HUMBOLDT’S TRAVELS.
[Sidenote: 1881.]
One of the boys said that Hearne’s Travels seemed to bring them quite within our own time. The stately great quarto is dedicated to the Hudson’s Bay Company, and in his holidays last summer Bedford had seen packages addressed to their agents, lying at the station at Montreal.
Tom Rising said that in the preface to Hearne’s Travels there was a reference to a lively quarrel between him and Mr. Dalrymple.
Col. Ingham said that Mr. Dalrymple was one of the map-makers who stayed at home, and had to plot or put down the observations of the men who travelled. Hearne’s latitudes and longitudes did not prove to be quite exact. But, as to the main point, that there was a Northern Ocean somewhere near the parallel of 70°, he settled that matter.
“But now,” said he, “you begin to come to the time when geography itself becomes a science. You had better look into some of the magnificent Humboldt books. You all know his name, and what he did is what you would all like to do. Here he was, a young German gentleman, with plenty of money and a taste for natural history. His family was important enough for him to secure good recommendations among diplomatists and such people. He had the favor of governments, and he had money enough to go where he pleased.
“At that time, almost the first time, the Spanish government relaxed a little the secrecy in which it had tried to keep all the world ignorant of all its immense possessions. They gave Humboldt in 1799 full power to go where he chose in their provinces in America and the East Indies. Humboldt went, and spent nearly five years in America.
“He was in Washington in 1804, and saw President Jefferson, who was himself a bit of a naturalist.”
The boys and girls got down different volumes of Humboldt’s Travels. Some of them are very elegant, and there is one atlas of prints of curious things he saw in Mexico and South America, in which, to their joy, they found the origins of many pictures still extant in the school geographies.
Laura was looking at his Life. “Why, Uncle Fritz, they were educated by our dear old Campe.”
“Who is our dear old Campe?” said Emma. “I never heard of him.”
“Campe is--oh, yes, you have, only you forget--he is the man who made the little Robinson Crusoe.”
“Oh, he is the stone-axe man?” asked Tom Rising.
Yes, he is the stone-axe man. What the children meant was this,--that he wrote a Robinson Crusoe which some of them had read, in which Robinson Crusoe had a stone axe. In the original Robinson Crusoe, by the Englishman, Defoe, Robinson was supplied with the necessaries of life from the wreck of the ship, just as “Crusoe in New York” was supplied from the old junk-shop which had that name. But the French philosopher, Rousseau, said that for a book of education it should show how a man would fare who had actually nothing but his hands.
So this German minister Campe, who had been a chaplain in the army, and had become a teacher of youth, in the hope of thus ameliorating the condition of mankind, wrote his famous Robinson the Younger. I believe he does let Robinson have a jackknife when he is thrown upon the beach, though that violates the principle. When it becomes necessary for Robinson to cut down trees he walks along on the beach, and there he finds a stone sharp on one edge and in the shape of an axe-head. What is more, by great good luck the water has worn through a hole in the stone just where the handle of the axe should be fitted. So Robinson put a handle into the stone and went on his way conquering and to conquer.
This absurdity of the accidental axe-head so impressed the children that they always called the book the stone-axe Robinson. Still it was a book they liked to take down from the Colonel’s shelves, and it would be a good book now to put in public libraries. The catalogue title of it in English is “The New Robinson Crusoe.” In Germany it is better known, probably, than the original. In the early editions it takes the form of a conversation between a father and his children.
Tom Rising said, “That virtuous boy, who asks the priggish questions, must have been Alexander von Humboldt’s brother.”
“And the stupid boy,” said Bob, “who hardly knows the difference between a needle and a fish-hook, he is Alexander von Humboldt himself. Stupid boys, if they are only stupid enough to be neglected by the schoolmasters, always turn out remarkable men.”
The children laughed at Bob’s frank confession of his theory of life, but Col. Ingham, who feared that the talk was becoming heretical, bade Fanchon read some of Humboldt’s own accounts of his notion in travelling.
HUMBOLDT’S JOURNEY TO THE EQUINOCTIAL REGIONS.
[Sidenote: 1799.]
From my earliest youth I felt an ardent desire to travel into distant regions seldom visited by Europeans. This desire is characteristic of a period of our existence when life appears an unlimited horizon, and when we find an irresistible attraction in the impetuous agitations of the mind and the image of positive danger. Though educated in a country which has no direct communication with either the East or the West Indies; living amidst mountains remote from coasts, and celebrated for their numerous mines, I felt an increasing passion for the sea and distant expeditions. Objects with which we are acquainted only by the animated narrations of travellers have a peculiar charm; imagination wanders with delight over that which is vague and undefined, and the pleasures we are deprived of seem to possess a fascinating power, compared with which all we daily feel in the narrow circle of sedentary life appears insipid. The taste for herborization, the study of geology, rapid excursions to Holland, England, and France, with the celebrated Mr. George Forster, who had the happiness to accompany Captain Cook in his second voyage round the globe, contributed to give a determined direction to the plan of travels which I had formed at eighteen years of age. No longer deluded by the agitations of a wandering life, I was anxious to contemplate Nature in all her variety of wild and stupendous scenery; and the hope of collecting some facts useful to the advancement of science incessantly impelled my wishes towards the luxuriant regions of the torrid zone. As personal circumstances then prevented me from executing the projects by which I was so powerfully influenced, I had leisure to prepare myself during six years for the observations I proposed to make on the New Continent, as well as to visit different parts of Europe, and to explore the lofty chain of the Alps, the structure of which I might afterwards compare with that of the Andes of Quito and of Peru....
From the time of leaving Graciosa the horizon continued so hazy that, notwithstanding the considerable height of the mountains of Canary,[18] we did not discover that island till the 18th of June. On the morning of the 19th we discovered the point of Naga, but the peak of Teneriffe was still invisible. The land, obscured by a thick mist, presented forms that were vague and confused. As we approached the road of Santa Cruz we observed that the mist, driven by the winds, drew nearer to us. The sea was strongly agitated, as it most commonly is in these latitudes. We anchored after several soundings, for the mist was so thick that we could scarcely distinguish objects at a few cables’ distance, but at the moment we began to salute the place the fog was instantly dispelled. The peak of Teyde appeared in a break above the clouds, and the first rays of the sun, which had not yet risen on us, illumined the summit of the volcano. We hastened to the prow of the vessel to behold the magnificent spectacle, and at the same instant we saw four English vessels lying to and very near our stern. We had passed without being perceived, and the same mist which had concealed the peak from our view had saved us from the risk of being carried back to Europe.[19]
The Pizarro stood in as close as possible to the fort, to be under its protection. It was on this shore that in the landing attempted by the English two years before our arrival, in July, 1797, Admiral Nelson had his arm carried off by a cannon-ball....
Though the captain had orders to stop at Teneriffe to give us time to scale the summit of the peak, if the snows did not prevent our ascent, we received notice, on account of the blockade of the English ships, not to expect a longer delay than four or five days. We consequently hastened our departure for the port of Orotavo, which is situated on the western declivity of the volcano, where we were sure of finding guides. I could find no one at Santa Cruz who had mounted the peak, and I was not surprised at this. The most curious objects become less interesting in proportion as they are near to us; and I have known inhabitants of Schaffhausen, in Switzerland, who had never seen the fall of the Rhine but at a distance....
About three in the morning, by the sombrous light of a few pine-torches, we started on our journey to the summit of the Piton. We scaled the volcano on the northeast side, where the declivities are extremely steep; and after two hours’ toil we reached a small plain, which, on account of its elevated position, bears the name of Alta Vista. This is the station of the _neveros_, those natives whose occupation is to collect ice and snow, which they sell in the neighboring towns. Their mules, better practised in climbing mountains than those hired by travellers, reach Alta Vista, and the _neveros_ are obliged to transport the snow to that place on their backs. We turned to the right to examine the cavern of ice, which is at the elevation of 1,728 toises, consequently below the limit of perpetual snows in this zone. Probably the cold which prevails in this cavern is owing to the same causes which perpetuate the ice in the crevices of Mount Jura and the Apennines.... Day was beginning to dawn when we left the ice-cavern. We observed, during the twilight, a phenomenon which is not unusual on high mountains, but which the position of the volcano we were scaling rendered very striking. A layer of white and fleecy clouds concealed from us the sight of the ocean and the lower region of the island. This layer did not appear above eight hundred toises high; the clouds were so uniformly spread, and kept so perfect a level, that they wore the appearance of a vast plain covered with snow. The colossal pyramid of the peak, the volcanic summits of Lancerota, of Forteventura, and the isle of Palma, were like rocks amidst the sea of vapors, and their black tints were in fine contrast with the whiteness of the clouds.
While we were climbing over the broken lavas of the Malpays, we perceived a very curious optical phenomenon, which lasted eight minutes. We thought we saw on the east side small rockets thrown into the air. Luminous points, about seven or eight degrees above the horizon, appeared first to move in a vertical direction; but the motion was gradually changed into a horizontal oscillation. Our fellow-travellers, our guides even, were astonished at this phenomenon, without our having made any remark on it to them. We thought, at first sight, that these points which floated in the air indicated some new eruption of the great volcano of Lancerota, for we recollected that Bouguer and La Condamine, in scaling the volcano of Pichincha, were witnesses of the eruption of Cotopaxi. But the illusion soon ceased, and we found that the luminous points were the images of stars magnified by the vapors....
The road, which we were obliged to clear for ourselves, across the Malpays, was extremely fatiguing. The ascent is steep, and the blocks of lava rolled beneath our feet. Unfortunately the listlessness of our guides contributed to increase the difficulty of the ascent. Unlike the guides of the valley of Chamouni, or the nimble-footed Guanches, who could, it is asserted, seize the rabbit or the wild goat in its course, our Canarian guides were models of the phlegmatic. They had wished to persuade us on the preceding evening not to go beyond the station of the rocks. Every ten minutes they sat down to rest themselves, and when unobserved they threw away the specimens we had collected. We discovered at length that none of them had ever visited the summit of the volcano....
We had yet to scale the steepest part of the mountain, the Piton, which forms the summit. The slope of this small cone, covered with volcanic ashes and fragments of pumice-stone, is so steep that it would have been almost impossible to reach the top had we not ascended by the old current of lava, the _débris_ of which have resisted the ravages of time. We ascended the Piton by grasping these half-decomposed scoriæ, which often broke in our hands.
Vesuvius, three times lower than the peak of Teneriffe, is terminated by a cone of ashes almost three times higher, but with a more accessible and easy slope. Of all the volcanos which I have visited, that of Jorullo, in Mexico, is the only one that is more difficult to climb than the peak, because the whole mountain is covered with loose ashes.
When we gained the summit of the Piton, we were surprised to find scarcely room to seat ourselves conveniently. We were stopped by a small circular wall of lava, with a base of pitchstone, which concealed from us the view of the crater. The west wind blew with such violence that we could scarcely stand. It was eight in the morning, and we suffered severely from the cold, though the thermometer kept a little above freezing point. For a long time we had been accustomed to a very high temperature, and the dry wind increased the feeling of cold....
Notwithstanding the heat we felt in our feet on the edge of the crater, the cone of ashes remains covered with snow during several months in winter. The cold and violent wind, which blew from the time of sunrise, induced us to seek shelter at the foot of the Piton. Our hands and faces were nearly frozen, while our boots were burnt by the soil on which we walked. We descended in the space of a few minutes the Sugar-Loaf which we had scaled with so much toil, and this rapidity was in some respects involuntary, for we often rolled down on the ashes....
As we approached the town of Orotava, we met great flocks of canaries. These birds, well known in Europe, were in general uniformly green; some, however, had a yellow tinge on their backs; their note was the same as the tame canary. The yellow canaries are a variety, which has taken birth in Europe, and those we saw in cages at Orotava and Santa Cruz had been bought at Cadiz, and in other parts of Spain. But of all the birds of the Canary Islands, that which has the most heart-soothing song is unknown in Europe. It is the capirote, which no effort has succeeded in taming, so sacred is its soul to liberty. I have stood listening in admiration of his soft and melodious warbling in a garden at Orotava, but I have never seen him sufficiently near to ascertain to what family he belongs....
* * * * *
On the 3d and 4th of July, we crossed that part of the Atlantic where the charts indicate the bank of the maalstrom, and towards night we altered our course to avoid the danger, the existence of which is however doubted. It would have been, perhaps, as prudent to have continued our course. The old charts are filled with rocks, some of which really exist, though most of them are merely the offspring of those optical illusions which are more frequent at sea than in inland places.
From the time we entered the torrid zone we were never weary of admiring at night the beauty of the southern sky, which as we advanced to the south opened new constellations to our view. The pleasure we felt in discovering the Southern Cross was warmly shared by those of our crew who had visited the colonies. In the solitude of the seas we hail a star as a friend, from whom we have been long separated. The Portuguese and the Spaniards are peculiarly susceptible of this feeling; a religious sentiment attaches them to a constellation, the form of which recalls the sign of the faith planted by their ancestors in the deserts of the New World. The two stars which mark the summit and the foot of the cross having nearly the same right ascension, it follows that the constellation is almost perpendicular at the moment when it passes the meridian. This circumstance is known to the people of every nation situated beyond the tropics or in the Southern Hemisphere. It has been observed at what hour of the night, in different seasons, the cross is erect or inclined. It is a time-piece which advances very regularly four minutes a day, and no other group of stars affords to the naked eye an observation of time so easily made. How often have we heard our guides exclaim in the savannahs of Venezuela, or in the deserts extending from Lima to Truxillo, “Midnight is past, the cross begins to bend.” How often these words remind us of that affecting scene, where Paul and Virginia, seated near the source of the river Lataniers, conversed together for the last time, and when the old man, at the sight of the Southern Cross, warns them that it is time to separate....
* * * * *
The banks of the Manzanares are very pleasant, and are shaded by mimosas and other trees of a gigantic growth. A river, the temperature of which in the season of the floods, descends as low as twenty-two degrees,[20] while the air is at thirty and thirty-three degrees, is an inestimable benefit in a country where the heat is excessive during the whole year, and where it is so agreeable to bathe several times in a day. The children pass a considerable part of their lives in the water; all the inhabitants, even the women of the most opulent families, know how to swim; and in a country where man is so near the state of nature, one of the first questions asked on meeting in the morning is, whether the water is cooler than on the preceding evening. One of the modes of bathing is curious. We every evening visited a family in the suburb of the Guayquerias. In a fine moonlight night, chairs were placed in the water; the men and women were lightly dressed, and the family and strangers assembled in the river, passed some hours in smoking cigars and talking, according to the custom of the country, of the extreme dryness of the season, of the abundant rains in the neighboring districts, and particularly of extravagances of which the ladies of Cumana accuse those of the Caracas and the Havannah. The company were under no apprehension of the crocodiles, which are now extremely scarce, and which approach men without attacking them. We never met with them in the Manzanares, but with a great number of dolphins, which sometimes ascend the river in the night, and frighten the bathers by spouting water.
The pearl-breeding oyster abounds on the shoals which extend from Cape Paria to Cape la Vela. It is warmly alleged by some historians that the natives of America were unacquainted with the luxury of pearls. The first Spaniards who landed in Terra Firma found the savages decked with pearl necklaces and bracelets; and among the civilized people of Mexico and Peru pearls of a beautiful form were extremely sought after. Benzoni relates the adventure of one Luigi Lampagnano, to whom Charles the Fifth granted the privilege of proceeding with five carvels to the coast of Cumana to fish for pearls. The colonists sent him back with this bold message,--“that the emperor was too liberal of what was not his own, and he had no right to dispose of the oysters which live at the bottom of the sea.”
Among the mulattoes whose huts surround the salt lake we found a shoemaker of Castilian descent. He received us with an air of gravity and self-sufficiency which in those countries characterize almost all persons who are conscious of possessing some particular talent. He was employed in stretching the string of his bow and sharpening his arrows, to shoot birds. His trade of shoemaker could not be very lucrative in a country where the greater part of the inhabitants go barefooted, and he only complained that, on account of the dearness of European gunpowder, a man of his quality was reduced to use the same weapons as the Indians. He was the sage of the plain; he understood the formation of the salt by the influence of the sun and full moon; the symptoms of earthquakes; the marks by means of which mines of gold and silver are discovered, and the medicinal plants, which, like all the other colonists from Chili to California, he classified into hot and cold. Having collected the traditions of his country he gave us some curious accounts of the pearls of Cubagua, objects of luxury which he treated with the utmost contempt. To show us how familiar to him were the sacred writings, he took a pride in reminding us that Job preferred wisdom to the pearls of the Indies. After a long discourse on the emptiness of human grandeur, he drew from a leathern pouch a few very small opaque pearls, which he forced us to accept, enjoining upon us at the same time to notice on our tablets that a poor shoemaker of Araya, but a white man, and of noble Castilian race, had been enabled to give us something which, on the other side of the sea, was sought for as very precious. I here acquit myself of the promise I made to this worthy man, who refused to accept of the slightest recompense.
When a traveller, newly arrived from Europe, penetrates for the first time into the forests of South America, he beholds nature under an unexpected aspect. He feels at every step that he is not on the confines, but in the centre of the torrid zone; not in one of the West India Islands, but on a vast continent where everything is gigantic,--mountains, rivers, and the mass of vegetation. If he feels deeply the beauty of picturesque scenery, he can scarcely distinguish what most excites his admiration, the deep silence of these solitudes, the individual beauty and contrast of forms, or that vigor and freshness of vegetable life which characterize the climate of the tropics. We walked for some hours under the shade of arcades which scarcely admit a glimpse of the sky; the latter appeared to me of an indigo-blue, the deeper in shade because the green of the equinoctial plants is generally of a stronger hue, with somewhat of a brownish tint. In this place we were struck, for the first time, with the sight of those nests in the shape of bottles or small bags which are suspended from the branches of the lowest trees, and which attest the wonderful industry of the orioles, which mingle their warblings with the hoarse cries of the parrots and the maccaws. These last, so well known for their vivid colors, fly only in pairs, while the real parrots wander about in flocks of several hundreds. A man must have lived in those regions, particularly in the hot valleys of the Andes, to conceive how these birds sometimes drown with their voices the noise of the torrents which dash down from rock to rock....
The road skirted with bamboos led us to the small village of San Fernando, situated in a warm place, surrounded by very steep rocks. This was the first mission we saw in America. The missionary was a Capuchin, a native of Aragon, far advanced in years, but strong and healthy. His extreme corpulency, his hilarity, the interest he took in battles and sieges, ill accorded with the ideas we form in northern countries of the melancholy reveries and the contemplative life of the missionaries. Though extremely busy about a cow which was to be killed next day, the old monk received us with kindness and permitted us to hang up our hammocks in a gallery of his house. Seated, without doing anything the greater part of the day, in an arm-chair of redwood, he complained bitterly of what he called the indolence and ignorance of his countrymen. Our missionary, however, seemed well satisfied with his situation; he treated the Indians with mildness, he beheld his mission prosper, and he praised with enthusiasm the waters, the bananas, and the dairy produce of the district. The sight of our instruments, our books, and our dried plants drew from him a sarcastic smile, and he acknowledged, with a _naïveté_ peculiar to the inhabitants of those countries that, of all the enjoyments of life, not excepting sleep, none were comparable to the pleasure of eating good beef; thus does sensuality obtain an ascendency where there is no occupation for the mind.
The days we passed at the Capuchin convent in the mountains of Caripe glided swiftly away, though our manner of living was simple and uniform. From sunrise to nightfall we traversed the forests and neighboring mountains to collect plants. When the winter rains prevented us from undertaking distant expeditions we visited the huts of the Indians or those assemblies in which the alcaldes every evening arrange the labors of the succeeding day. We returned to the monastery only when the sound of the bell called us to the refectory to share the repast of the missionaries. Sometimes, early in the morning, we followed them to the church, to attend the _doctrina_,--that is to say, the religious instruction of the Indians. It was rather a difficult task to explain dogmas to these neophytes, especially those who had but a very imperfect knowledge of the Spanish language. On the other hand, the monks are yet almost totally ignorant of the language of the Chaymas; and the resembling sounds confuse the poor Indians, and suggest to them the most whimsical ideas. I saw a missionary laboring earnestly to prove that _inferno_, hell, and _invierno_, winter, were not one and the same thing. The Chaymas are acquainted with no other winter than the season of rains, and consequently they imagined the “hell of the whites” to be a place where the wicked are exposed to frequent showers. The missionary harangued to no purpose; it was impossible to efface the first impression produced by the analogy between the two consonants. He could not separate in the mind of the neophyte the ideas of _rain_ and _hell_. The same men who manifest quickness of intellect, and who are tolerably well acquainted with the Spanish, were unable to connect their ideas, when, in our excursions around the convent, we put questions to them through the intervention of the monks. They were made to affirm or deny whatever the monks pleased; and that wily civility, to which the least cultivated Indian is no stranger, induced them sometimes to give to their answers the turn that seemed to be suggested by our questions. Travellers cannot be enough on their guard against this officious assent when they seek to confirm their own opinions by the testimony of the natives. To put an Indian alcalde to the proof, I asked him one day whether he did not think the little river of Caripe, which issues from the cavern of the Guacharo, returned into it on the opposite side by some unknown entrance after having ascended the slope of the mountain. The Indian seemed greatly to reflect on the subject, and then answered, by way of supporting my hypothesis, “How else, if it were not so, would there always be water in the bed of the river, at the mouth of the cavern?”
We remained a month longer at Cumana, employing ourselves in the necessary preparations for our proposed visit to the Orinoco and the Rio Negro. We had to choose such instruments as could be most easily transported in narrow boats, and to engage guides for an inland journey of ten months, across a country without communication with the coasts. The astronomical determination of places being the most important object of this undertaking, I felt desirous not to miss the observation of an eclipse of the sun which was to be visible at the end of October; and in consequence I preferred remaining till that period at Cumana, where the sky is generally clear and serene. It was now too late to reach the banks of the Orinoco before October, and the high valleys of Caracas promised less favorable opportunities, on account of the vapors which accumulate round the neighboring mountains. I was, however, near being compelled by a deplorable occurrence to renounce, or at least to delay for a long time, my journey to the Orinoco. On the 27th of October, the day before the eclipse, we went as usual to take the air on the shore of the gulf. It was eight in the evening, and the breeze was not yet stirring. The sky was cloudy, and during a dead calm it was excessively hot.
We crossed the beach which separates the suburb of the Guayqueria Indians from the embarcadero. I heard some one walking behind us, and on turning I saw a tall man of the color of the Zambos, naked to the waist. He held almost over my head a great stick of palm-tree wood, enlarged to the end like a club. I avoided the stroke by leaping towards the left; but M. Bonpland, who walked on my right, was less fortunate. He did not see the Zambo so soon as I did, and received a stroke above the temple, which levelled him with the ground. We were alone, without arms, half a league from any habitation, on a vast plain bounded by the sea. The Zambo, instead of attacking me, moved off slowly to pick up M. Bonpland’s hat, which, having somewhat deadened the violence of the blow, had fallen off and lay at some distance. Alarmed at seeing my companion on the ground, and for some moments senseless, I thought of him only. I helped him to raise himself, and pain and anger doubled his strength. We ran towards the Zambo, who, either from cowardice, common enough in people of this caste, or because he perceived at a distance some men on the beach, did not wait for us, but ran off in the direction of the Tunal, a little thicket of cactus. He chanced to fall in running, and M. Bonpland, who reached him first, seized him round the body. The Zambo drew a large knife; and in this unequal struggle we should infallibly have been wounded if some Biscayan merchants, who were taking the air on the beach, had not come to our assistance. The Zambo, seeing himself surrounded, thought no longer of defence. He again ran away, and we pursued him through the thorny cactuses. At length, tired out, he took shelter in a cow-house, whence he suffered himself to be quietly led to prison. M. Bonpland was seized with fever during the night; but, being endowed with great energy and fortitude, and possessing that cheerful disposition which is one of the most precious gifts of nature, he continued his labors the next day. The inhabitants of Cumana showed us the kindest interest. It was ascertained that the Zambo was a native of one of the Indian villages which surround the great lake of Maracaibo. He had served on board a privateer belonging to the Island of St. Domingo, and in consequence of a quarrel with the captain he had been left on the coast of Cumana, when the ship quitted the port. Having seen the signal which we had fixed up for the purpose of observing the height of the tides, he had watched the moment when he could attack us on the beach. But why, after knocking one of us down, was he satisfied with simply stealing a hat? In an examination he underwent his answers were so confused and stupid that it was impossible to clear up our doubts. Sometimes he maintained that his intention was not to rob us; but that, irritated by the bad treatment he had suffered on board the privateer of St. Domingo, he could not resist the desire of attacking us when he heard us speak French. Justice is so tardy in this country that prisoners, of whom the jail is full, may remain seven or eight years without being brought to trial; we learned, therefore, with some satisfaction, that a few days after our departure from Cumana the Zambo had succeeded in breaking out of the castle.
We quitted the shores of Cumana as if it had been our home. This was the first land we had trodden in a zone towards which my thoughts had been directed from earliest youth. There is a powerful charm in the impression produced by the scenery and climate of these regions, and after an abode of a few months we seemed to have lived there during a long succession of years.
AROMATIC SHRUBS.
We spent a long time in examining the fine resinous and fragrant plants of the Pejual. Wandering in this thick wood we suddenly found ourselves enveloped in a thick mist; the compass alone could guide us; but in advancing northward we were in danger at every step of finding ourselves on the bank of that enormous wall of rocks, which descends perpendicularly to the depth of six thousand feet towards the sea. We were obliged to halt. Surrounded by clouds sweeping the ground, we began to doubt whether we should reach the eastern peak before night. Happily the negroes who carried our water and provisions rejoined us, and we resolved to take some refreshment. Our repast did not last long. Possibly the Capuchin brother had not thought of the great number of persons who accompanied us, or perhaps the slaves had made free with our provisions on the way; be that as it may, we found nothing but olives and scarcely any bread. Horace, in his retreat at Tibur, never boasted of a repast more light and frugal; but olives, which might have offered a satisfactory meal to a poet, devoted to study, and leading a sedentary life, appeared an aliment by no means substantial for travellers climbing mountains. We had watched the greater part of the night, and we walked for nine hours without finding a single opening. Our guides were discouraged; they wished to go back, and we had great difficulty in preventing them. We sent off half our servants with orders to hasten the next morning to meet us, not with olives, but with salt beef.
COW-TREE.
In returning from Porto Cabello to Aragua, we stopped at the farm of Barbula, near which a new road to Valencia is in the course of construction. We had heard several weeks before of a tree, the sap of which is a nourishing milk. It is called the cow-tree, and we were assured that the negroes of the farm, who drink plentifully of this vegetable milk, consider it a wholesome aliment. It was offered to us in a calabash. We drank considerable quantities of it in the evening before we went to bed, and very early in the morning, without feeling the least injurious effect. Among the great number of curious phenomena which I have observed in the course of my travels, I confess there are few that have made so powerful an impression on me as the aspect of the cow-tree. It is at the rising of the sun that this vegetable fountain is most abundant. The negroes and natives are seen hastening from all quarters, furnished with large bowls to receive the milk, which grows yellow and thickens at the surface; some empty their bowls under the tree itself, others carry the juice home to their children.
HOWLING MONKEYS.
Before I trace the scenery of the llanos I will briefly describe the road we took from Nueva Valencia, to the little village of Ortiz, at the entrance of the steppes. We left the valley of Aragua on the 6th of March before sunrise. We passed over a plain richly cultivated, keeping along the southwest side, by the lake of Valencia, and crossing the ground left uncovered by the waters of the lake. We were never weary of admiring the fertility of the soil, covered with calabashes, water-melons, and plantains. The rising of the sun was announced by the distant noise of the howling monkeys. Approaching a group of trees which rise in the midst of the plain, between those parts which were anciently the islets of Don Pedro and La Negra, we saw numerous bands of Araguatos moving as in procession, and very slowly, from one tree to another. A male was followed by a great number of females, several of the latter carrying their young on their shoulders. The howling monkeys, which live in society in different parts of America, everywhere resemble each other in their manners, though the species are not always the same. Wherever the branches of the neighboring trees do not touch each other, the male who leads the party suspends himself by the callous part of his tail, and, letting fall the rest of his body, swings himself till he reaches the neighboring branch. The whole file performs the same movements in the same spot. It is almost superfluous to add how dubious is the assertion of Ulloa, and so many otherwise well-informed travellers, according to whom the monkeys with a prehensile tail form a sort of chain, in order to reach the opposite side of a river. We had opportunities during five years of observing thousands of these animals, and for this very reason we place no confidence in statements possibly invented by Europeans themselves, though repeated by the Indians of the missions, as if they had been transmitted to them by their fathers. Man, the most remote from civilization, enjoys the astonishment he excites in relating the marvels of his country. He says he has seen what he imagines may have been seen by another. Every savage is a hunter, and the stories of hunters borrow from imagination in proportion as the animals of which they boast the artifices are endowed with a high degree of intelligence.
FINDING WATER.
After having passed two weary nights on horseback, and having sought in vain by day for some shelter from the heat of the sun, we arrived before night at the little Hato del Caymen,[21] called also La Guadaloupe. It was a solitary house in the steppes, surrounded by a few small huts covered with reeds and skins. The cattle, oxen, horses, and mules are not penned, but wander freely over an extent of several square leagues. There is nowhere any enclosure; men, naked to the waist and armed with a lance, ride over the savannahs to inspect the animals, bringing back those that wander too far from the pastures of the farm, and branding all that do not bear the mark of their proprietor. These mulattoes, who are known by the name of _peones llaneros_, are partly freedmen and partly slaves. Their food is meat dried in the air and a little salted, and of this even their horses sometimes partake. Being always in the saddle, they fancy they cannot make the slightest exertion on foot. We found an old negro slave, who managed the farm in the absence of his master. He told us of herds of several thousand cows that were grazing on the steppes, yet we asked in vain for a bowl of milk. We were offered in a calabash some yellow, muddy, and fetid water drawn from a neighboring pool. The indolence of the inhabitants of the llanos is such that they do not dig wells though they know that almost everywhere, at ten feet deep, fine springs are found in a stratum of red sandstone. After suffering one half the year from the effects of inundations, they quietly resign themselves during the other half to the most distressing deprivation of water. The old negro advised us to cover the cup with a linen cloth and drink as through a filter, that we might not be incommoded by the smell, and might swallow less of the yellowish mud deposited in the water. We did not then think that we should afterwards be forced during whole months to have recourse to this expedient. The waters of the Orinoco are always loaded with earthy particles; they are even putrid, where dead bodies of alligators are found in the creeks, lying on beds of sand, or half-buried in the mud.
No sooner were our instruments safely placed than our mules were set at liberty to go, as they say here, “to search for water.” There are little pools round the farm which the animals find, guided by their instinct, by the view of some scattered tufts of mauritia, and by the sense of humid coolness caused by little currents of air amid an atmosphere which to us appears calm and tranquil. When the pools of water are far distant, and the people of the farm are too lazy to lead the cattle to these natural watering places, they confine them during five or six hours in a very hot stable before they let them loose. Excess of thirst then augments their sagacity, sharpening as it were their senses and their instinct. No sooner is the stable opened than the horses and mules rush into the savannahs. With upraised tails and heads thrown back they run against the wind, stopping from time to time as if exploring space; they follow less the impressions of sight than of smell, and at length announce, by prolonged neighings, that there is water in the direction of their course.
ELECTRICAL EELS.
Having obtained very uncertain results from an electric eel which had been brought to us alive, but much enfeebled, we repaired to the Caño de Bera, to make our experiments in the open air, and at the edge of the water. The Indians told us that they would “fish with horses” (embarbascar con caballos).[22] We found it difficult to form an idea of this extraordinary manner of fishing, but we soon saw our guides return from the savannah, which they had been scouring for wild horses and mules. They brought about thirty with them, which they forced to enter the pool. The extraordinary noise caused by the horses’ hoofs makes the fish issue from the mud, and excites them to the attack. These yellowish and livid eels, resembling aquatic serpents, swim on the surface of the water, and crowd under the bellies of the horses. A contest between animals of so different an organization presents a very striking spectacle. The Indians, provided with harpoons and long, slender reeds, surround the pool closely, and some climb up the trees, the branches of which extend over the water. By their wild cries and the length of their reeds they prevent the horses from running away and reaching the bank of the pool. The eels, stunned by the noise, defend themselves by the repeated discharge of their electric batteries. For a long interval they seem likely to prove victorious. Several horses sink beneath the violence of the invisible strokes which they receive from all sides, in organs the most essential to life, and, stunned by the force and frequency of the shocks, they disappear under the water. In less than five minutes two of our horses were drowned. The eel, being five feet long, and pressing itself against the belly of the horses, makes a discharge along the whole extent of its electric organ. It is natural that the effect felt by the horses should be more powerful than that produced upon man by the touch of the same fish at only one of his extremities. The horses are probably not killed, but only stunned. They are drowned from the impossibility of rising amid the prolonged struggle between the other horses and the eels.
We had little doubt that the fishing would end by killing successively all the animals engaged, but by degrees the impetuosity of this unequal combat diminished and the wearied gymnoti dispersed. They require a long rest and abundant nourishment to repair the galvanic force which they have lost. In a few minutes we had five large eels, most of which were but slightly wounded.
CROCODILES.
The Indians told us that at San Fernando scarcely a year passes without two or three grown-up persons, particularly women who fetch water from the river, being drowned by the crocodiles. They related to us the history of a young girl of Uritucu, who, by singular intrepidity and presence of mind, saved herself from the jaws of a crocodile. When she felt herself seized she sought the eyes of the animal and plunged her fingers into them with such violence that the pain forced the crocodile to let her go, after having bitten off the lower part of her left arm. The girl, notwithstanding the enormous quantity of blood she lost, reached the shore, swimming with the hand that still remained to her. In those desert countries, where man is ever wrestling with nature, discourse daily turns on the best means that may be employed to escape from a tiger, a boa, or a crocodile; every one prepares himself in some sort for the dangers that may await him. “I knew,” said the young girl of Uritucu coolly, “that the cayman lets go his hold if you push your fingers into his eyes.” Long after my return to Europe I learned that in the interior of Africa the negroes know and practise the same means of defence. Who does not recollect, with lively interest, Isaac, the guide of the unfortunate Mungo Park, who was seized twice by a crocodile, and twice escaped from the jaws of the monster, having succeeded in thrusting his fingers into the creature’s eyes while under water.
JAGUARS.
Near the Joval nature assumes an awful and extremely wild aspect. We there saw the largest jaguar we had ever met with. The natives themselves were astonished at its prodigious length, which surpassed that of any Bengal tiger I had ever seen in the museums of Europe. The animal lay stretched beneath the shade of a large zamang.[23] It had just killed a chiguire, but had not yet touched its prey, on which it kept one of its paws. The vultures were assembled in great numbers to devour the remains of the jaguar’s repast. They presented the most curious spectacle; by a singular mixture of boldness and timidity they advanced within the distance of two feet from the animal, but at the least movement he made they drew back. In order to observe more nearly the manners of these creatures we went into the little skiff that accompanied our canoe. Tigers very rarely attack boats by swimming to them, and never but when their ferocity is heightened by a long privation of food. The noise of our oars led the animal to rise slowly and hide itself behind the bushes that bordered the shore. The vultures tried to profit by this moment of absence to devour the chiguire, but the tiger leaped into the midst of them, and in a fit of rage, expressed by his gait and the movement of his tail, carried off his prey to the forest.
We passed the night in the open air, in a plantation, the proprietor of which employed himself in hunting tigers. He wore scarcely any clothing, and was of a dark brown complexion like a Zambo. This did not prevent his classing himself amongst the whites. He called his wife and daughter Doña Isabella and Doña Manuela. Without having ever quitted the banks of the Apure, he took a lively interest in the news of Madrid, enquiring eagerly respecting “those never-ending wars and everything down yonder” (todas las cosas de alla). He knew, he said, that the king was soon to come and visit “the grandees of the country of Caracas,” but he added with some pleasantry, “as the people of the court can eat only wheaten bread, they will never pass beyond the town of Victoria, and we shall not see them here.” I had brought with me a chiguire, which I had intended to have roasted, but our host assured us that such “Indian game” was not food fit for “nos otros caballeros blancos” (white gentlemen like ourselves and him). Accordingly he offered us some venison which he had killed the day before with an arrow, for he had neither powder nor fire-arms. We supposed that a small wood of plantain-trees concealed from us the hut of the farm; but this man, so proud of his nobility and the color of his skin, had not taken the trouble of constructing even a hut of palm-leaves. He invited us to have our hammocks hung near his own, between two trees; and he assured us, with an air of complacency, that if we came up the river in the rainy season we should find him beneath a roof. We soon had reason to complain of a system of philosophy which is indulgent to indolence, and renders a man indifferent to the conveniences of life. A furious wind arose after midnight, lightnings flashed over the horizon, thunder rolled, and we were wet to the skin. During this storm a whimsical incident served to amuse us for a moment. Doña Isabella’s cat had perched upon the tamarind-tree, at the foot of which we lay. It fell into the hammock of one of our companions, who, being hurt by the claws of the cat, and suddenly aroused from a profound sleep, imagined he was attacked by some wild beast of the forest. We ran to him on hearing his cries, and had some trouble to convince him of his error. While it rained in torrents on our hammocks and on our instruments which we had brought ashore, Don Ignatio congratulated us on our good fortune in not sleeping on the shore, but finding ourselves in his domain, among whites and persons of respectability. Wet as we were, we could not easily persuade ourselves of the advantages of our situation, and we listened with some impatience to the long narrative our host gave us of his pretended expedition to the Rio Meta, of the valor he had displayed in a sanguinary combat with the Guahibo Indians, and “the services that he had rendered to God and the king, in carrying away Indian children from their parents to distribute them in the missions.” We were struck with the singularity of finding in that vast solitude a man believing himself to be of European race, and knowing no other shelter than the shade of a tree, and yet having all the vain pretensions, hereditary prejudices, and errors of long-standing civilization!
A COMFORTABLE NIGHT.
On the 1st of April, at sunrise, we quitted Señor Don Ignatio and Señora Doña Isabella, his wife.... Beyond the Vuelta del Cochino Roto, in a spot where the river has scooped itself a new bed, we passed the night on a bare and very extensive beach. The forest being impenetrable we had the greatest difficulty in finding dry wood to light fires, near which the Indians believe themselves in safety from the nocturnal attacks of the tiger. The night was calm and serene, and there was a beautiful moonlight. The crocodiles, stretched along the shore, placed themselves in such a manner as to be able to see the light. We thought we saw that its blaze attracted them, as it attracts crayfish, and other inhabitants of the water. The Indians showed us the tracks of three tigers in the sand, two of which were very young. A female had no doubt conducted her little ones to drink at the river. Finding no tree on the strand, we stuck our oars in the ground, and to these we fastened our hammocks. Everything passed tranquilly till eleven at night, and then a noise so terrific arose in the neighboring forest that it was almost impossible to close our eyes. Amid the cries of so many wild beasts howling at once, the Indians discriminated such only as were at intervals heard separately. These were the soft little cries of the sapajous, the moans of the alouate apes, the howlings of the jaguar and couguar, the peccary, and the sloth, and the cries of the curassao, the parraka, and other gallinaceous birds. When the jaguars approached the skirt of the forest our dog, which till then had never ceased barking, began to howl and seek for shelter beneath our hammocks. Sometimes, after a long silence, the cry of the tiger came from the tops of the trees, and then it was followed by the sharp and long whistling of the monkeys, which appeared to flee from the danger which threatened them. We heard the same noises repeated during the course of whole months, whenever the forest approached the bed of the river. The security evinced by the Indians inspires confidence in the minds of travellers, who readily persuade themselves that the tigers do not attack a man lying in his hammock.
When the natives are interrogated on the causes of the tremendous noise made by the beasts of the forest at certain hours of the night, the answer is, “They are keeping the feast of the full moon.” I believe this agitation is most frequently the effect of some conflict that has arisen in the depths of the forest. The jaguars, for instance, pursue the peccaries and the tapirs, which, having no defence but in their numbers, flee in close troops, and break down the bushes they find in their way. Terrified at this struggle, the timid and mistrustful monkeys answer, from the tops of the trees, the cries of the large animals. They awaken the birds that live in society, and by degrees the whole assembly is in commotion. It is not always in a fine moonlight, but more particularly at the time of a storm and violent showers that this tumult takes place among the wild beasts. “May Heaven grant them a quiet night and repose, and us also!” said the monk who accompanied us to the Rio Negro, when, sinking with fatigue, he assisted in arranging our accommodations for the night.
A PLEASANT WALK.
We stopped at noon in a desert spot called Algodonal. I left my companions while they drew the boat ashore and were occupied in preparing our dinner. I went along the shore to get a near view of a group of crocodiles sleeping in the sun, and lying in such a manner as to have their tails, which were furnished with broad plates, resting on one another. This excursion had nearly proved fatal to me. I had kept my eyes constantly fixed towards the river; but, whilst picking up some spangles of mica agglomerated together in the sand, I discovered the recent footsteps of a tiger, easily distinguishable from their form and size. The animal had gone towards the forest, and turning my eyes on that side I found myself within eighty paces of a jaguar that was lying under the thick foliage of a ceiba. No tiger ever appeared to me so large. There are accidents in life against which we may seek in vain to fortify our reason. I was extremely alarmed, yet sufficiently master of myself and of my motions to enable me to follow the advice which the Indians had so often given us as to how we ought to act in such cases. I continued to walk on without running, avoided moving my arms, and I thought I observed that the jaguar’s attention was fixed on a herd of capybaras which was crossing the river. I then began to return, making a large circuit towards the edge of the water. As the distance increased I thought I might accelerate my pace. How often was I tempted to look back in order to assure myself that I was not pursued! Happily I yielded very tardily to this desire. The jaguar had remained motionless. These enormous cats with spotted robes are so well fed in countries abounding in capybaras, peccaries, and deer that they rarely attack men. I arrived at the boat out of breath, and related my adventure to the Indians. They appeared very little interested by my story, yet, after having loaded our guns, they accompanied us to the ceiba beneath which the jaguar had lain. He was there no longer, and it would have been imprudent to have pursued him into the forest, where we must have dispersed, or advanced in single file, amidst the intertwining lianas.
ONE-EYED MEN.
Beyond the Great Cataracts of the Orinoco an unknown land begins. It is partly mountainous, receiving at once the confluents of the Amazon and the Orinoco. We found but three Christian establishments above the Great Cataracts, along the shore of the Orinoco, in an extent of more than a hundred leagues; and these three establishments contained scarcely six or eight white persons, that is to say, persons of European race. We cannot be surprised that such a desert region should have been at all times the land of fable and fairy visions. There, according to the statements of certain missionaries, are found races of men, some of whom have eyes in the centre of the forehead, while others have dogs’ heads, and mouths below the stomachs. There they pretend to have found all that the ancients relate of the Garamantes, of the Arimaspes, and of the Hyperboreans. It would be an error to suppose that these simple and often rustic missionaries had themselves invented all these exaggerated fictions; they derived them in great part from the recitals of the Indians. A fondness for narration prevails in the missions, as it does at sea, in the East, and in every place where the mind seeks amusement. A missionary, from his vocation, is not inclined to scepticism; he imprints on his memory what the natives have so often repeated to him, and when returned to Europe and restored to the civilized world he finds a pleasure in creating astonishment by a recital of facts which he thinks he has collected, and by animated description of remote things. These stories, which the Spanish colonists call “tales of travellers and of monks,” increase in improbability in proportion as you increase your distance from the forests of the Orinoco, and approach the coasts inhabited by the whites. When at Cumana, Nueva Barcelona, and other seaports which have frequent communication with the missions, if you betray any sign of incredulity, you are reduced to silence by these few words: “The fathers have seen it, but far above the Great Cataracts.”
PLAGUE OF FLIES.
Persons who have not navigated the great rivers of equinoctial America, for instance, the Orinoco and the Magdalena, can scarcely conceive how, at every instant, without intermission, you may be tormented by insects flying in the air, and how the multitude of these little animals may render vast regions almost uninhabitable. Whatever fortitude be exercised to endure pain without complaint, whatever interest may be felt in the objects of scientific research, it is impossible not to be constantly disturbed by the mosquitos, zancudos, jejens, and tempraneros, that cover the face and hands, pierce the clothes with their long, needle-formed suckers, and getting into the mouth and nostrils occasion coughing and sneezing whenever any attempt is made to speak in the open air. In the missions of Orinoco, in the villages on the banks of the river, surrounded by immense forests, the _plaga de las moscas_, or the plague of the mosquitos, affords an inexhaustible subject of conversation. When two persons meet in the morning the first questions they address to each other are: “How did you find the zancudos during the night? How are we to-day for the mosquitos?”... “How comfortable must people be in the moon!” said a Salive Indian to Father Gumilla. “She looks so beautiful and so clear that she must be free from mosquitos.”...
INTERLOCKED RIVERS.
During the night we had left the waters of the Orinoco, and at sunrise found ourselves as if transported to a new country, on the banks of a river the name of which we had scarcely ever heard pronounced, and which was to conduct us by the portage of Pimichin to the Rio Negro, on the frontiers of Brazil. “You will go up,” said the president of the missions, who resides at San Fernando, “first the Atabapo, then the Temi, and finally the Tuamini. When the force of the current of ‘black waters’ hinders you from advancing you will be conducted out of the bed of the river through forests which you will find inundated. Two monks only are settled in those desert places between the Orinoco and the Rio Negro, but at Javita you will be furnished with the means of having your canoe drawn overland in the course of four days to Caño Pimichin. If it be not broken to pieces you will descend the Rio Negro without any obstacle, as far as the little fort of San Carlos; you will go up the Cassiguiare, and then return to San Fernando in a month, descending the upper Orinoco from east to west.” Such was the plan traced for our passage, and we carried it into effect without danger, though not without some suffering, in the space of thirty-three days.