every-where a peculiar aspect; you see nothing ofits real banks formed by
flat lands eight orten feet high; they are concealed by a rowof palms, and
small trees with slendertrunks, the roots of which are bathed by|Spaltenumbruch|the
waters. There are many crocodilesfrom the point where you quit the Oroonokoto the mission of San Fernando, and theirpresence indicates, as we have said above,that this part
of the river belongs to theRio Guaviare and not to the Atabapo. Inthe real
bed of the latter river, above themission of San Fernando, there are no lon-ger any
crocodiles: we find there somebavas, a great many fresh-water dolphins,but
no manatees. We also seek in vainon those banks the thick-nosed tapir,
thearaguates, or great howling monkeys, thezamuro, or vultur aura, and the
crestedpheasant, known by the name of guacharaca.Enormous water-snakes, in
shape resem-bling the boa, are unfortunately very com-mon, and are dangerous
to Indianswho bathe. We saw them almost fromthe first day, swimming by the side of ourcanoe; they were at most twelve orfourteen feet
long. The jaguars of thebanks of the Atabapo and the Temi arelarge and
well fed; they are said, however,to be less daring than the jaguars of theOrinoco.”Thus (as we have stated), interspersedwith
anecdote, does Mr. Humboldt vary hisentertaining volumes; and that our
reviewmay partake of the character of its subject,we shall conclude
the present division of itby copying a very affecting story.
Wherethe Atabapo enters the Rio Temi, the nar-rative
says:“Before we reached its confluence,agranitic hummock, that rises on
the westernbank, near the mouth of the Guasacavi,fixed our attention; it is
called the Rock ofthe Guahiba woman, or the Rock of theMother, Piedra de la Madre. We inquiredthe 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 Fernandoas president of the missions, related to us anevent, which I recorded in my journal, andwhich
excited in our minds the most pain-ful feelings. If, in these solitary scenes,man scarcely leaves behind him any traceof his existence, it is doubly
humiliatingfor a European to see perpetuated by thename of a rock, by one of those imperish-able monuments of nature, the remem-brance of the moral degradation of ourspecies, and
the contrast between the vir-tue of a savage, and the barbarism of ci-vilized
man!“In 1797 the missionary of San Fer-nando had led his Indians to
the banks ofthe Rio Guaviare, on one of those hostileincursions which are
prohibited alike byreligion and the Spanish laws. They foundin an Indian hut, a
Guahiba woman withthree children, two of whom were still infants.They were occupied
in preparing the flour ofCassava. Resistance was impossible; thefather was
gone to fish, and the mothertried in vain to flee with her children.Scarcely
had she reached the savannah,when she was seized by the Indians of themission,
who go to hunt men, like thewhites and the negroes in Africa. Themother and
her children were bound, and|Spaltenumbruch|dragged to the bank of the river. Themonk, seated
in his boat, waited the issueof an expedition, of which he partook notthe
danger. Had the mother made tooviolent a resistance, the Indians wouldhave
killed her, for every thing is per-mitted when they go to the conquest of souls
(à la conquista espiritual), and it ischildren in particular they seek to capture,in order to treat them, in the mission,as poitos, or slaves of the Christians. Theprisoners were carried to San Fernando inthe hope, that the mother would be
un-able to find her way back to her home,by land. Far from those
children who hadaccompanied their father on the day inwhich she had been
carried off, this un-happy woman showed signs of the deepestdespair. She
attempted to take back toher family the children who had beensnatched away by the
missionary, and fledwith them repeatedly from the village ofSan Fernando, but the Indians never failedto seize her anew; and the missionary,after having
caused her to be mercilesslybeaten, took the cruel resolution of sepa-rating the
mother from the two children,who had been carried off with her. Shewas conveyed
alone toward the missions ofthe Rio Negro, going up the Atabapo.Slightly bound,
she was seated at the bowof the boat, ignorant of the fate that awaitedher;
but she judged, by the direction ofthe sun, that she was removed farther andfarther from her hut and her native country.She succeeded in breaking her
bonds, threwherself into the water, and swam to theleft bank of the Atabapo.
The currentcarried her to a shelf of rock, whichbears her name to this day.
She landed,and took shelter in the woods, but the pre-sident of the missions
ordered the Indiansto row to the shore, and follow the tracesof the Guahibi.
In the evening she wasbrought back. Stretched upon the rock(la Piedra de la
Madre) a cruel punishmentwas inflicted on her with those straps ofmanatee
leather, which serve for whips inthat country, and with which the alcadesare
always furnished. This unhappy wo-man, her hands tied behind her back withstrong
stalks of mavacure, was then draggedto the mission of Javita.“She
was there thrown into one of thecaravanseras that are called Casas del Rey.It was
the rainy season, and the night wasprofoundly dark. Forests, till then believedto be impenetrable, separated the missionof Javita from that of San Fernando,
whichwas twenty-five leagues distant in a straightline. No other route is
known than that ofthe rivers; no man ever attempted to goby land from one
village to another, werethey only a few leagues apart. But suchdifficulties could not stop a mother, who isseparated
from her children. Her childrenare at San Fernando de Atabapo; she mustfind them again, she must execute her pro-ject of delivering them from the hands ofChristians, of bringing them back to theirfather on the banks of the Guaviare. TheGuahibi was carelessly guarded in the ca-ravansera. Her
arms being wounded, theIndians of Javita had loosened her bonds,|Spaltenumbruch||391|unknown to the
missionary and the al-cades. She succeeded by the help of herteeth in
breaking them entirely; disap-peared during the night; and at the fourthrising sun was seen at the mission of SanFernando, hovering around the hut whereher children were confined. ‘What thatwoman performed,’ added the missionarywho gave us this sad narrative, ‘the mostrobust Indian would not have ventured
toundertake. She traversed the woods at aseason when the sky is constantly
coveredwith clouds, and the sun during whole daysappears but for a few
minutes. Did thecourse of the waters direct her way? Theinundations of the
rivers forced her to gofar from the banks of the main stream,through the midst
of woods where themovement of the waters is almost imper-ceptible. How often must
she have beenstopped by the thorny lianas, that form anetwork around the
trunks they entwine?How often must she have swum across therivulets, that run
into the Atabapo! Thisunfortunate woman was asked how shehad sustained herself
during four days!She said, that, exhausted with fatigue, shecould find no other
nourishment than thosegreat black ants called vachacos, whichclimb the trees
in long bands, to suspendon them their resinous nests.’ We pressedthe
missionary to tell us, whether theGuahibi had peacefully enjoyed the happi-ness
of remaining with her children; andif any repentance had followed this excessof cruelty. He would not satisfy our cu-riosity; but at our return from the RioNegro we learnt, that the Indian motherwas not allowed time to cure her wounds,but was again separated from her children,and sent to one of the missions of theUpper Oroonoko. There she died, re-fusing
all kind of nourishment, as sa-vages do in great
calamities.“Such is the remembrance annexed tothis fatal rock,
to Piedra de la Madre.”
|405|
humboldt’s travels,(Continued.)
This journal is so pregnant with instruc-tive and interesting matter, that we
couldhardly, as we think, place any thing betterbefore our readers,
though we might bemore instant with a greater variety of
no-velty. We therefore continue our extracts.The following is
a curious account of theIndian Rubber:—“Here (says Mr. H. atthe mission of St. Balthasar on the Atobapo)we saw, for the first time, that white
andfungous substance, which I have madeknown by the name of
dapicho and zapis.We immediately
perceived, that it was ana-logous to the elastic
resin; but, as the In-dians made us understand by signs,
that itwas found under ground, we were inclinedto think, till we
arrived at the mission ofJavita, that the dapicho was a fossil caout-chouc, though different from the elasticbitumen of Derbyshire. A Poimisano In-dian, seated by the fire, in the hut of themissionary, was employed in reducing thedapicho into black caoutchouc. He hadspitted several bits on a slender stick, andwas roasting them
like meat. The dapichoblackens in proportion as it grows softer,and gains in elasticity. The resinous andaromatic smell, which filled the hut, seem-ed to indicate, that this
coloration is the|Spaltenumbruch|effect of the decomposition of a carburet ofhydrogen, and that the carbon appears inproportion as the
hydrogen burns at a lowheat. The Indian beat the softened andblackened mass with a piece of brazil wood,ending in form of a club; he then kneadedthe dapicho into balls of three or four inchesin diameter, and
let it cool. These ballsexactly resemble the caoutchouc of theshops, but their surface remains in generalslightly viscous. They are used at San Bal-thasar in the Indian
game of tennis, whichis so celebrated among the inhabitants ofUruana and Encaramada; they are cut intocylinders, to be used as
corks, and are farpreferable to those made of the bark of thecork-tree.”Soon after, the travellers obtained
preciseinformation respecting this substance:—it was shown
them at the depth of two orthree feet, in a marshy soil, “betweenthe
roots of two trees known by the nameof the jacio and the
curvana. The first is thehevea of
Aublet, or siphonia of the modernbotanists, known to furnish the caoutchoucof commerce in Cayenne and the GrandPara; the second has
pinnate leaves, andits juice is milky, but very thin, and almostdestitute of viscosity. The dapicho appearsto be the result of an extravasation of thesap from the roots. This extravasationtakes place more especially when the treeshave attained agreat age,
and the interiorof the trunk begins to decay. The bark andalburnum
crack; and thus is effected na-turally, what the art of man performs tocollect in abundance the milky juices ofthe hevea, the castilloa, and the caoutchoucfig tree.”The River Temi, near the banks of whichthis production is found in sufficient
quan-tities to supply all Europe, runs throughforests which
overshadow it in so wild andluxuriant a manner as almost to
mingle to-gether the creatures of the several elementsof air, earth, and water, and realize theclassic images:
Sæculum Pyrrhæ, nova monstra questæ;
Omne quum Proteus pecus egit altos
Visere montes;
Piscium et summa genus hæsit ulmo,
Nota quæ sedes fuerat Columbis,
Et superjecto pavidæ natarunt
Æquore damæ.
“The Indians (says Mr. H.) made usleave the bed of
the river; and we went uptoward the south, across the forest, throughpaths (sendas), that is,
through open chan-nels of four or five feet broad. The depthof the water seldom exceeds half a fathom.These sendas are formed in the inundatedforest-like paths on dry ground. The In-dians, in going from one mission to another,pass with their boats as much as possibleby the
same way; but the communicationsnot being frequent, the force of
vegetationsometimes produces unexpected obstacles.An Indian,
furnished with a machette (a greatknife, the blade of which is fourteen incheslong,) stood at the
head of our boat, em-ployed continually in chopping off thebranches that cross each other from thetwo sides of the
channel. In the thickestpart of the forest we were
astonished by anextraordinary noise. On beating the bushes,|Spaltenumbruch||406|a shoal of toninas (fresh water dolphins)
fourfeet long, surrounded our boat. These ani-mals had concealed themselves beneath thebranches of a fromager or bombax ceiba.They fled across the forest, throwing outthose
spouts of compressed air and water,which have given them in every languagethe name of blowers. How singular was thisspectacle in the middle of the land, threeor four hundred leagues from the mouths ofthe Oroonoko and the Amazon! I am notignorant, that
the pleuronectes of the At-lantic go up the Loire as far as Orleans;
butI persist in thinking, that the dolphins ofthe Temi, like
those of the Ganges, andlike the skate (raia) of the Oroonoko, areof species essentially
different from the dol-phins and skates of the ocean. In the im-mense
rivers of South America, and thegreat lakes of North America, nature seemsto repeat several pelagic forms. The Nilehas no porpoises: those of the sea go up theDelta no farther
than Biana and Metonbistoward Selamoun.”But these fishes among the woods, thoughthe most singular, were not the most un-grateful of the animal creation to the startledEuropeans. About this region they had tostop to be cured of an evil under which theysuffered for two days. The author thus des-cribes it:—“We felt an extraordinary irri-tation on the joints of our fingers,
and onthe backs of our hands. The missionarytold us it was caused by the aradores,(ploughman insects), which get under theskin. We could distinguish with a lensnothing but streaks, or parallel and whitishfurrows. It is the form of these
furrows,that has obtained this insect the name ofploughman. A mulatto woman was
sentfor, who boasted of being thoroughly ac-quainted with all the little insects that
bur-row in the human skin; the chego, thenuche, the coya, and the arador; she wasthe curandera, the physician of the place.She promised to extirpate the
insects, thatcaused this smarting irritation, one by one.She heated at a lamp the point of a
littlebit of hard wood, and dug with thispoint the furrows that marked the skin.After long researches, she announced withthe pedantic gravity peculiar to the
mulattorace, that an arador was found. I saw alittle round bag, which I suspected
to bethe egg of an acarus. I was to find relief,when the mulatto woman had
succeeded intaking out three or four of these aradores.Having the skin of both
hands filled withacari, I had not the patience to wait the end ofan operation,
which had already lasted tilllate at night. The next day an Indian ofJavita cured
us radically, and with surpris-ing promptitude.”—The medicament con-sisted of an infusion of shrub called uzao.The annexed notice of the religious opi-nions of the natives has something verysublime in it:—“The nations of the
UpperOroonoko, the Atabapo, and the Inirida,like the ancient Germans and the
Persians,have no other worship than that of thepowers of nature. They call the
good prin-ciple Cachimana; it is the Manitou, theGreat Spirit, that regulates the
seasons, andfavours the harvests. By the side of Cachi-|Spaltenumbruch|mana there is an evil principle,
Iolokiamo,less powerful, but more artful, and in par-ticular more active. The
Indians of theforest, when they visit occasionally the mis-sions, conceive with
difficulty the idea ofa temple or an image. “These good people,”said the
missionary, “like only processionsin the open air. When I last celebratedthe
patron festival my village, that ofSan Antonio, the Indians of Inirida werepresent at mass. ‘Your God,’ said they tome, ‘keeps himself shut up in a house, asif he were old and infirm; ours is in theforest, in the fields, and on the mountainsof Sipapu, whence the rains come.’” Amongthe more numerous, and on this
accountless barbarous tribes, religious societies of asingular kind are formed.
Some old Indianspretend to be better instructed than othersin what regards the divinity; and to themis confined the famous botuto, of which Ihave spoken, and
which is sounded underthe palm-trees, that they may bear abun-dance of fruit. On the
banks of the Oroo-noko there exists no idol, as among all thenations who have
remained faithful to thefirst worship of nature, but the botuto, thesacred
trumpet, is become an object of vene-ration. To be initiated into the mysteriesof the
botuto, it is requisite to have puremanners, and to have lived single. Theinitiated are subjected to flagellations, fast-ings, and other painful exercises.
Thereare but a small number of these sacredtrumpets. The most anciently celebratedis that upon a hill near the confluence ofthe Tomo and the Guainia. It is
pretended,that it is heard at once on the banks of theTuamini, and at the mission
of San Miguelde Davipe, a distance of ten leagues. FatherCereso assured us, that
the Indians speakof the botuto of Tomo as an object of wor-ship common to many
surrounding tribes.Fruit and intoxicating liquors are placed bythe sacred
trumpet. Sometimes the GreatSpirit (Cuchimana) himself makes the bo-tuto resound; sometimes he
is content tomanifest his will by him, to whom the kee-ping of the instrument is
entrusted. Thesejuggleries being very ancient (from the fa-thers of our fathers, say
the Indians), wemust not be surprised, that some incredulousare already to be
found; but these expresstheir disbelief of the mysteries of the botutoonly in
whispers. Women are not permittedto see this marvellous instrument; and areexcluded from all the ceremonies of this wor-ship. If a woman have the misfortune tosee the trumpet, she is put to death with-out mercy.”(To be
continued.)
|441|
humboldt’s personal narrative.
M. Humboldt relates some remarkableparticulars concerning the
serpents in SouthAmerica, and the following will show to whatperils, from them, the traveller is exposed.On
taking up a night’s lodging, we aretold —”
Before we took possession of thedeserted hut, the Indians killed
two great
mapanare serpents. These grow to
four orfive feet long. They appeared to me to bethe same species as those I described inthe Rio Magdalena. It is
a beautiful ani-mal, but extremely venomous, white belowthe belly, and spotted with brown and redon the
back. As the inside of the hut wasfilled with grass, and as we lay
upon theground, there being no means of suspendingour hammocks, we were not without in-quietude during the night. In
the morn-ing a large viper was found on lifting upfrom the ground the jaguar skin, uponwhich one of our domestics
had slept. TheIndians say, that these reptiles, slow in theirmovements when they are not pursued, creepnear a
man because they are fond of heat.In fact, on the banks of the
Magdalena a|Spaltenumbruch|serpent entered the bed of one of our fel-low travellers, where he remained a part ofthe night, without
doing him any harm.Without wishing here to take up the de-fence of vipers and rattlesnakes, I believeit may
be affirmed, that, if these venomousanimals had such a disposition
for offenceas is supposed, the human species wouldcertainly not have resisted their numbersin some parts of
America; for instance, onthe banks of the Oroonoko, and the
humidmountains of Choco.”
After this the wanderers entered the RioNegro, and the view here
taken is bothgeographically good and morally affecting.—“After all we had endured (observes ourinteresting author), I may be permitted,perhaps,
to speak of the satisfaction we feltin having reached the tributary
streams ofthe Amazon, having passed the isthmus thatseparates two great systems of rivers, andin being sure of having
fulfilled the mostimportant object of our voyage, the deter-mining astronomically the course of thatarm of the Oroonoko,
which falls into theRio Negro, and of which the existence hasbeen alternately proved and denied duringhalf a
century. In proportion as we drawnear to an object we have long had
in view,its interest seems to augment. The unin-habited banks of the Cassiquiare, coveredwith forests, without
memorials of timespast, then occupied my imagination, as donow the banks of the Euphrates, or theOxus,
celebrated in the annals of civilizednations. In that interior part
of the NewContinent we almost accustomed ourselvesto regard men as not being essential to theorder of nature. The
earth is loaded withplants, and nothing impedes their free de-velopement. An immense layer of mouldmanifests the
uninterrupted action of or-ganic powers. The crocodiles and the
boasare masters of the river; the jaguar, thepecari, the dante, and the monkeys, tra-verse the forest without
fear, and withoutdanger; there they dwell as in an ancientinheritance. This aspect of animated na-ture, in
which man is nothing, has some-thing in it strange and sad. To this
wereconcile ourselves with difficulty on theocean, and amid the sands of Africa; thoughin these scenes, where
nothing recalls tomind our fields, our woods, and our streams,we are less astonished at the vast solitudethrough
which we pass. Here, in a fertilecountry adorned with eternal
verdure, weseek in vain the traces of the power ofman; we seem to be transported into aworld different from that
which gave usbirth. These impressions are so much themore powerful, in proportion as they are oflonger
duration. A soldier, who had spenthis whole life in the missions of
the UpperOroonoko, slept with us on the bank of theriver. He was an intelligent man, who,during a calm and serene
night, pressed mewith questions on the magnitude of thestars, on the inhabitants of the Moon, on athousand subjects of which I was as igno-rant as himself. Being
unable, by my an-swers, to satisfy his curiosity, he said to mein a firm tone: ‘With respect to men, Ibelieve there are no more above, than you
|442|would have found, if you had gone by landfrom Javita to Cassiquiare. I think I seein the stars, as here, a
plain covered withgrass, and a forest (mucho
monte) traversedby a river.’ In citing these words,
I paintthe impression produced by the monotonousaspect of those solitary regions.”
We have now conducted our readers tothe 8th book, and, though this
notice isvery brief, find this a convenient place torest for the present.
|563|
humboldt’s personal narrative.Vol. V. Part II.Indian Poisons—Festivals—Roasted
Monkeys—Music
A few weeks since, when this addition tothe valuable labours of M. Humboldt appear-ed, we paid it that immediate attentionwhich a work so replete with informationdemanded; and having conducted our read-ers through one of the two 8vo. vols. intowhich it is divided, we left the second for afuture convenient opportunity. That oppor-tunity the autumnal sterility of the press af-fords us, and we return with pleasure to anauthor than whom the present period doesnot possess one more full of entertainmentand intelligence, though addicted in too greata degree to the formation of general sys-tems, and given to too much technicality ofexpression.Without retracing, to connect our state-ments, we will beg our readers to plantthemselves at Esmeralda, on the UpperOroonoko, the most solitary and remoteChristian settlement in those regions. Herethere is a bifurcation of the river, and thegranitic mountain of Duida rises to the heightof nearly 8,000 feet. The mission containsabout eighty inhabitants, and yet no fewerthan three Indian languages are spoken—the Idapimanare, the Catarapenno, and theMaquiritan.
“Esmeralda, (says M. H.) is the most ce-lebrated spot on the Oroonoko for the
fa-brication of that active poison which is em-ployed in war, in the
chase, and, what issingular enough, as a remedy for gastric ob-structions. The poison of the ticunas ofthe Amazon, the upas-tieute of Java, andthe curare of Guyana, are the most
deleteri-ous substances that are known. Raleigh,toward the end
of the sixteenth century, hadheard the name of urari pronounced as beinga vegetable substance, with which arrowswere envenomed; yet no fixed notions ofthis poison had
reached Europe. The mis-sionaries Gumilla and Gili had not beenable
to penetrate into the country wherethe curare is manufactured.
Gumilla as-serts that ‘this preparation was inveloped ingreat
mystery; that its principal ingredientwas furnished by a
subterraneous plant, bya tuberose root, which never puts forth
leaves,and which is called the root, by way of emi-nence, raiz de si misma; that the venomousexhalations, which arise from the pots, causethe old women (the
most useless) to perish,who are chosen to watch over this operation;|564|finally, that these vegetable juices never ap-pear sufficiently concentrated, till a fewdrops produce at a distance a repulsive actionon the blood. An Indian wounds himselfslightly; and a dart dipped in the
liquid curareis held near the wound. If it
make theblood return to the vessels without havingbeen brought
into contact with them, thepoison is judged to be sufficiently
concen-trated.’ I shall not stop to refute these po-pular tales
collected by Father Gumilla.
“When we (he continues) arrived at Es-meralda, the greater part of the Indianswere
returning from an excursion which theyhad made to the east beyond
the Rio Pada-mo, to gather juvias, or the fruit of the ber-tholletia, and the liana which yields the cu-rare.
Their return was celebrated by a fes-tival, which is called in the Mission la fiestade las juvias, and which resembles our harvesthomes and vintage feasts. The women hadprepared a quantity of
fermented liquor, andduring two days the Indians were in a
stateof intoxication. Among nations that attachgreat
importance to the fruits of the palm-trees, and of some others
useful for the nou-rishment of man, the period when thesefruits are
gathered is marked by public re-joicings, and time is divided
according tothese festivals, which succeed one anotherin a course
invariably the same. We werefortunate enough to find an old
Indian lessdrunk than the rest, who was employed inpreparing the
curare poison from freshly-ga-thered plants. He was the chemist of theplace. We found at his dwelling largeearthen pots for boiling vegetable juice,shallower vessels to favour the evaporationby a larger surface, and leaves of the plain-tain-tree
rolled up in the shape of our filters,and used to filtrate the liquids more or lessloaded with fibrous matter. The greatestorder
and neatness prevailed in this hut,which was transformed into a
chemical labo-ratory. The Indian who was to instructus, is known
throughout the mission by thename of the master of poison (amo del curare);he had that self-sufficient air and tone
of pe-dantry, of which the pharmacopolists of Eu-rope were formerly accused. ‘I know,’ saidhe, ‘that the whites have the
secret of fabri-cating soap, and that black powder, whichhas the
defect of making a noise, and killinganimals, when they are wanted.
The curare,which we prepare from father to son, is su-perior to any thing
youcan make down yon-der (beyond sea).
It is the juice of an herbwhich kills
silently (without any one knowingwhence the stroke comes).’
“This chemical operation, to which themaster of the curare attached so much im-portance, appears to us extremely simple.The liana (bejuco), which is used at
Esme-ralda for the preparation of the poison,bears the same name as
in the forests of Ja-vita. It is the bejuco de
mavacure, which isgathered in abundance east of the
mission,on the left bank of the Oroonoko, beyondthe Rio Amaguaca,
in the mountainous andgranatic lands of Guanaya and Yumariquin.
“The juice of the liana, when it has beenrecently gathered, is not
regarded as poison-ous; perhaps it acts in a sensible manneronly
when it is strongly concentrated. It|Spaltenumbruch|is the bark and a part of the
alburnum,which contains this terrible poison.—Branches of the mavacure four or five linesin diameter, are scraped with
a knife; andthe bark that comes off is bruised, and re-duced
into very thin filaments, on the stoneemployed for grinding
cassava. The venom-ous juice being yellow, the whole fibrousmass
takes this colour. It is thrown into afunnel nine inches high,
with an openingfour inches wide. This funnel was, of allthe
instruments of the Indian laboratory,that of which the master of poison seemed tobe most proud.
He asked us repeatedly, ifpor allà (down yonder, that is in Europe) wehad ever seen any
thing to be compared tohis empudo. It
was a leaf of a plaintain-tree rolled up in the form of a cone, andplaced in another stronger cone made of theleaves of the palm-tree.
The whole of thisapparatus was supported by slight frame-work made
of the petioli and ribs of palm-leaves. A cold infusion is first
prepared bypouring water on the fibrous matter, whichis the ground
bark of the mavacure. A yel-lowish water
filters during several hours,drop by drop, through the leafy
funnel.This filtered water is the venomous liquor,but it acquires
strength only when it is con-centrated by evaporation, like melasses
in alarge earthen pot. The Indian from time totime invited us to
taste the liquid; its taste,more or less bitter, decides when the
con-centration by fire has been carried sufficientlyfar. There is no
danger in this operation,the curare being
deleterious only when itcomes into immediate contact with theblood. The vapours, therefore, that are dis-engaged from the pans,
are not hurtful, not-withstanding what has been asserted on thispoint by the missionaries of the Oroonoko.Fontana, in his fine
experiments on the poi-son of the ticunas of the river of Amazons,long ago proved, that the
vapours risingfrom this poison when thrown on burningcharcoal, may be inhaled without apprehen-sion; and that it is
false as M. de la Con-damine has announced, that Indian women,when
condemned to death, have been killedby the vapours of the
poison of the ticunas.”
The juice is thickened with a glutinoussubstance to cause it to stick to the darts,which it renders mortal; but taken inter-nally,
the Indians consider the curare to bean excellent stomachic. “Scarcely a fowlis eaten (adds our author,) on the banks ofthe Oroonoko, which has not been killedwith a poisoned arrow. The missionariespretend, that the flesh of animals is neverso good as when these means are em-ployed. Father Zea, who accompaniedus, though ill of a tertian fever, causedevery morning the live fowl allotted forour repast to be brought to
his hammock,together with an arrow. Notwithstandinghis
habitual state of weakness, he would notconfide this
operation, to which he attachedgreat importance, to any other
person.Large birds, a guan (pava de monte)
for in-stance, or a curassoa (alector), when
wound-ed in the thigh, perish in two or three mi-nutes; but it is
often ten or twelve before apig or a pecari expires.”M. Humboldt does
not seem to be ac-|Spaltenumbruch|quainted with any certain antidote, if suchexists,
to this fatal poison. Sugar, garlick,the muriate of soda, &c. are mentioneddoubtingly. In London, some very curiousexperiments were tried on animals, some-what resembling those used to restore sus-pended animation by drowning. By keep-ing up a constant motion of the lungs (byinflation with bellows and expiration throughpressure), for many hours, it was supposedthat the creature apparently killed by the cu-rare would revive: we are not informedwhether the operation ever succeeded, butwe believe that several dead horses andasses refused to come to life again! But toreturn to the narrative.
“The old Indian, who was called themaster of poison, seemed flattered by the
in-terest we had taken in his chemical pro-cesses. He found us sufficiently
intelligentto have no doubt that we knew how to makesoap, and, next to the fabrication of curare,this art appeared to him one of the finestinventions of the human mind. When theliquid poison was poured into the vesselsprepared for this purpose, we accompaniedthe Indian to the festival of the juvias. Theharvest of juvias, or fruits of the bertholletiaexcelsa, was celebrated by dancing,
and theexcesses of the most savage intoxication.The hut, where the natives were assembled,displayed, during several days, a very singu-lar aspect. There was neither table norbench, but large roasted monkeys, blackenedby smoke, were ranged in order, restingagainst the wall. These were the marimon-des (ateles belzebuth), and those beardedmonkeys called capuchins, which must not beconfounded with the weeper, or sai
(simiacapucina of Buffon). The manner of roast-ing these anthropomorphous animals
contri-butes singularly to render their appearancedisagreeable in the eyes of
civilized man.A little grating or lattice of very hard woodis formed, and raised
one foot from theground. The monkey is skinned, and bentinto a sitting posture;
the head generallyresting on the arms, which are meagre andlong; but sometimes
these are crossed be-hind the back. When it is tied on the grat-ing, a very clear fire
is kindled below. Themonkey, enveloped in smoke and flame, isbroiled and blackened
at the same time.On seeing the natives devour the arm or legof a roasted monkey,
it is difficult not tobelieve, that this habit of eating animals,that so much resemblese man in their physicalorganization, has, in a certain degree, con-tributed
to diminish the horror of anthropo-phagy among savages. Roasted monkeys,particularly those that have a very roundhead, display a hideous resemblance to achild; the Europeans therefore, who areobliged to feed on quadrumanes, prefer se-parating
the head and the hands, and serveup only the rest of the animal at their tables.The flesh of monkeys is so lean and dry,that Mr. Bonpland has preserved in his
col-lections at Paris an arm and hand, whichhad been broiled over the fire at
Esmeralda;and no smell has arisen from them after a greatnumber of years.
“We saw the Indians dance. The mono-tony of this dance is increased by the
wo-|Spaltenumbruch||565|men not daring to take part in it.The men, young and old, form a circle, holdingeach other’s hands, and turn sometimes to theright, sometimes to the left, for
whole hours,with silent gravity. Most frequently thedancers themselves are the
musicians. Fee-ble sounds, drawn from a series of reeds ofdifferent lengths, form a
slow and plaintiveaccompaniment. The first dancer, to markthe time, bends both
knees in a kind of ca-dence. Sometimes they all make a pausein their places, and
execute little oscillatorymovements, bending the body from one sideto the other.
These reeds ranged in a line,and fastened together, resemble the pipe ofPan, as we
find it represented in the bac-chanalian processions on Grecian vases. Tounite
reeds of different lengths, and makethem sound in succession by passing thembefore
the lips, is a simple idea, and has natu-rally presented itself to every nation. Wewere surprised to see with what promptitudethe young Indians constructed and tunedthese pipes, when they found reeds (carices)on the bank of the river. Men, in
a stateof nature, in every zone, make great use ofthese gramina with high stalks. The Greekssaid with
truth, that reeds had contributed tosubjugate nations by furnishing arrows, tosoften men’s manners by the charm of music,and to unfold their understanding by
afford-ing the first instruments for tracing letters.These different uses of reeds
mark in somesort three different periods in the life of na-tions. We must admit, that
the tribes ofthe Oroonoko are in the first step ofdawning civilization. The reed
serves themonly as an instrument of war and of hunt-ing; and the Pan’s pipes, of
which we havespoken, have not yet, on those distant shores,yielded sounds capable
of awakening mildand humane feelings.”
M.H. gives an interesting account of theJuvia, (chesnut-trees,) the harvested fruitsof which cause the natives to rejoice somuch; but there is another tree, the cha-racter of which is still more curious. It isthus described:—
“We saw on the slope of the CerraDuida shirt trees fifty feet high. The
In-dians cut off cylindrical pieces two feet indiameter, from which they peel the
red andfibrous bark, without making any longitu-dical incision. This bark affords
them asort of garment, which resembles sacks ofa very coarse texture, and without
a seam.The upper opening serves for the head; andtwo lateral holes are cut to admit the
arms.The natives wear these shirts of marima inthe rainy season:
they have the form of theponchos and ruanas of cotton, which are socommon in New
Grenada, at Quito, and inPeru. As in these climates the riches andbeneficence of
Nature are regarded as theprimary causes of the indolence of the in-habitants, the
missionaries do not fail tosay in showing the shirts of marima, ‘in theforests of the Oroonoko,
garments are foundready made on the trees.’ We may add tothis tale of the shirts the pointed caps,which the spathes of certain palm-treesfurnish, and which resemble coarse
net-work.
“At the festival of which we were the spec-|Spaltenumbruch|tators, the women were excluded
from thedance, and every sort of public rejoicing;they were daily occupied in serving
the menwith roasted monkey, fermented liquors,and palm cabbage. I mention this lastproduction, which has the taste of our cau-liflowers, because in no other country hadwe seen
specimens of such an immense size.The leaves that are not unfolded are con-founded with
the young stem, and we mea-sured cylinders of six feet long and fiveinches in
diameter. Another substance,which is much more nutritive, is obtainedfrom the
animal kingdom: this is fish flour.The Indians in all the
Upper Oroonoko fryfish, dry them in the sun, and reduce themto powder without
separating the bones.I have seen masses of fifty or sixty poundsof this flour,
which resembles that of cas-sava. When it is wanted for eating, it ismixed with
water, and reduced to a paste.In every climate the abundance of fish hasled to the
invention of the same means ofpreserving them. Pliny and Diodorus Si-culus have
described the fish bread of theichthyophagous nations, that dwelt on thePersian
gulf, and the shores of the RedSea.”(To be
Continued.)
|580|
humboldt’s personal narrative.Dwarf and Fair Indians.—Jaguars.—TheTomb of a Nation!
THE
following extract from our interest-ing traveller refers to a subject of
muchremarkable speculation:—
“I shall here proceed to give some infor-mation respecting the tribes of dwarf
andfair Indians, which ancient traditions placedfor centuries near the sources of the
Oroo-noko. I had an opportunity of seeing someof these Indians at Esmeralda, and canaffirm, that the shortness of the Guaicas,and the fairness of the
Guahariboes, whomFather Caulin calls Guaribos blancos, havebeen alike exaggerated.
The Guaicas,whom I measured, were in general fromfour feet seven inches to four
feet eightinches high (ancienct measure of France).We were assured, that the whole tribe wereof this extreme littleness;
but we must notforget, that what is called a tribe consti-tutes, properly speaking,
but one family.The exclusion of all foreign mixture con-tributes to perpetuate varieties, or the aber-rations from a common standard. The In-dians of
the lowest stature next to theGuaicas are the Guainares and the Poi-gnaves. It is
singular, that all these nationsare found close to the Caribbees, who areremarkably tall. They all inhabit the sameclimate, and subsist on the same
aliment.They are varieties in the race, which nodoubt existed previously to the
settlementof these tribes, (tall and short, fair and darkbrown) in the same
country. The four na-tions of the Upper Oroonoko, that appearedto me to be the
fairest, are the Guahariboesof the Rio Gehette, the Guainares of theOcamo, the
Guaicas of Canno Chiguire,and the Maquiritares of the sources of thePadamo, the
Jao, and the Ventuari. Itbeing very striking to see natives with a fairskin
beneath a burning sky, and amid na-tions of a very dark hue, the Spaniardshave
forged two daring hypotheses, in orderto explain this phenomenon. Some assert,that
the Dutch of Surinam and the RioEsquibo may have intermingled with theGuahariboes
and the Guainares; othersinsist, from hatred to the Capuchins of theCarony, and
the Observantins of the Oroo-noko, that the fair Indians are what arecalled in
Dalmatia muso di frate, childrenwhose legitimacy is somewhat doubtful.In both
cases the Indios blancos would be|Spaltenumbruch|mestizoes, sons of an Indian
woman and awhite man. Now, having seen thousandsof mestizoes, I can assert that
this com-parison is altogether inaccurate. The in-dividuals of the fair tribes, whom
we exa-mined, have the features, the stature, andthe smooth, straight, black hair,
which cha-racterizes other Indians. It would be im-possible to take them for a mixed
race, likethe descendants of natives and Europeans.Some of these people are very
little, othersof the ordinary stature of the copper-co-loured Indians. They are
neither feeble,nor sickly, nor albinoes; and they differfrom the
copper-coloured races only by amuch less tawny skin.” * * *
“These tribes with a fair complexion,which we had an opportunity of seeing atthe
mission of Esmeralda, inhabit part of amountainous country, that extends betweenthe
sources of six tributary streams of theOroonoko, the Padamo, the
Jao, the Ven-tuari, the Erevato, the Aruy, and the Pa-raguay. The Spanish and Portugueze mis-sionaries have the custom of designatingthis
country more particularly by the nameof Parima. Here, as in several other coun-tries of Spanish America,
the savages havereconquered what had been wrested fromthem by civilization, or
rather by its pre-cursors, the missionaries. The expeditionof the boundaries under
Solano, and theextravagant zeal displayed by a governor ofGuiana for the discovery
of Dorado, re-vived in the latter half of the eighteenthcentury, in some individuals, that
spiritof enterprise, which characterized the Cas-tilians at the period of the
discovery ofAmerica. In going along the Rio Padamo,a road was observed across the
forests andsavannahs ten days journey long, fromEsmeralda to the
sources of the Ventuari;and in two days more, from these sources,by the Erevato,
the missions on the RioCaura were reached. Two intelligent anddaring men,
don Antonio Santos and Cap-tain Bareto, had established, with the aidof the
Maquiritares, a chain of militaryposts on this line from Esmeralda to theRio
Erevato. They were houses of twostories (casas fuertes), mounted with
swivels,such as I have described above, whichfigured as nineteen villages on the mapspublished at Madrid. The soldiers, left tothemselves,
exercised all kinds of vexationson the natives (Indians of peace), who hadcultivated spots around the casas fuertes;and these vexations being less methodical,that is to say, worse contrived, than thoseto which the Indians are by degrees accus-tomed in the missions, several tribes formeda league, in 1776, against the Spaniards.All the military
posts were attacked on thesame night, on a line of nearly fifty leaguesin length.
The houses were burnt, andmany soldiers massacred; a very smallnumber only owing
their preservation to thepity of the Indian women. This nocturnalexpedition is
still mentioned with horror.Concerted in the deepest silence, it wasexecuted with that concert, which the na-tives of both Americas, skilful in
conceal-ing their hostile passions, well know how topractise in whatever concerns
their common|581|interests. Since 1776 no attempt has beenmade to re-establish the road,
which leadsby land from the Upper to the Lower Oroo-noko, and no white man has been
able topass from Esmeralda to the Erevato.”In May, M. Humboldt and
his compa-nion left Esmeralda, and proceeded downthe Oroonoko to the
point of bifurcation.Here, says the author, “the cries of thejaguars
were heard during the whole night.They are very extremely frequent in those coun-tries, between the Cerro Maraguaca, theUnturan, and the banks of the Pamoni.There also is found that black tiger, ofwhich I saw some
fine skins at Esmeralda.This animal is celebrated for its strengthand ferocity; it
appears to be still largerthan the common jaguar. The black spotsare scarcely
visible on the dark-brownground of its skin. The Indians assert,that these tigers
are very rare, never minglewith the common jaguars, and ‘form
an-other race.’”
Descending still farther down the Oroon-oko, the travellers passed the rivers Cunu-cunumo, Guanami, and Puruname. Here,as elsewhere in Guayana, rude figures, re-presenting the sun, the moon, and variousanimals, are traced on the hardest rocks ofgranite, and attest the anterior existence ofa people very different from those known toEurope as inhabitants of these parts.
“The nations of the Tamanac race, theancient inhabitants of those countries,
havea local mythology, and traditions which re-late to these sculptured rocks.
Amalivaca,the father of the Tamanacs, that is, thecreator of the human race, (for
every nationregards itself as the root of the other nations,) arrived in a bark at
the time of the greatinundation, which is called the age of water,when the
billows of the ocean broke againstthe mountains of Encamarada in the interiorof
the land. All mankind, or, to expressmyself better, all the Tamanacs, were
drown-ed, with the exception of one man and onewoman, who saved themselves on a
moun-tain near the banks of the Asiveru, calledCuchivero by the Spaniards. This
moun-tain is the Ararat of the Aramean or Semiticnations, and the Tlaloc or
Colhuacan of theMexicans. Amalivaca, sailing in his bark,engraved the figures of
the moon and thesun on the Painted rock (Tepumereme) ofEncaramada. Some blocks of
granite piled|Spaltenumbruch|upon one another, and forming a kind ofcavern, are still called the
house or dwellingof the great forefather of the Tamanacs.The natives show also a
large stone nearthis cavern, in the plains of Maita, whichthey say was an
instrument of music, thedrum of Amalivaca. We must here observe,that this heroic
personage had a brother,Vochi, who helped him to give the surfaceof the earth its
present form. The Tama-nacs relate, that the two brothers, in theirsystem of
perfectibility, sought at first toarrange the Oroonoko in such a manner,that the
current of the water could alwaysbe followed either going down or going upthe
river. They hoped by this means tospare men the trouble of rowing in proceed-ing toward the source of rivers; but,
how-ever great the power of these regeneratorsof the world, they could never
contrive togive a double slope to the Oroonoko, andwere compelled to relinquish
this singularplan. Amalivaca had daugh-ters, who had a decided taste for travelling.The tradition says, no doubt in a figurativestyle, that he broke their legs,
to renderthem sedentary, and force them to peoplethe land of the Tamanacs. After
havingregulated every thing in America, on thatside of the great water, Amalivaca
againembarked, and ‘returned to the other shore,’to the same place from which he
came.Since the natives have seen the Missionariesarrive, they imagine, that Europe
is thisother shore; and one of them inquired withgreat simplicity of father Gili,
whether hehad seen the great Amalivaca yonder, thefather of the Tamanacs, who had
coveredthe rocks with symbolic figures.”Still lower down the great river, M. Hum-boldt visited the cavern of Ataruipe, ofwhich
he gives the following curious ac-count:—
“We soon reckoned in this tomb of awhole extinct tribe near six hundred ske-letons well preserved, and so regularlyplaced, that it would have been difficult tomake an error in their number. Everskeleton reposes in a sort of basket, madeof the petioles of the palm-tree. Thesebaskets, which the natives call mapires, havethe form of a square bag. Their size isproportioned to the age of the dead; thereare some for infants cut off at the momentof their birth. We saw them from teninches to three feet four inches long, theskeletons in them being bent together.They are all ranged near each other, andare so entire, that not a rib or a phalanx iswanting. The bones have been preparedin three different manners, either whitenedin the air and the sun; dyed red withonoto, a coloring matter extracted fromthe bixa orellana; or, like real mummies,varnished with odoriferous resins, and en-veloped in leaves of the heliconia or of theplantain tree. The Indians related to us,that the fresh corpse is placed in dampground, in order that the flesh may be con-sumed by degrees; some months after, it istaken out, and the flesh remaining on thebones is scraped off with sharp stones.Several hordes in Guyana still observe this custom.Earthen vases half-baked are found|Spaltenumbruch|near the mapires, or baskets. They appearto contain the bones of the same family.The largest of these vases, or funeral urns,are three feet high, and five feet and a halflong. Their color is greenish gray; andtheir oval form is sufficiently pleasing to theeye. The handles are made in the shape ofcrocodiles, or serpents; the edge is bor-dered with meanders, labyrinths, and realgrecques, in straight lines variously com-bined. Such paintings are found in everyzone, among nations the most remote fromeach other, either with respect to the spotwhich they occupy on the globe, or to thedegree of civilization which they have at-tained. The inhabitants of the little mis-sion of Maypures still execute them ontheir commonest pottery; they decorate thebucklers of the Otaheiteans, the fishing im-plements of the Eskimoes, the walls of theMexican palace of Mitla, and the vases ofancient Greece. Every where a rhythmicrepetition of the same forms flatters theeye, as the cadensed repetition of soundssoothes the ear. Analogies founded on theinternal nature of our feelings, on the natu-ral dispositions of our intellect, are not cal-culated to throw light on the filiation andthe ancient connections of nations.“We could not acquire any precise idea ofthe period to which the origin of the mapiresand the painted vases, contained in the os-suary cavern of Ataruipe, can be traced.The greater part seemed not to be more thana century old; but it may be supposed, that,sheltered from all humidity, under the in-fluence of a uniform temperature, the pre-servation of these articles would be no lessperfect, if it dated from a period far moreremote. A tradition circulates among theGuahiboes, that the warlike Atures, pursuedby the Caribbees, escaped to the rocks thatrise in the middle of the Great Cataracts;and there that nation, heretofore so numer-ous, became gradually extinct, as well as itslanguage. The last families of the Aturesstill existed in 1767, in the time of the mis-sionary Gili. At the period of our voyagean old parrot was shown at Maypures, ofwhich the inhabitants related, and the factis worthy of observation, that ‘they did notunderstand what it said, because it spokethe language of the Atures.’“We opened, to the great concern of ourguides, several mapires, in order to examineattentively the form of the sculls; they alldisplayed the characteristics of the Ame-rican race, with the exception of two orthree, which approached indubitably to theCaucasian.” * * * * “We took several sculls, the skeleton ofa child of six or seven years old, and two offull-grown men of the nation of the Atures,from the cavern of Ataruipe. All thesebones, partly painted red, partly varnishedwith odoriferous resins, were placed in thebaskets (mapires or canastos), which we havejust described. They made almost thewhole load of a mule; and as we knew thesuperstitious aversion of the Indians fordead bodies, when they have given themsepulture, we had carefully enveloped thecanastos in mats recently woven. Unfortu-nately for us, the penetration of the Indians,|582|and the extreme quickness of their senses,rendered all our precautions useless. Wher-ever we stopped, in the missions of theCaribbees, amid the Llanos, between An-gostura and Nueva Barcelona, the nativesassembled round our mules to admire themonkeys which we had purchased at theOroonoko. These good people had scarcelytouched our baggage, when they announcedthe approaching death of the beast of burden,‘that carried the dead.’ In vain we toldthem that they were deceived in their con-jectures, and that the baskets contained the bonesof crocodiles and manatees; they per-sisted in repeating, that they smelt the re-sin, that surrounded the skeletons, and‘that they were their old relations.’ Wewere obliged to make the monks interposetheir authority, in order to conquer theaversion of the natives, and procure for us achange of mules.“One of the sculls, which we took fromthe cavern of Ataruipe, has appeared in thefine work published by my old master, Blu-menbach, on the varieties of the humanspecies. The skeletons of the Indians werelost on the coast of Africa, together with aconsiderable part of our collections, in ashipwreck, in which perished our friendand fellow-traveller, Fray Juan Gonzales, ayoung monk of the order of St. Francis.“We withdrew in silence from the cavernof Ataruipe. It was one of those calm andserene
nights, which are so common in thetorrid zone. The stars shone with a mildand
planetary light. Their scintillation wasscarcely sensible at the horizon, whichseemed illumined by the great nebulæ of thesouthern hemisphere. An
innumerable mul-titude of insects spread a reddish light onthe ground, loaded
with plants, and re-splendent with these living and movingfires, as if the stars
of the firmament hadsunk down on the savannah. On quittingthe cavern, we
stopped several times to ad-mire the beauty of this singular scene. Theodoriferous vanilla, and festoons of bigno-nia, decorated the entrance; and
above, onthe summit of the hill, the arrowy branchesof the palm-trees waved
murmuring inthe air.”
(To be Continued.)
|615|
humboldt’s personal narrative.Dirt Eaters.
“THE inhabitants of Uruana, belong tothose nations of the savannahs (Indios andantes,)who, more difficult to civilize than the nationsof the forest, (Indios del
monte,) have a de-cided aversion to cultivate the land, andlive almost exclusively on hunting and
fish-ing. They are men of very robust con-stitution; but ugly,
savage, vindictive, andpassionately fond of fermented liquors.They are omnivorous animals in the highestdegree; and therefore the other
Indians,who consider them as barbarians, have acommon saying, ‘nothing is so disgustingthat an
Otomac will not eat it.’ While thewaters of the Oroonoko
and its tributarystreams are low, the Otomacs subsist onfish and turtles. The former they kill withsurprising dexterity, by shooting them withan arrow, when they appear at the surfaceof the water.
When the rivers swell, whichin South America, as well as in
Egypt andin Nubia, is erroneously attributed to themelting of the snows, and which occursperiodically in
every part of the torrid zone,fishing almost entirely ceases. It is thenas difficult to procure
fish in the riverswhich are become deeper, as when you aresailing on the open sea. It often fails thepoor missionaries, on
fast-days as well asflesh-days, though all the young Indians areunder the obligation of ‘fishing for the con-vent.’ At the period of these inundations,which
last two or three months, the Oto-macs swallow a prodigious quantity ofearth. We found heaps of balls
in theirhuts, piled up in pyramids three or four feethigh.
These balls were five or six inchesin diameter. The earth which the Otomacseat is a very fine and
unctuous clay, of ayellowish grey colour; and, being slightlybaked in the fire, the hardened crust has atint inclining to red, owing to the oxid ofiron which is
mingled with it. We broughtaway some of this earth, which we tookfrom the winter provision of the
Indians;and it is absolutely false, that it is steatitic,and
contains magnesia. Mr. Vauquelindid not discover any traces of this earth init; but he found that it
contained moresilex than alumin, and three or four percent of
lime.
“The Otomacs do not eat every kind ofclay indifferently; they choose the alluvialbeds or strata that contain the most unctuousearth, and the smoothest to
the feel. I in-quired of the missionary, whether the moist-ened clay were made to undergo, as FatherGumilla asserts, that peculiar decomposi-tion, which is
indicated by a disengagementof carbonic acid and sulphuretted hydrogen,and which is designated in
every languageby the term of putrefaction; but he assuredus, that the natives
neither cause the
clay|Spaltenumbruch|to rot, nor do they mingle
it with flour ofmaize, oil of turtles’ eggs, or fat of the cro-codile. We ourselves examined, both
atthe Oroonoko and after our return to Paris,the balls of earth which we brought awaywith us, and found no trace of the mixtureof any organic substance, whether oily
orfarinaceous. The savage regards everything as nourishing that appeases hunger;when, therefore,
you inquire of an Otomacon what he subsists during the two
monthswhen the river is the highest, he shows youhis balls of clayey earth. This he calls
hisprincipal food; for all this period he canseldom procure a
lizard, a root of fern,or a dead fish swimming at the surface ofthe water. If the Indian eat
earth from wantduring two months, (and from three quar-ters to
five quarters of a pound in twenty-four hours,) he does not the less regale him-self with it during the rest of
the year.Every day in the season of drought, whenfishing is most abundant, he scrapes hisballs of
poya, and mingles a little clay withhis other aliment. What is most surprisingis, that the Otomacs
do not become lean byswallowing such quantities of earth; theyare, on the contrary, extremely robust,
andfar from having the belly tense and puffedup. The missionary Fray Ramon Buenoasserts, that he
never remarked any altera-tion in the health of the natives at the pe-riod of the great risings of the Oroonoko.
“The following are the facts in all theirsimplicity,
which we were able to verify.The Otomacs during some months, eatdaily three quarters of a pound of
clayslightly hardened by fire, without their healthbeing
sensibly affected by it. They moistenthe earth afresh when they are going toswallow it. It
has not been possible toverify hitherto with precision how muchnutritious vegetable or animal matterthe Indians take in a week at the sametime; but it is certain
that they attri-bute the sensation of satiety which theyfeel, to the clay, and not to the wretchedaliments which
they take with it occa-sionally. No physiological phenomenonbeing entirely insulated, it may be
interest-ing to examine several analogous pheno-mena, which I
have been able to collect.
“I observed every where within thetorrid zone, in a great
number of indivi-duals, children, women, and sometimeseven full-grown men, an inordinate andalmost
irresistible desire of swallowingearth; not an alkaline or calcareous earth,to neutralize (as it is vulgarly said) acidjuices, but a fat clay, unctuous, and
exhal-ing a strong smell. It is often found ne-cessary to tie
the childrens’ hands, or toconfine them, to prevent their eating earth,when the rain ceases
to fall. At the villageof Banco, on the bank of the river
Magda-lena, I saw the Indian women who makepottery continually swallowing great piecesof clay.”
The author goes at some length intoanalogies and reasoning on
them, but weconfine our quotation principally to thefacts.
“The negroes on the coast of Guinea de-light in eating a yellowish earth, which they|Spaltenumbruch|call caouac.
The slaves who are taken toAmerica try to procure for themselves thesame enjoyment; but it is
constantly detri-mental to their health. They say, ‘thatthe earth of the West Indies is not so easyof digestion as
that of their country.’”* * * * *
“In the Indian Archipelago, at theisland of Java, Mr.
Labillardière saw, be-tween Surabaya and Samarang, little squareand reddish cakes exposed to sale. Thesecakes, called tanaampo,
were cakes of clay,slightly baked, which the
natives eat withappetite. The attention of physiologists,since my return from the Oroonoko, havingbeen powerfully fixed on these phenomenaof geophagy, Mr. Leschenault, (one of thenaturalists of the expedition to the South-ern Lands under the
command of CaptainBaudin) has published some curious detailson the tanaampo,
or ampo, of the Javanese.‘The
reddish and somewhat ferruginousclay,’he says, ‘which the inhabitants ofJava are fond of eating occasionally, isspread on a plate of iron,
and baked, afterhaving been rolled into little cylinders inthe form of
the bark of cinnamon. In thisstate it takes the name of ampo,
and is soldin the public markets. This clay
has a pe-culiar taste, which is owing to the torrefac-tion; it is
very absorbent, and adheresto the tongue, which it dries. In generalit is only the Javanese
women who eat theampo, either in the
time of their pregnancy,or in order to grow thin; the want ofplumpness being a kind of beauty in thiscountry. The use of this earth is fatal tohealth; the women
lose their appetite im-perceptibly, and no longer take withoutdisgust a very small quantity of food:
butthe desire of becoming lean, and of pre-serving a slender
shape, can brave thesedangers, and maintains the credit of theampo.’ The savageinhabitants of NewCaledonia also, to appease
their hunger intimes of scarcity, eat great pieces of afriable lapis ollaris. Mr. Vauquelin
ana-lysed this stone, and found in it, besidemagnesia and silex in equal portions, a smallquantity
of oxid of copper. Mr. Goldberryhad seen the negroes in
Africa, in theislands of Bunck and Los Idolos, eat anearth of which he had himself eaten,
with-out being incommoded by it, and whichalso was a white and
friable steatite.”* * * * *
“When we reflect on the whole of thesefacts, we perceive that this disorderly ap-petite for clayey, magnesian, and calcare-ous earth, is most common among the
peopleof the torrid zone; that it is not always acause of disease; and that some tribes eatearth from choice, while others (the Oto-macs in America, and the
inhabitants ofNew Caledonia, in the Pacific Ocean,) eatit from want, and to appease hunger.”* * * * *
|616|
“The observations, which I made on thebanks of the
Oroonoko, have been recentlyconfirmed by
the direct experiments of twodistinguished young physiologists, Messrs.Hippolyte Cloquet and
Breschet. Afterlong fasting, they ate as much as fiveounces of
a silvery green and very fiexiblelaminar talc. Their hunger was completelysatisfied, and they felt no
inconveniencefrom a kind of food, to which their organswere unaccustomed. It is known, thatgreat use is
still made in the East of thebolar and sigillated earths of
Lemnos,which are clay mingled with oxid of iron.In Germany, the workmen employed in thequarries
of sandstone worked at the moun-tain of Kiffhæuser spread
a very fine clayupon their bread, instead of butter, whichthey call steinbutter, stone butter; andthey find it singularly filling, and easy ofdigestion.”
|662|
humboldt’s personal narrative(Concluded.)
Stories of Crocodiles.
Our latter extracts from this publicationhave been as desultory as the curious na-ture of the
author’s inquiries seemed to re-quire, without servilely
following himthrough all his topographical details, andphilosophical generalizations. In the
samespirit, we shall now conclude our notice ofthese volumes with a brief sequel relatingto
the crocodiles of the Oroonoko.
“When the waters (says Mr. H.) arehigh, the river
inundates the keys; and itsometimes happens, that even in the
townimprudent men become the prey of croco-diles. I shall transcribe from my journal afact, that took
place during Mr. Bonpland’sillness. A Guaykeri Indian,
from the islandde la Margaretta, went to anchor his canoein a cove, where there were not three feetof
water. A very fierce crocodile, that ha-bitually haunted that
spot, seized him bythe leg, and withdrew from the shore, re-maining on the surface of the water. The|Spaltenumbruch|cries of the Indian drew together a crowdof spectators.
This unfortunate man wasfirst seen seeking with astonishing
couragefor a knife in the pocket of his pantaloons.Not being able to find it, he seized the headof the crocodile, and thrust his fingers intoits eyes. No man
in the hot regions ofAmerica is ignorant, that this
carnivorousreptile, covered with a buckler of hard anddry scales, is extremely sensible in the onlyparts of his body which are soft and unpro-tected, such as the
eyes, the hollow under-neath the shoulders, the nostrils, and
be-neath the lower jaw, where there are twoglands of musk. The Guaykeri Indian hadrecourse to the same
means which savedthe negro of Mungo Park, and the girl ofUritucu, whom I have mentioned above;but he
was less fortunate than they hadbeen, for the crocodile did not
open itsjaws, and lose hold of its prey. The ani-mal, yielding to the pain, plunged to thebottom of the river;
and, after havingdrowned the Indian, came up to the surfaceof the water, dragging the dead body to anisland opposite the port. I arrived at themoment when a great
number of the inha-bitants of Angostura had witnessed this
me-lancholy spectacle.
“As the crocodile, on account of thestructure of its
larynx, of the hyoid bone,and of the folds of its tongue, can
seize,though not swallow, its prey under water;a man seldom disappears without the ani-mal
being perceived some hours after nearthe spot where the
misfortune has happened,devouring its prey on a neighbouring
beach.The number of individuals who perish an-nually, the victims of their own imprudenceand
of the ferocity of these reptiles, is muchgreater than it is
believed to be in Europe.It is particularly so in villages,
where the neighbouring grounds are often inundated.The same crocodiles remain long in thesame
places. They become from year toyear more daring, especially,
as the Indiansassert, if they have once tasted of humanflesh. These animals are so wary, that theyare
killed with difficulty. A ball does notpierce their skin, and
the shot is only mor-tal when directed at the throat, or
beneaththe shoulder. The Indians, who knowlittle of the use of fire-arms, attack the cro-codile with
lances, after it is caught withlarge pointed iron hooks, baited
with piecesof meat, and fastened by a chain to thetrunk of a tree. They do not approach theanimal till it has struggled a long time todisengage itself
from the iron fixed in theupper jaw. There is little
probability thata country in which a labyrinth of riverswithout number brings every day new bandsof
crocodiles from the eastern back of theAndes, by the Meta and
the Apure, towardsthe coast of Spanish Guyana, should everbe delivered from these reptiles. All thatwill
be gained by civilization will be, torender them more timid,
and more easilyput to flight.
“Affecting instances are related of Afri-can slaves, who
have exposed their livesto save those of their masters, who
hadfallen into the jaws of the crocodile. A fewyears ago, between Uritucu and the Mission
|663|
|Spaltenumbruch|
de Abaxo, a negro, hearing the cries of hismaster, flew to the spot, armed with a longknife, (machette,) and plunged into theriver. He forced the crocodile, by puttingout his eyes, to
let go his prey, and hidehimself under the water. The slave
borehis expiring master to the shore, but allsuccour was unavailing to restore him tolife.
He died of suffocation, for his woundswere not deep; the
crocodile, like thedog, appears not to close its jaws firmlywhile swimming. It is almost superfluousto
add, that the children of the deceased,though poor, gave the
slave his freedom.”
Upon the whole, this portion of Mr.Humboldt’s work is
equally entertainingwith what has gone before, and throwsmuch light on Physics and Geography.