took the baited hook as long as the fisherman who threw the line was out
of sight.
The lukenaine, or sunfish, was captured by my men in a singular manner.
They manufactured an exceedingly rude fly out of a bunch of silk-grass
(_Bromelia karatas_) fibre, and attached it to a large hook with a short
line and rod. Drawing it rapidly over pools among the rocks, it was
immediately taken by the lukenaine, as the artificial fly is struck by
the trout.
Sting-rays were frequently seen on the sandy bottom or grovelling for
worms in the muddy banks under water. My interpreter, William, was
unfortunate enough to step upon one, which, being of the color of the
bottom, was not observed. It drove its spine or sting into the side of
his instep, producing a jagged wound which bled profusely. I immediately
put laudanum on the wound and gave him a strong dose of ammonia. In a
quarter of an hour after he was writhing on the ground in great agony,
actually screaming at times with the pain he felt in the wounded part,
in his groin, and under one armpit. His foot and leg were so cold that
he got one man to light a fire and support his foot over it, persisting
in trying to put it in the flames. I gave him two doses of laudanum,
one shortly after the other, without relieving his sufferings in the
slightest degree. After three hours of intense pain he became easier,
but had returns of it at intervals during the night. For a week he was
unable to put his foot on the ground, and the wound did not heal
thoroughly for six weeks....
We did not see a single cayman during our stay on the Corentyne. It may
safely be inferred that there are none on that river, a singular fact
that cannot be accounted for. Small alligators, of about four feet in
length, are numerous, however, and one of them one night carried off a
young cat which the men had brought from Georgetown. Poor puss had gone
to the water's edge to drink, when the alligator with one blow of its
tail swept it into the water and carried it away. On the following
morning we saw the alligator with its snout resting on a rock near by,
so I shot it; the men dragging it out of the water and leaving it on
the rocks. On returning, some months afterwards, we camped at the same
place, and there among the bones of the alligator saw those of the cat
bleaching in the sun.
Iguanas were numerous, and on one occasion, when one in a tree overhead
was shot at with an arrow, it jumped down to gain the water, but not
calculating its distance accurately, landed on the back of one of the
men, who, seeing it coming, ducked his head and dropped his paddle
overboard. The paddle, being made of paruru, or paddle-wood, was heavy,
and sank, and the man was afraid to dive for it among the numerous
perai.
[The author proceeds to describe the birds and trees of the
region, ending with an interesting account of the Brazil-nut.]
Upon the borders of the New River and main Corentyne, above the
last-mentioned fall, we met with large groves of Brazil-nut-trees,
and on the ground beneath them obtained numbers of their nuts. I was
fortunate to find some of the nut-cases containing nuts that had
commenced to germinate, each nut sending out long roots from one end
and young plants from the other. The roots were all twisted and matted
together, quite filling up the cavities in the case around the nuts;
yet the nut-case was hard and showed no signs of decay, so that it is
difficult to say how the young plants free themselves. There is a small
aperture where the fruit-stalk was once attached, but in only one
instance did I find a case in which one of the young plants had found
its way out through this and sent forth leaves. It seems to me that when
this happens one plant alone survives of the twelve or fifteen that
commenced to grow, and that its matted roots, gradually filling the
nut-case, eventually burst it, when the plant is free to take root in
the earth. The strong cover of the growing nut is a necessary protection
to the young plant, for without such it would be devoured by one of the
host of animals that are ready to eat it.
I planted some of the sprouting nuts, cut out of their hard outer
covering, on my way up the river, but on returning found that they had
all been dug up and eaten by rats and other small vermin. I therefore
had a lot planted in a box at our camp above King Frederick William IV.
Fall on my first return to that spot, and placed on the stem of a small
tree cut off some five feet from the ground. In this position they were
free from the attacks of small animals, and, being covered with a
shelter of some palm-leaves, thrived wonderfully. These plants were
subsequently sent to Kew, where they arrived in a fine healthy
condition.
We found many nut-cases with holes cut in them by accouries, the marks
of the gnawing teeth of those animals being plainly shown. My men used
to open them by chopping off their ends with a cutlass, which, owing to
their hardness, was no easy operation. The quatas, or large black
spider-monkeys, spent a good deal of their time in trying to open them
by beating them against the branches of trees or on hard logs upon the
ground; and as we passed a grove of Brazil-nut-trees it was amusing
to hear the hammering sounds produced by these fellows at their
self-imposed tasks. Where a single monkey was thus employed the blows
were most laughably "few and far between," the creature showing its true
indolent character by the slow way in which it performed its work,
resting for a few minutes between every blow. It also showed an amount
of perseverance, however, that one would not look for in a monkey, and a
knowledge that it would eventually reap a reward for its hard labor.
Goodness knows how long it takes one of these monkeys to break a
nut-case; but the time must be great, for on one occasion, during our
journey from the New River to the upper Essequebo, we got quietly among
a lot of the nut-breakers, and secured a nut-case which one in its hurry
had left upon a log, and which was worn smooth by the friction of the
monkey's hands. This had evidently been pounded for a length of time,
but showed no signs of cracking. Its natural aperture was large enough
to allow the monkey's fingers to touch the ends of the nuts inside,
which were picked and worn by its nails. Near the same place we saw
a nut-case split in two, on the flat surface of a large granite
rock, that had evidently been broken by a monkey, for there were no
Brazil-nut-trees, from which it could have fallen, overhanging the spot.
The blossoms of the Brazil-nut-tree are large and yellow, having a
delicate aromatic perfume. They are similar, but larger than the
caccarali, or monkey-pot-tree (_Lecythis ollaria_), whose flowers are so
powerfully scented.
LIFE AND SCENERY IN VENEZUELA.
ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT.
[The illustrious traveller and scientist from whose picturesque
descriptions of life and scenery in South America we here quote
was born in Berlin, September 14, 1769. After a careful
university education and scientific labors in Europe, he set
sail for America in 1799, and during the succeeding five years
explored a great extent of territory within the areas of the
present states of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and
Mexico. For twenty-five years succeeding his return he was
employed in arranging his collections, publishing the results
of his observations, and in other scientific labors. In 1829 he
again became a traveller, and explored a wide district in Asia.
He died, in his ninetieth year, May 6, 1859. Few men have ever
done so much for the advancement of science, while his
published works of travel contain much that is of value from a
literary point of view. We extract a series of interesting
passages relating to scenery and incidents in the Orinoco
region. The first is descriptive of the remarkable "cow-tree."]
When incisions are made in the trunk of this tree, it yields abundance
of a glutinous milk, tolerably thick, devoid of all acridity, and of
an agreeable and balmy smell. It was offered to us in the shell of 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. The glutinous character of this milk alone renders it
a little disagreeable. The negroes and the free people who work in the
plantations drink it, dipping into it their bread of maize or cassava.
The overseer of the farm told us that the negroes grow sensibly fatter
during the season when the _palo de vaca_ furnishes them with most milk.
The juice, exposed to the air, presents at its surface membranes of a
strongly animalized substance, yellowish, stringy, and resembling
cheese.
[Illustration: LA GUAYRA, VENEZUELA]
Amidst 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. Whatever
relates to milk or to corn inspires an interest which is not merely that
of the physical knowledge of things, but is connected with another order
of ideas and sentiments. We can scarcely conceive how the human race
could exist without farinaceous substances, and without that nourishing
juice which the breast of the mother contains, and which is appropriated
to the long feebleness of the infant. The amylaceous matter of corn,
the object of religious veneration among so many nations, ancient
and modern, is diffused in the seeds and deposited in the roots of
vegetables; milk, which serves as an aliment, appears to us exclusively
the produce of animal organization. Such are the impressions we have
received in our earliest infancy; such is also the source of that
astonishment created by the aspect of the tree just described. It is not
here the solemn shades of forests, the majestic course of rivers, the
mountains wrapped in eternal snow, that excite our emotion. A few drops
of vegetable juice recall to our minds all the powerfulness and the
fecundity of nature. On the barren flank of a rock grows a tree with
coriaceous and dry leaves. Its large woody roots can scarcely penetrate
into the stone. For several months of the year not a single shower
moistens its foliage. Its branches appear dead and dried; but when the
trunk is pierced there flows from it a sweet and nourishing milk. It is
at the rising of the sun that this vegetable fountain is most abundant.
The negroes and natives are then seen hastening from all quarters,
furnished with large bowls to receive the milk, which grows yellow
and thickens at its surface. Some empty their bowls under the tree
itself, others carry the juice home to their children.
[The great plains of Venezuela are thus described:]
The sun was almost at its zenith; the earth, wherever it appeared
sterile and destitute of vegetation, was at the temperature of 120 deg.. Not
a breath of air was felt at the height at which we were on our mules;
yet, in the midst of this apparent calm, whirls of dust incessantly
arose, driven on by those small currents of air which glide only over
the surface of the ground, and are occasioned by the difference of
temperature between the naked sand and the spots covered with grass.
All around us the plains seemed to ascend to the sky, and the vast and
profound solitude appeared like an ocean covered with sea-weed. On the
horizon the earth was confounded with the sky. Through the dry mist and
strata of vapor the trunks of palm-trees were seen from afar, stripped
of their foliage and their verdant summits, and looking like the masts
of a ship descried upon the horizon. There is something awful, as well
as sad and gloomy, in the uniform aspect of these steppes. Everything
seems motionless; scarcely does a small cloud, passing across the
zenith, and denoting the approach of the rainy season, cast its shadow
on the earth. I know not whether the first aspect of the llanos excites
less astonishment than that of the chain of the Andes.
When, beneath the vertical rays of the bright and cloudless sun of the
tropics, the parched sward crumbles into dust, then the indurated soil
cracks and bursts as if rent asunder by some mighty earthquake. And if,
at such a time, two opposite currents of air, by conflict moving in
rapid gyrations, come in contact with the earth, a singular spectacle
presents itself. Like funnel-shaped clouds, their apexes touching the
earth, the sand rises in vapory form through the rarefied air in the
electrically-charged centre of the whirling current, sweeping on like
the rushing waterspout, which strikes such terror into the heart of the
mariner. A dim and sallow light gleams from the lowering sky over the
dreary plain. The horizon suddenly contracts, and the heart of the
traveller sinks with dismay as the wide steppe seems to close upon him
on all sides. The hot and dusty earth forms a cloudy veil which shrouds
the heavens from view, and increases the stifling oppression of the
atmosphere, while the east wind, when it blows over the long-heated
soil, instead of cooling, adds to the burning glow. Gradually, too, the
pools of water, which had been protected from evaporation by the now
seared foliage of the fan-palm, disappear. As in the icy north animals
become torpid from cold, so here the crocodile and the boa-constrictor
lie wrapt in unbroken sleep, deeply buried in the dried soil. Everywhere
the drought announces death, yet everywhere the thirsty wanderer is
deluded by the phantom of a moving, undulating, watery surface, created
by the deceptive play of the mirage. A narrow stratum separates the
ground from the distant palm-trees, which seem to hover aloft, owing to
the contact of currents of air having different degrees of heat, and
therefore of density. Shrouded in dark clouds of dust, and tortured by
hunger and burning thirst, oxen and horses scour the plain, the one
bellowing dismally, the other with outstretched necks snuffing the wind,
in the endeavor to detect, by the moisture of the air, the vicinity of
some pool of water not yet wholly evaporated.
The mule, more cautious and cunning, adopts another method of
allaying his thirst. There is a globular and articulated plant, the
_Melo-cactus_, which encloses under its prickly integument an aqueous
pulp. After carefully striking away the prickles with its forefeet,
the mule cautiously ventures to apply his lips to imbibe the cooling
thistle juice. But the draught from this living vegetable spring is not
always unattended by danger, and these animals are often observed to
have been lamed by the puncture of the cactus thorn. Even if the burning
heat of day be succeeded by the cool freshness of the night, here always
of equal length, the wearied ox and horse enjoy no repose. Huge bats now
attack the animals during sleep, and vampire-like suck their blood; or,
fastening on their backs, raise festering wounds, in which mosquitoes,
hippobosces, and a host of other stinging insects burrow and nestle.
When, after a long drought, the genial season of rain arrives, the scene
suddenly changes. The deep azure of the hitherto cloudless sky assumes a
lighter hue. Scarcely can the dark space in the constellation of the
Southern Cross be distinguished at night. The mild phosphorescence of
the Magellanic clouds fades away. Like some distant mountain, a single
cloud is seen rising perpendicularly on the southern horizon. Misty
vapors collect and gradually overspread the heavens, while distant
thunder proclaims the approach of the vivifying rain. Scarcely is the
surface of the earth moistened before the teeming steppe becomes covered
with a variety of grasses. Excited by the power of light, the herbaceous
mimosa unfolds its dormant, drooping leaves, hailing, as it were, the
rising sun in chorus with the matin song of the birds and the opening
flowers of aquatic plants. Horses and oxen, buoyant with life and
enjoyment, roam over and crop the plains. The luxuriant grass hides the
beautifully spotted jaguar, who, lurking in safe concealment, and
carefully measuring the extent of his leap, darts, like the Asiatic
tiger, with a cat-like bound upon his passing prey. At times, according
to the accounts of the natives, the humid clay on the banks of the
morasses is seen to rise slowly in broad flakes. Accompanied with a
violent noise, as on the eruption of a small mud-volcano, the upheaved
earth is hurled high into the air. Those who are familiar with the
phenomenon fly from it; for a colossal water-snake, or a mailed and
scaly crocodile, awakened from its trance by the first fall of rain,
is about to burst from its tomb.
When the rivers bounding the plain to the south, as the Arauca, the
Apure, and the Payara, gradually overflow their banks, nature compels
those creatures to live as amphibious animals, which, during the first
half of the year, were perishing with thirst on the waterless and dusty
plain. A part of the steppe now presents the appearance of a vast inland
sea. The mares retreat with their foals to the higher banks, which
project, like islands, above the spreading waters. Day by day the dry
surface diminishes in extent. The cattle, crowded together, and deprived
of pasturage, swim for hours about the inundated plain, seeking a scanty
nourishment from the flowing panicles of the grasses which rise above
the lurid and bubbling waters. Many foals are drowned, many are seized
by crocodiles, crushed by their serrated tails, and devoured. Horses and
oxen may not unfrequently be seen which have escaped from the fury of
this blood-thirsty and gigantic lizard, bearing on their legs the marks
of its pointed teeth.
[A widely different scene is that of the forest region, the
nocturnal noises of whose animal inhabitants are thus
picturesquely described.]
Below the mission of Santa Barbara de Arichuna we passed the night
as usual in the open air, on a sandy flat, on the bank of the Apure,
skirted by the impenetrable forest. We had some difficulty in finding
dry wood to kindle the fires with which it is here customary to surround
the bivouac, as a safeguard against the attacks of the jaguar. The air
was bland and soft and the moon shone brightly. Several crocodiles
approached the bank; and I have observed that fire attracts these
creatures as it does our crabs and many other aquatic animals. The oars
of our boats were fixed upright in the ground, to support our hammocks.
Deep stillness prevailed, only broken at intervals by the blowing of the
fresh-water dolphins, which are peculiar to the river net-work of the
Orinoco.
After eleven o'clock such a noise began in the contiguous forest, that
for the remainder of the night all sleep was impossible. The wild cries
of animals rung through the woods. Among the many voices which resounded
together, the Indians could only recognize those which, after short
pauses, were heard singly. There was the monotonous, plaintive cry
of the howling monkeys, the whining, flute-like notes of the small
sapajous, the grunting murmur of the striped nocturnal ape, the fitful
roar of the great tiger, the cougar, or maneless American lion, the
peccary, the sloth, and a host of parrots, parraquas, and other
pheasant-like birds. Whenever the tigers approached the edge of the
forest, our dog, who before had barked incessantly, came howling to seek
protection under the hammocks. Sometimes the cry of the tiger resounded
from the branches of a tree, and was always then accompanied by the
plaintive, piping tones of the apes, who were endeavoring to escape from
the unwonted pursuit.
If one asks the Indians why such a continuous noise is heard on certain
nights, they answer, with a smile, that "the animals are rejoicing in
the beautiful moonlight, and celebrating the return of the full
moon." To me the scene appeared rather to be owing to an accidental,
long-continued, and gradually increasing conflict among the animals.
Thus, for instance, the jaguar will pursue the peccaries and the tapirs,
which, densely crowded together, burst through the barrier of tree-like
shrubs which opposes their flight. Terrified at the confusion, the
monkeys on the tops of the trees join their cries with those of the
larger animals. This arouses the tribes of birds who build their nests
in communities, and suddenly the whole animal world is in a state of
commotion. Further experience taught us that it was by no means always
the festival of moonlight that disturbed the stillness of the forest;
for we observed that the voices were loudest during violent storms of
rain, or when the thunder echoed and the lightning flashed through the
depths of the wood. The good-natured Franciscan monk who accompanied us
through the cataracts of Apures and Maypures to San Carlos, on the Rio
Negro, and to the Brazilian frontier, used to say, when apprehensive of
a storm at night, "May heaven grant a quiet night both to us and to the
wild beasts of the forest!"
[The unpleasant conditions of a canoe voyage on the Orinoco are
thus described:]
The new canoe intended for us was, like all Indian boats, a trunk of a
tree hollowed out partly by the hatchet and partly by fire. It was forty
feet long and three broad. Three persons could not sit in it side by
side. These canoes are so crank, and they require, from their
instability, a cargo so equally distributed, that when you want to rise
for an instant, you must warn the rowers to lean to the opposite side.
Without this precaution the water would necessarily enter the side
pressed down. It is difficult to form an idea of the inconveniences that
are suffered in such wretched vessels. To gain something in breadth, a
sort of lattice-work had been constructed on the stern with branches of
trees, that extended on each side beyond the gunwale. Unfortunately, the
_toldo_, or roof of leaves, that covered this lattice-work, was so low
that we were obliged to lie down, without seeing anything, or, if
seated, to sit nearly double. The necessity of carrying the canoe across
the rapids, and even from one river to another, and the fear of giving
too much hold to the wind, by making the toldo higher, render this
construction necessary for vessels that go up towards the Rio Negro.
The toldo was intended to cover four persons, lying on the deck or
lattice-work of brushwood; but our legs reached far beyond it, and when
it rained half our bodies were wet. Our couches consisted of ox-hides or
tiger-skins spread upon branches of trees, which were painfully felt
through so thin a covering. The fore part of the boat was filled with
Indian rowers, furnished with paddles, three feet long, in the form
of spoons. They were all naked, seated two by two, and they kept time
in rowing with a surprising uniformity, singing songs of a sad and
monotonous character. The small cages containing our birds and our
monkeys--the number of which augmented as we advanced--were hung some to
the toldo and others to the bow of the boat. This was our travelling
menagerie. Every night, when we established our watch, our collection
of animals and our instruments occupied the centre; around these were
placed, first, our hammocks, then the hammocks of the Indians; and on
the outside were the fires, which are thought indispensable against the
attacks of the jaguar. About sunrise the monkeys in our cages answered
the cries of the monkeys of the forest.