Digitalphilologie

Titel

Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial 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

Jahr

1821

Ort

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Nachweis

in: The Literary Gazette: or, Journal of Criticism, Science, and the Arts 1:30 (28. Juli 1821), S. 475–477; 1:31 (4. August 1821), S. 486–489.

Sprache

Englisch

Typografischer Befund

Antiqua; Spaltensatz; Auszeichnung: Kursivierung, Schriftgradverkleinerung; Fußnoten mit Asterisken.

Identifikation

Textnummer Druckausgabe: IV.15
Dateiname: 1821-Personal_Narrative_of-02-neu

Statistiken

Seitenanzahl:	7
Spaltenanzahl:	19
Zeichenanzahl:	34419

Weitere Fassungen
	Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial 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 (London, 1821, Englisch)
	Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial 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 (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1821, Englisch)
	Moschettoes (Musquetoes) of S. America (Washington, District of Columbia, 1821, Englisch)
	Savages on the Oronoko (Boston, Massachusetts, 1821, Englisch)
	Moschettoes (Musquetoes) of South America (Chillicothe, Ohio, 1821, Englisch)
	Moschettoes (Musquetoes) of S. America (Salisbury, North Carolina, 1821, Englisch)
	From Humbolt’s Narrative of a Tour on the Oronoko (Amherst, New Hampshire, 1821, Englisch)
	Humboldt’s and Bonpland’s Travels (Boston, Massachusetts, 1821, Englisch)
	Savages on the Oronoko (Concord, New Hampshire, 1821, Englisch)
	Tiger familiarity with infants (Leeds, 1821, Englisch)
	Savages on the Oronoko (Danville, Vermont, 1821, Englisch)
	Savages on the Oronoko (Woodstock, Vermont, 1821, Englisch)
	Savage prejudices (Liverpool, 1821, Englisch)
	Musquitos (London, 1821, Englisch)
	Opisanie historyczne podróźy Alexandra Humboldta i Emego Bompland do krain międzyzwrótnikowych nowego świata; tomu II, część 2, z cztérma rycinami. Paris chez Maze Libr. 1821 (Vilnius, 1822, Polnisch)
	Beiträge zur Naturgeschichte der Mosquitos (Erfurt; Weimar; Leipzig, 1822, Deutsch)
	Innocence (London, 1822, Englisch)

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HUMBOLDT’S NARRATIVE.Personal Narrative of Travels tothe Equinoctial Regions of theNew Continent, during the years1799—1804. By Alexander deHumboldt, and Aimé Bonpland,&c. &c. London, 1821, 8vo. 2vols. pp. 864.

These volumes, translated by H.Maria Williams, terminate the se-cond volume (in quarto) of M. Hum-boldt’s personal narrative, and be-long to a work so universally cele-brated, that we need only say, theyare, if possible, more thickly studdedwith pieces of valuable informationand curious matter, than the partswhich have preceded them. We never take up Humboldt buthe reminds 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 whoseheads touch heaven— And of the cannibals that each other eat; The Anthropophagi, and men whoseheads Do grow beneath their shoulders,

he told the marvellous stories. Ourauthor is hardly a trace behind him;and, like the fair Desdemona, we,with greedy ear, devour up his dis-course; whence, without furtherpreface, we shall now proceed todraw for the benefit of our readers. The natives near the cataracts orraudales of the Oroonoko, up whichriver M. de Humboldt made hisway to a height little known to Eu-ropeans, are distinguished by seve-ral remarkable prejudices, amongwhich, none are more fatal than those narrated in the following:— “Among the causes of the depo-pulation of the Raudales, I have not reckoned the small pox; that maladywhich, in other parts of America,makes such cruel ravages, that thenatives, seized with dismay, burntheir huts, kill their children, andrenounce every kind of society.* |Spaltenumbruch|This scourge is almost unknown onthe banks of the Oronoko. What depopulates the Christian settle-ments is, the repugnance of the In-dians for the regulations of the mis-sions, the insalubrity of a climateat once hot and damp, bad nourish-ment, want of care in the diseasesof children, and the guilty practiceof mothers of preventing pregnancyby the use of deleterious herbs.Among the barbarous people of Guy-ana, as well as those of the half-civilized islands of the South Sea,young wives will not become mo-thers. If they have children, theiroffspring are exposed, not only to the dangers of savage life, but alsoto the dangers arising from thestrangest popular prejudices. Whentwins are born, false notions of pro-priety and family honour require,that one of them should be destroyed.‘To bring twins into the world,is to be exposed to public scorn; itis to resemble rats, opossums, andthe vilest animals, which bring fortha great number of young at a time.’Nay more: ‘two children born atthe same time cannot belong to thesame father.’ This is an axiom ofphysiology of the Salivas; and inevery zone, and in different statesof society, when the vulgar seize upon an axiom, they adhere to itwith more stedfastness than thebetter informed men, by whom itwas first hazarded. To avoid a dis-turbance of conjugal tranquillity,the old female relations of the mo-ther, or the mure japoic-nei (mid-wives,) take care, that one of thetwins shall disappear. If the new-born infant, though not a twin, haveany physical deformity, the fatherinstantly puts it to death. Theywill have only robust and well-made children, for deformities indi-cate some influence of the evil spiritIoloquiamo, or the bird Tikitiki,the enemy of the human race. Some-times children of a feeble constitu-tion undergo the same fate. Whenthe father is asked, what is becomeof one of his sons, he will pretend,that he has lost him by a naturaldeath. He will disavow an action,that appears to him blameable, butnot criminal. ‘The poor mure,’* he will tell you, ‘could not followus; we must have waited for himevery moment; he has not been seen

* As the Mahas, in the plains of theMissouri, according to the accounts ofthe American travellers, Clark andLewis.* In Tamanack mure signifies a child; emuru, a son.|476||Spaltenumbruch|again, he did not come to sleepwhere we passed the night.’ Suchis the candour and simplicity ofmanners, such the boasted happi-ness of man in the state of nature!He kills his son, to escape the ridi-cule of having twins, or to avoidjourneying more slowly; in fact, toavoid a little inconvenience.” Amid the prodigality and magni-ficence of nature, such are the moralevils which deform the scene; andwe are often compelled to leave theauthor’s glowing descriptions of su-perb landscape in the torrid zone,to vex our spirits with similar de-tails. But, the able manner in whichdistant objects and remote simili-tudes are brought to bear on almostevery subject discussed, is the greatcharm of this work; and we have sovast a quantity of intelligence com-bined with so rich a fund of amusinganecdote, that the mind never tires.It has been alleged, that Mr. H. istoo prone to this sort of classifica-tion, and to theories built upon it;but however that may be in a philo-sophical point of view, as a popularperformance, it wonderfully en-hances the attractions of his narrative.He is, in truth, the very Jac-ques of travellers; and his way isdelectable, “ compounded of manysimples, extracted from many ob-jects; and, indeed, the sundry con-templation of his travels, in whichhis often rumination wraps him in a most humourous sadness.” He mo-rals on every thing; for example:— “The inhabitants of Atures andMaypures, whatever the missiona-ries may have asserted in theirworks, are not more struck withdeafness by the noise of the greatcataracts, than the catadupes of theNile. When this noise is heard inthe plain that surrounds the mis-sion, at the distance of more than a league, you seem to be near a coastskirted by reefs and breakers. Thenoise is three times as loud by nightas by day, and gives an inexpressi-ble charm to these solitary scenes.What can be the cause of this in-creased intensity of sound in a de-sert, where nothing seems to inter-rupt the silence of nature? The ve-locity of the propagation of sound,far from augmenting, decreases with the lowering of the temperature.The intensity diminishes in air,agitated by a wind, which is con-trary to the direction of the sound;|Spaltenumbruch|it diminishes also by dilatation ofthe air, and is weaker in the higherthan in the lower regions of the at-mosphere, where the number of par-ticles of air in motion is greater inthe same radius. The intensity isthe same in dry air, and in air min-gled with vapours; but it is feeblerin carbonic acid gas, than in mix-tures of azot and oxygen. Fromthese facts, which are all we knowwith any certainty, it is difficult toexplain a phenomenon observednear every cascade in Europe, andwhich, long before our arrival in thevillage of Atures, had struck themissionary and the Indians. Thenocturnal temperature of the atmos-phere is 3° less than the tempera-ture of the day; at the same time the apparent humidity augments atnight, and the mist that covers thecataracts becomes thicker. Wehave just seen, that the hygroscopicstate of the air has no influence onthe propagation of the sound, andthat the cooling of the air dimi-nishes its swiftness. “It may be thought, that, even inplaces not inhabited by man, thehum of insects, the song of birds,the rustling of leaves agitated bythe feeblest winds, occasion, duringthe day, a confused noise, which weperceive the less because it is uni-form, and constantly strikes theear. Now this noise, howeverslightly perceptible it may be, maydiminish the intensity of a louder,noise; and this diminution maycease, if during the calm of the night the song of birds, the hum ofinsects, and the action of the windupon the leaves, be interrupted. Butthis reasoning, even admitting itsjustness, can scarcely be applied tothe forests of the Oroonoko, wherethe air is constantly filled by an in-numerable quantity of moschettoes,where the hum of insects is muchlouder by night than by day, andwhere the breeze, if ever it be felt, blows only after sunset. “I rather think, that the presenceof the sun acts upon the propagationand intensity of the sound by theobstacles which they find in thecurrents of air different density,and the partial undulations of theatmosphere caused by the unequalheating of different parts of the soil.In calm air, whether it be dry, ormingled with vesicular vapoursequally distributed, the sonorous un-|Spaltenumbruch|dulation is propagated without diffi-culty. But when the air is crossedin every direction by small currentsof hotter air, the sonorous undula-tion is divided into two undulations,where the density of the mediumchanges abruptly, partial echoes areformed, that weaken the sound, be-cause one of the streams comesback upon itself; and those divisionsof undulations take place, of whichMr. Poisson has recently developedthe theory with great sagacity. Itis not therefore the movement ofthe particles of air from below toabove in the ascending current, orthe small oblique currents, that weconsider as opposing by a shock thepropagation of the sonorous undu-lations. A shock, given to the sur-face of a liquid, will form circles around the center of percussion,even then the liquid is agitated.Several kinds of undulations maycross each other in water, as in air,without being disturbed in their pro-pagation; little movements may rideover each other, and the real causeof the less intensity of sound duringthe day appears to be the interrup-tion of homogeneity in the elasticmedium. During the day, there isa sudden interruption of density,where ever small streamlets of air ofa high temperature rise over partsof the soil unequally heated. The sonorous undulations are divided,as the rays of light are refracted,and form the mirage (looming),wherever strata of air of unequal density are contiguous. The pro-pagation of sound is altered, whena stratum hydrogen gas is made torise in a tube closed at one endabove a stratum of atmospheric air;and Mr. Biot has well explained, bythe interposition of bubbles of car-bonic acid gas, why a glass filledwith Champagne wine is little sono-rous so long as the gas is evolved,and continues to pass through the strata of the liquid.” This hypothesis is well worthfurther investigations; but we mustsurrender it to the scientific jour-nals, and continue our more mixedcareer. “The Indians of Atures,” saysMr. H., “are mild, moderate, and accustomed, from the effects oftheir idleness, to the greatest priva-tions. Formerly, excited to labourby the Jesuits, they did not wantfor food. The fathers cultivated |477||Spaltenumbruch| maize, French beans, (frisoles), andother European vegetables; theyeven planted sweet oranges and tamarinds round the villages; andthey possessed twenty or thirtythousand head of cows and horses,in the savannahs of Atures and Ca-richana. They had at their servicea great number of slaves and ser-vants (peones), to take care of theirherds. Nothing is now cultivatedbut a little cassava, and a few plan-tains. The fertility of the soil how-ever is such, that at Atures I count-ed on a single branch of musa 108fruits, 4 or 5 of which would almostsuffice for the daily nourishment ofa man. The culture of maize is en-tirely neglected, and the horses andcows have disappeared. Near the raudal, a part of the village stillbears the name of Passo del ganado(ford of the cattle), while the de-scendants of those very Indians,whom the Jesuits had assembled ina mission, speak of horned cattle asof animals of a race that is lost. Ingoing up the Oroonoko, toward SanCarlos del Rio Negro, we saw thelast cow at Carichana. The fathersof the Observance, who now governthese vast countries, did not imme-diately succeed the Jesuits. Duringan interregnum of eighteen yearsthe missions were visited only fromtime to time, and by Capuchin monks.The agents of the secular govern-ment, under the title of Commis-sioners of the King, managed the hatos or farms of the Jesuits withculpable negligence. They killedthe cattle in order to sell the hides.Many heifers were devoured by tigers, and a greater number perish-ed in consequence of wounds madeby the bats of the raudales, whichare much less, but far bolder thanthe bats of the Llanos. At the timeof the expedition of the boundaries,the horses of Encaramada, Cari-chana, and Atures, were conveyed as far as San Jose of Maravitanos,where, on the banks of the RioNegro, the Portugueze could onlyprocure them after a long passage,and of a very inferior quality, bythe river Amazon and Grand Para.Since the year 1795, the cattle ofthe Jesuits have entirely disap-peared. There now remains intestimony of the ancient cultivationof these countries, and the indus-trious activity of the first mission-aries, only a few trunks of the orange|Spaltenumbruch|and tamarind in the savannahs, sur-rounded by wild trees. “The tigers, or jaguars, whichare less dangerous for the cattlethan the bats, come into the villageat Atures, and devour the pigs ofthe poor Indians. The missionaryrelated to us a striking instance ofthe familiarity of these animals,upon the whole so ferocious. Somemonths before our arrival, a jaguar,which was thought to be young, though of a large size, had wounded a child in playing with him; I useconfidently this expression, whichmay seem strange, having on the spotverified facts which are not withoutinterest in the history of the man-ners of animals. Two Indian child-ren, a boy and a girl, about eight,and nine years of age, were seatedon the grass near the village of Atures, in the middle of a savannah,which we have often traversed. Attwo o’clock in the afternoon, a jaguar issued from the forest, andapproached the children, boundingaround them; sometimes he hid him-self in the high grass, sometimeshe sprang forward, his back bent,his head hung down, in the mannerof our cats. The little boy, ignorantof his danger, seemed to be sensibleof it only when the jaguar with oneof bis paws gave him some blows onthe head. These blows, at firstslight, became ruder and ruder; the claws of the jaguar wounded thechild, and the blood flowed withviolence. The little girl then tooka branch of a tree, struck the ani-mal, and it fled from her. The In-dians ran up at the cries of thechildren, and saw the jaguar, whichretired bounding, without the least show of resistance. “The little boy was brought tous, who appeared lively and intelli-gent. The claw of the jaguar had taken away the skin from the lowerpart of the forehead, and there wasa second scar at the top of thehead.” [To be continued.]

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“Among the monkeys,” the au-thor continues, “which we saw atthe mission of the Atures, we foundone new species of the tribe of saisand sajous, which the Creoles vul-garly call machis. It is the ouava-pavi with grey hair and a bluishface. It has the orbits of the eyesand forehead as white as snow, whichat first sight distinguish it from the simia capucina, the simia apella, the simia trepida, and the other weepingmonkeys hitherto so confusedly de-scribed. This little animal is asgentle as it is ugly. Every day inthe court-yard of the missionary itseized a pig, upon which it remain-ed from morning till night, travers-ing the savannahs. We have also seen it upon the back of a largecat, which bad been brought upwith it in father Zea's house. “It was among the cataracts thatwe began to hear of the hairy manof the woods, called salvaje, thatcarries off women, constructs huts,and sometimes eats human flesh.The Tamanacks call it achi, and theMaypures vasitri, or great devil.The natives and the missionarieshave no doubt of the existence ofthis anthropomorphous monkey,which they singularly dread. FatherGili gravely relates the history ofa lady in the town of San Carlos,who much praised the gentle cha-racter and attentions of the man ofthe woods. She lived several yearswith one in great domestic harmony,and only requested some hunters totake her back, ‘because she wastired, she and her children (a littlehairy also), of living far from thechurch and the sacraments.” Thesame author, notwithstanding hiscredulity, confesses, that he had not been able to find an Indian, whoasserted positively that he had seenthe salvaje with his own eyes. “This fable, which the missiona-ries, the European planters, and the negroes of Africa, have no doubtembellished with many featurestaken from the description of the |487| |Spaltenumbruch| manners of the ourang-outang, thegibbon, the jocko or chimpanzee,and the pongo, pursued us duringfive years from the northern to thesouthern hemisphere; and we wereevery where blamed, in the mostcultivated class of society, for beingthe only persons to doubt the exist-ence of the great anthropomorphousmonkey of America. We shall firstobserve, that there are certain re-gions, where this belief is particu-larly prevalent among the people;such are the banks of the UpperOroonoko, the valley of Upar near the Lake of Maracaybo, the moun-tains of Santa Martha and of Meri-da, the provinces of Quixos, and thebanks of the Amazon near Tome-penda. In all these places, so dis-tant one from the other, it is repeat-ed, that the salvaje is easily recog-nized by the traces of its feet, thetoes of which are turned backward.But if there exist a monkey of a large size in the New Continent,how has it happened, that duringthree centuries no man worthy ofbelief has been able to procure theskin of one? Several hypothesespresent themselves to the mind, inorder to explain the source of soancient an error or belief. Has thefamous capuchin monkey of Esme-ralda, the canine teeth of which aremore than six lines and a half long,the physiognomy much more likeman’s than that of the ourang-outang, and which, when irritated,rubs its beard with its hand, givenrise 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 mostprobable), that the man of the woodswas one of those large bears, thefootsteps of which resemble thoseof a man, and which is believed inevery country to attack women.The animal killed in my time at the foot of the mountains of Merida,and sent, by the name of salvaje, toColonel Ungaro, the governor of theprovince Varinas, was in fact a bear,with black and smooth fur.” These extraordinary accounts aresucceeded by a detailed history ofthe Moschettoes of this region; per-haps the most remarkable of all itsanimal phenomena. “Persons who have not navigated|Spaltenumbruch|the great rivers of equinoctial Ame-rica, for instance, the Oroonoko andthe Rio Magdalena, can scarcely conceive, how without interruption,at every instant of life, you may be tormented by insects flying in theair, and how the multitude of theselittle animals may render vast re-gions wholly uninhabitable. How-ever accustomed you may be to en-dure pain without complaint, how-ever lively an interest you may takein the objects of your researches, itis impossible not to be constantlydisturbed by the moschettoes, zan-cudoes, jejens and tempraneroes, thatcover the face and hands, pierce theclothes with their long sucker inthe form of a needle, and, gettinginto the mouth and nostrils, set youcoughing and sneezing whenever you attempt to speak in the openair. In the missions of the Oroono-ko, in the villages placed on thebanks of the river, surrounded byimmense forests, the plaga de lasmoscas, the plague of the flies, af-fords an inexhaustible subject ofconversation. When two personsmeet in the morning, the first ques-tions they address to each other are,‘How did you find the zancudoesduring the night? How are we to-day for the moschettoes.’ Thesequestions remind us of a Chineseform of politeness, which indicates the ancient state of the countrywhere it took birth. Salutations weremade heretofore in the celestial em-pire, in the following words, vou-tou-hou, ‘Have you been incommo-ded in the night by the serpents?’We shall soon see, that on the banksof the Tuamini, in the river Magda-lena, and still more at Choco, the country of gold and platina, theChinese compliment on the ser-pents might be added to that of themoschettoes.” Other curious facts are recorded,and illustrate this subject. Mr. H. says— “At Mandavaca we found an oldmissionary, who told us with an airof sadness, that he bad spent histwenty years of moschettoes in Ame-rica. He desired us to look well athis legs, that we might be able to tell one day, ‘poor alla (beyond sea)what the poor monks suffer in the forests of Cassiquiare.’ Every stingleaving a small darkish brown point, his legs were so speckled, that itwas difficult to recognize the white-|Spaltenumbruch|ness of his skin through the spots ofcoagulated blood. If the insects ofthe simulium genus abound in theCassiquiare, which has white waters,the culices, or zancudoes, are somuch the more rare; you scarcelyfind any there, while on the riversof black waters, in the Atabapo andthe Rio Negro, there are generallysome zancudoes and no moschettoes.” “I have just shown, from my ownobservations, how much the geogra-phical distribution of venomous in-sects varies in this labyrinth of ri-vers with white and black waters.It were to be wished, that a learnedentomologist could study on thespot the specific differences of thesenoxious insects, which in the torridzone, in spite of their littleness, actan important part in the economy ofnature. What appeared to us veryremarkable, and is a fact, known toall the missionaries, is, that the dif-ferent species do not associate to-gether, and that at different hours ofthe day you are stung by a distinctspecies. Every time that the scenechanges, and to use the simple ex-pression of the missionaries, otherinsects ‘mount guard,’ you have afew minutes, often a quarter of anhour, of repose. The insects thatdisappear have not their places in-stantly supplied in equal numbersby their successors. From half af-ter six in the morning till five inthe afternoon, the air is filled withmoschettoes; which have not, as wefind related in some travels, the form of our gnats, but that of a smallfly. They are simuliums of the fa-mily nemoceræ of the system ofLatreille. Their sting is as pain-ful as that of stomoxes. It leaves alittle reddish-brown spot, which isextravasated and coagulated blood,where their proboscis has piercedthe skin. An hour before sun-set aspecies of small gnats, called tem-praneros, because they appear alsoat sun-rise, take the place of themoschettoes. Their presence scarce-ly lasts an hour and a half; they dis-appear between six and seven in theevening, or, as they say here, afterthe Angelus(a la oracion). After afew minutes repose, you feel your-self stund by zancudoes, anotherspecies of gnat (culex) with verylong legs. The zancudo, the probos-cis of which contains a sharp point-ed sucker, causes the most acutepain, and a swelling that remains |488| |Spaltenumbruch|several weeks. Its hum resemblesthat of our gnats in Europe, but islouder and more prolonged. TheIndians pretend to distinguish ‘by their song’ the zancudoes and the tempraneroes; the latter of which arereal twilight insects, while the zan-cudoes are most frequently noctur-nal insects, and disappear towards sun-rise. “The culices of South America,have generally the wings, corselet,and legs of an azure colour, annulat-ed, and variable from a mixture ofspots of a metallic lustre. Here, asin Europe, the males, which are dis-tinguished by their feathered anten-næ, are extremely rare; you are sel-dom stung except by females. Thepreponderance of this sex explainsthe immense increase of the species,each female laying several hundredeggs. In going up one of the greatrivers of Ameriva, it is observed,that the appearance of a new speciesof culex denotes the approximity ofa new stream flowing in. “The whites born in the torridzone walk barefoot with impunityin the same apartment where a Eu-ropean recently landed is exposedto the attack of the niguas or chegoes(pulex penetrans). These animals,almost invisible to the eye, get un-der the nails of the feet, and thereacquire the size of a small pea by thequick increase of its eggs, which areplaced in a bag under the belly ofthe insect. The nigua, therefore,distinguishes, what the most deli-cate chemical analysis could not dis-tinguish, the cellular membrane andblood of a European from those of aCreole white. It is not so with themoschettoes. “In the day, even when labouring atthe oar, the natives, in order to chasethe insects, are continually givingone another smart slaps with the palm of the hand. Rude in all theirmovements, they strike themselvesand their comrades mechanicallyduring their sleep. The violence oftheir blows reminds us of the Persi-an tale of the bear, that tried to killwith his paw the insects on the fore-head of his sleeping master. NearMaypures we saw some young Indi-ans seated in a circle and rubbingcruelly each others backs with the bark of trees dried at the fire. In-dian women were occupied with adegree of patience, of which the cop-per-coloured race alone are capable, |Spaltenumbruch|in extirpating by means of a sharpbone the little mass of coagulated blood, that forms the centre of eve-ry sting, and gives the skin a speck-led appearance. One of the mostbarbarous nations of the Oroonoko,that of the Otomacs, is acquaintedwith the use of moschetto curtains(mosquiteros) formed of a tissue offibres of the palm tree, murichi.We had lately seen, that at Higue-rote, on the coast of Caraccas, thepeople of a copper colour sleep bu-ried in the sand. In the villagesof the Rio Magdalena the Indiansoften invited us to stretch ourselveswith them on ox-skins, near thechurch, in the middle of the plazagrande, where they had assembledall the cows in the neighbourhood.The proximity of cattle give somerepose to man. The Indians of theUpper Oroonoko and the Cassi-quiare, seeing that Mr. Bonplandcould not prepare his herbal, on ac-count of the continual torment ofthe moschettoes, invited him to en-ter their oveus, (hornitos). Thusthey call little chambers, withoutdoors or windows, into which theycreep horizontally through a verysmall opening. When they havedriven away the insects by meansof a fire of wet brush-wood, whichemits a great deal of smoke, theyclose the opening of the oven. Theabsence of moschettoes is purchased clearly enough by the excessive heatof stagnant air, and the smoke of atorch of copal, which lights the ovenduring your stay in it. Mr. Bonp-land, with courage and patiencewell worthy of praise, dried hun-dreds of plants, shut up in these hornitos of the Indians. “It is difficult not to smile athearing the missionaries dispute onthe size and voracity of the mos-chettoes at different parts of the sameriver. In the centre of a country ig-norant of what is passing in the restof the world, this is the favoritesubject of conversation. ‘How Ipity your situation!’ said the mis-sionary of the raudales to the mis-sionary of Cassiquiare, at our depar-ture: ‘you are alone, like me, in thiscountry of tigers and monkeys;with you fish is still more rare, andthe heat more violent; but as for myflies, (mia moscas) I can boast, thatwith one of mine I would beat threeof yours.’ “This voracity of insects in cer- |Spaltenumbruch|tain spots, the rage with which theyattack man, the activity of the ve-nom varying in the same species,are very remarkable facts; whichfind their analogy, however, in theclasses of large animals. The cro-codile of Angostura pursues men,while at Nueva Barcelona, in theRio Neveri, you may bathe tranquil-ly in the midst of the carnivorousreptiles. The jaguars of Maturin,Cumanacoa, and the isthmus of Pa-nama, are cowardly in comparison tothose of the Upper Oroonoko. TheIndians well know, that the mon-key of some valleys can easily betamed, while others of the samespecies, caught elsewhere, will ra-ther die of hunger, than submit toslavery.*” By this time we fancy our readersare as well acquainted with the ha-bits of the moschettoes, as if theyhad been bitten by them all over;and further knowledge being unne-cessary, we shall advance to othersubjects. Above the cataract of Atures, atthe mouth of the Rio Calaniapo, Mr.Humboldt gives the following ac-count of an extinct tribe: “We were shown at a distance,on the right of the river, the rocksthat surround the cavern of Ata-ruipe; but we had not time to visitthe cemetry of the destroyed tribeof the Atures. We regretted this somuch the more, as father Zea was ne-ver weary of talking to us of theskeletons painted with anotta, whichthis cavern contained; of the largevases of baked earth, in which thebones of separate families appearedto be collected; and of many other curious objects, which we proposedto examine at our return from theRio Negro.”

* “I might have added the example ofthe scorpion of Cumana, which it is verydifficult to distinguish from that of theisland of Trinidad, Jamaica, Carthagena,and Guayaquil; yet the former is notmore to be feared than the scorpio euro-pæus (of the south of France), while thelatter produces consequences far morealarming than the scorpio occitanus (ofSpain and Barbary). At Carthagena andGuayaquil, the sting of the scorpion (ala-cran) instantly causes the loss of speech.Sometimes a singular torpor of the tongueis observed for fifteen or sixteen hours.The patient, when stung in the legs, stam-mers as if he had been struck with apo-plexy.”|489| |Spaltenumbruch| At Maypure, higher up, we hearmore of the pottery of the Indians: “In every part of the forests, farfrom any human habitation, on dig-ging the earth, fragments of potteryand delft are found. The taste for this kind of fabrication seems tohave been common heretofore tothe natives of both Americas. Tothe north of Mexico,—on the banksof the Rio Gala— among the ruinsof an Azteck city—in the United States—near the tumuli of the Mia-mis; in Florida—and in every placewhere any trace of ancient civiliza-tion could be found, the soil coversfragments of painted pottery; andthe extreme resemblances of the or-naments they display is striking.Savage nations, and those civilizedpeople, who are condemned by theirpolitical and religious institutionsalways to imitate themselves, striveas if by instinct, to perpetuate thesame forms, to preserve a peculiartype or style, and to follow the me-thods and processes which were em-ployed by their ancestors. In North America, fragments of delfthave been discovered in placeswhere lines of fortification are found,and the walls of towns construct-ed by an unknown nation, now en-tirely extinct. The paintings onthese fragments have a great simili-tude to those which are executed inour days on earthenware by the na-tives of Louisiana and Florida.Thus too the Indians of Maypureoften painted before our eyes thesame ornaments as we had observedin the cavern of Ataruipe, on the va-ses containing human bones. Theyare real grecques, meandrites, andfigures of crocodiles, of monkeys,and of a large quadruped, which Icould not recognize, though it hasalways the same squat form.” Above Maypure this is indeed a“New World:” Mr. Humboldt says: “When the traveller has passedthe great cataracts, he feels as if hewere in a new world; and had over-stepped the barriers which natureseems to have raised between thecivilized countries of the coast andthe savage and unknown interior.Toward the east, in the bluish dis-tance, appeared for the last time,the high chain of the Cunavamimountains. Its long horizontal ridge reminded us of the Mesa ofBergantin, near Cumana; but itterminates by a truncated summit.|Spaltenumbruch|The peak of Calitamini (the namegiven to this summit) glows at sun-set as with reddish fire. This ap-pearance is every day the same.No one ever approached the sum-mit of this mountain, the height of which does not exceed six hundredtoises. I believe this splendor, com-monly reddish and sometimes silve-ry, to be a reflexion produced bylarge plates of talc, or by gneisspassing into mica-slate. The wholeof this country contains graniticrocks, on which here and there, in lit-tle plains, an argillaceous gritstoneimmediately reposes, containing frag-ments of quartz, and of brown iron ore. “In going to the embarcadere” hecontinues, “we caught on the trunkof a hevea a new species of tree frog,remarkable for its beautiful colours;it had a yellow belly, the back andhead of a fine velvetty purple, anda very narrow stripe of white fromthe point of the nose to the hinderextremities. This frog was two in-ches long, and allied to the ranatinctoria, the blood of which, it isasserted, introduced into the skinof a parrot, in places where the fea-thers have been plucked out, occa-sions the growth of frizzled feathersof a yellow or red colour.” But this is not only the region ofreal wonders; it has its fictions also. “The forests of Sipapo are alto-gether unknown, and there the mis-sionaries place the nation of Rayas,who have their mouth in the navel.An old Indian, whom we met at Ca-richano, and who boasted of havingoften eaten human flesh, had seenthese acephali with his own eyes.These absurd fables are spread asfar as the Llanos, where you are notalways permitted to doubt the ex-istence of the raya Indians. In eve-ry zone intolerance accompaniescredulity; and it might be said, thatthe fictions of ancient geographershad passed from one hemisphere tothe other, did we not know, that themost fantastic productions of theimagination, like the works of nature,furnish every where a certain ana-logy of aspect and form.”

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