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.