The Project Gutenberg eBook of Views of Nature, by Alexander Von Humboldt

26. p. 11.—“The Care of Animals yielding milk.—Ruins of the Aztek fortress.”

The two oxen already named, Bos americanus and Bos moschatus, are peculiar to the northern part of the American continent. But the natives—

Queis neque mos, neque cultus erat, nec jungere tauros

Virg. Æn. i. 316.

drank the fresh blood, and not the milk, of these animals. Some few exceptions have indeed been met with, but only among tribes who at the same time cultivated maize. I have already observed that Gomara speaks of a people in the north-west of Mexico who possessed herds of tame bisons, and derived their clothing, food, and drink from these animals. This drink was probably the blood,^[FO] for, as I have frequently remarked, a dislike of milk, or at least the absence of its use, appears before the arrival of Europeans to have been common to all the natives of the New Continent, as well as to the inhabitants of China and Cochin China, notwithstanding their great vicinity to true pastoral tribes. The herds of tame lamas which were found in the highlands of Quito, Peru, and Chili, belonged to a settled and agricultural population. Pedro de Cieça de Leon ^[FP] seems to imply, although assuredly as a very rare exception to the general mode of life, that lamas were employed on the Peruvian mountain plain of Callao for drawing the plough.^[FQ] Ploughing was, however, generally conducted in Peru by men only.^[FR] Barton has made it appear probable that the American buffalo had from an early period been reared among some West Canada tribes on account of its flesh and hide.^[FS] In Peru and Quito the lama is nowhere found in its original wild condition. According to the statements made to me by the natives, the lamas on the western declivity of the Chimborazo became wild at the time when Lican, the ancient residence of the rulers of Quito, was laid in ashes. In Central Peru, in the Ceja de la Montaña, cattle have in like manner become completely wild; a small but daring race that often attacks the Indians. The natives call them “Vacas del Monte” or “Vacas Cimarronas.”^[FT] Cuvier’s assertion that the lama had descended from the guanaco, still in a wild state, which had unfortunately been extensively propagated by the admirable observer, Meyen,^[FU] has now been completely refuted by Tschudi.

The Lama, the Paco or Alpaca, and the Guanaco are three originally distinct species of animals.^[FV] The Guanaco (Huanacu in the Quichua language) is the largest of the three, and the Alpaca, measured from the ground to the crown of the head, the smallest. The Lama is next to the Guanaco in height. Herds of Lamas, when as numerous as I have seen them on the elevated plateaux between Quito and Riobamba, are a great ornament to the landscape. The Moromoro of Chili appears to be a mere variety of the lama. The different species of camel-like sheep found still wild at elevations of from 13,000 to upwards of 16,000 feet above the level of the sea, are the Vicuña, the Guanaco, and the Alpaca; of these the two latter species are also found tame, although this is but rarely the case with the Guanaco. The alpaca does not bear a warm climate as well as the lama. Since the introduction of the more useful horse, mule, and ass (the latter of which exhibits great animation and beauty in tropical regions), the lama and alpaca have been less generally reared and employed as beasts of burden in the mining districts. But their wool, which varies so much in fineness, is still an important branch of industry among the inhabitants of the mountains. In Chili the wild and the tame guanaco are distinguished by special names, the former being called “Luan” and the latter “Chilihueque.” The wide dissemination of the wild Guanacos from the Peruvian Cordilleras to Tierra del Fuego, sometimes in herds of 500 heads of cattle, has been facilitated by the circumstance that these animals can swim with great facility from island to island, and are not therefore impeded in their passage across the Patagonian channels or fiords.^[FW]

South of the river Gyla, which together with the Rio Colorado pours itself into the Californian Gulf (Mar de Cortes), lie in the midst of the dreary steppe the mysterious ruins of the Aztek Palace, called by the Spaniards “las Casas Grandes.” When, about the year 1160, the Azteks first appeared in Anahuac, having migrated from the unknown land of Aztlan, they remained for a time on the borders of the Gyla river. The Franciscan monks, Garces and Font, who saw the “Casas Grandes” in 1778, are the last travellers who have visited these remains. According to their statement, the ruins extended over an area exceeding sixteen square miles. The whole plain was covered with the broken fragments of ingeniously painted earthenware vessels. The principal palace, if the word can be applied to a house formed of unburnt clay, is 447 feet in length and 277 feet in breadth.^[FX]

The Tayé of California, a delineation of which is given by the Padre Venegas, appears to differ but inconsiderably from the Ovis musimon of the Old Continent. The same animal has also been seen in the Stony Mountains near the source of the River of Peace, and differs entirely from the small white and black spotted goat-like animal found on the Missouri and Arkansas. The synonyme of Antilope furcifer, A. tememazama. (Smith,) and Ovis montana is still very uncertain.

27. p. 11.—“The culture of farinaceous grasses.”

The original habitat of the farinaceous grasses, like that of the domestic animals which have followed man since his earliest migrations, is shrouded in obscurity. Jacob Grimm has ingeniously derived the German name for corn, Getraide, from the old German “gitragidi,” “getregede.” “It is as it were the tame fruit (fruges, frumentum) that has fallen into the hands of man, as we speak of tame animals in opposition to those that are wild.”^[FY]

“It is a most striking fact that on one half of our planet there should be nations who are wholly unacquainted with the use of milk and of the meal yielded by narrow-eared grasses, (Hordeaceæ and Avenacecæ) whilst in the other hemisphere nations may be found in almost every region who cultivate cereals and rear milch cattle. The culture of different cereals is common to both hemispheres; but while in the New Continent we meet with only one species, maize, which is cultivated from 52° north to 46° south lat., we find that in the Old World the fruits of Ceres, (wheat, barley, spelt, and oats,) have been everywhere cultivated from the earliest ages recorded in history. The belief that wheat grew wild in the Leontine plains as well as in other parts of Sicily was common to several ancient nations, and is mentioned as early as Diodorus Siculus.”^[FZ] Cereals were also found in the alpine meadow of Enna. Diodorus says expressly, “The inhabitants of the Atlantis were unacquainted with the fruits of Ceres, owing to their having separated from the rest of mankind before those fruits were made known to mortals.” Sprengel has collected several interesting facts from which he is led to conjecture that the greater number of our European cereals originally grew wild in Northern Persia and India. He supposes for instance that summer wheat was indigenous in the land of the Musicani, a province of Northern India;^[GA] barley, antiquissimum frumentum, as Pliny terms it, and which was also the only cereal known to the Guansches of the Canaries, originated, according to Moses of Chorene,^[GB] on the banks of the Araxes or Kur in Georgia, and according to Marco Polo in Balascham, in Northern India;^[GC] and Spelt originated in Hamadan.

My intelligent friend and teacher, Link, has however shown in a comprehensive and critical treatise,^[GD] that these passages are open to much doubt. In a former essay of my own,^[GE] I expressed doubts regarding the existence of wild cereals in Asia, and considered them to have become wild. Reinhold Forster, who before his voyage with Captain Cook made an expedition for purposes of natural history into the south of Russia by order of the Empress Catherine, reported that the two-lined summer barley (Hordeum distichon) grew wild near the confluence of the Samara and the Volga. At the end of September in the year 1829, Ehrenberg and myself also herborised on the Samara, during our journey from Orenburg and Uralsk to Saratow and the Caspian Sea. The quantity of wheat and rye plants growing wild on uncultivated ground in this district was certainly very remarkable; but the plants did not appear to us to differ from the ordinary kinds. Ehrenberg received from M. Carelin a species of rye, Secale fragile, that had been gathered on the Kirghis Steppe, and which Marshal Bieberstein for some time conjectured to be the mother plant of our cultivated rye, Secale cereale. Michaux’s herbarium does not show (according to Achill Richard’s testimony), that Spelt (Triticum spelta) grows wild at Hamadan in Persia, as Olivier and Michaux have been supposed to maintain. More confidence is due to the recent accounts obtained through the unwearied zeal of the intelligent traveller, Professor Carl Koch. He found a large quantity of rye (Secale cereale var. β, pectinata) in the Pontic Mountains, at heights of more than 5000 or 6000 feet above the level of the sea, on spots where this species of grain had not within the memory of the inhabitants been previously cultivated. “Its appearance here is the more important,” he remarks, “because with us this grain never propagates itself spontaneously.” Koch collected in the Schirwan part of the Caucasus a kind of grain which he calls Hordeum spontaneum, and regards as the originally wild Hordeum zeocriton. (Linn.)^[GF]

A negro slave of the great Cortes was the first who cultivated wheat in New Spain, from three seeds which he found amongst some rice brought from Spain for the use of the troops. In the Franciscan convent at Quito I saw, preserved as a relic, the earthen vessel which had contained the first wheat sowed in Quito by the Franciscan monk, Fray Jodoco Rixi de Gante, a native of Ghent in Flanders. The first crop was raised in front of the convent, on the “Plazuela de S. Francisco,” after the wood which then extended from the foot of the Volcano of Pichincha had been cleared. The monks, whom I frequently visited during my stay at Quito, begged me to explain the inscription on the cup, which according to their conjecture contained some hidden allusion to wheat. On examining the vessel, I read in old German the words “Let him who drinks from me, ne’er forget his God.” This old German drinking cup excited in me feelings of veneration! Would that everywhere in the New Continent the names of those were preserved who, instead of devastating the soil by bloody conquests, confided to it the first fruits of Ceres! There are “fewer examples of a general affinity of names in terms relating to the different species of corn and objects of agriculture than to the rearing of cattle. Herdsmen when they migrated to other regions had still much in common, while the subsequent cultivators of the soil had to invent special words. But the fact that in comparison with the Sanscrit, Romans and Greeks seem to stand on the same footing with Germans and Slavonians, speaks in favour of the very early contemporaneous emigration of the two latter. Yet the Indian java (frumentum hordeum), when compared with the Lithuanian jawai, and the Finnish jywa, affords a striking exception.”^[GG]

28. p. 11.—“Preferring to keep within a cooler climate.”

Throughout the whole of Mexico and Peru we find the trace of human civilisation confined to the elevated table-lands. We saw the ruins of palaces and baths on the sides of the Andes, at an elevation of from 10,230 to 11,510 feet. None but northern tribes migrating from the north towards the equator could have remained from preference in such a climate.

29. p. 12.—“The history of the peopling of Japan.”

I believe I have succeeded in showing, in my work on the monuments of the American primitive races,^[GH] by an examination of the Mexican and Thibetian-Japanese calendars, by a correct determination of the position of the Scansile Pyramids, and by the ancient myths which record four revolutions of the world and the dispersion of mankind after a great deluge, that the western nations of the New Continent maintained relations of intercourse with those of Eastern Asia, long before the arrival of the Spaniards. These observations have derived additional weight, since the appearance of my work, from the facts recently published in England, France, and the United States, regarding the remarkable pieces of sculpture carved in the Indian style, which have been discovered in the ruins of Guatimala and Yucatan.^[GI] The ancient architectural remains found in the peninsula of Yucatan testify more than those of Palenque, to an astonishing degree of civilization. They are situated between Valladolid, Merida, and Campeche, chiefly in the western portion of the country. But the monuments on the island of Cozumel, (properly Cuzamil,) east of Yucatan, were the first which were seen by the Spaniards in the expedition of Juan de Grijalva in 1518, and in that of Cortes in 1519. Their discovery tended to diffuse throughout Europe an exalted idea of the advanced condition of ancient Mexican civilization. The most important ruins of the peninsula of Yucatan (unfortunately not yet thoroughly measured and drawn by architects) are those of the “Casa del Gobernador” of Uxmal, the Teocallis and vaulted constructions at Kabah, the ruins of Labnan with its domed pillars, those of Zayi which exhibit columns of an order of architecture nearly approaching the Doric, and those of Chiche with large ornamented pilasters. An old manuscript written in the Maya language by a Christian Indian, which is still in the hands of the “Gefe politico” of Peto, Don Juan Rio Perez, gives the different epochs (Katunes of 52 years) at which the Toltecs settled in different parts of the peninsula. Perez would infer from these data that the architectural remains of Chiche go back as far as the fourth century of our era, whilst those of Uxmal belong to the middle of the tenth century; but the accuracy of these historical deductions is open to great doubt.^[GJ]

I regard the existence of a former intercourse between the people of Western America and these of Eastern Asia as more than probable, although it is impossible at the present time to say by what route and with which of the tribes of Asia this intercourse was established. A small number of individuals of the cultivated hierarchical castes may perhaps have sufficed to effect great changes in the social condition of Western America. The fabulous accounts formerly current regarding Chinese expeditions to the New Continent refer merely to expeditions to Fusang or Japan. It is, however, possible that Japanese and Sian-Pi may have been driven by storms from the Corea to the American coasts. We know as matters of history that Bonzes and other adventurers navigated the Eastern Chinese seas in search of a remedial agent capable of making man immortal. Thus under Tschin-chi-huang-ti three hundred young couples were dispatched to Japan in the year 209 before our era, who, instead of returning to China, settled on the Island of Nipon.^[GK] May not accident have led to similar expeditions to the Fox Islands, to Alaschka, or New California? As the western coasts of the American continent incline from north-west to south-east, and the eastern coasts of Asia from north-east to south-west, the distance between the two continents in the milder zone, which is most conducive to mental development (45° lat.), would appear too considerable to admit of an accidental settlement having been made in this latitude. We must therefore assume that the first landing took place in the ungenial climate of 55° and 65°, and that cultivation, like the general advance of population in America, progressed by gradual stations from north to south.^[GL] It was even believed in the beginning of the sixteenth century that the fragments of ships from Catayo, i.e. from Japan or China, had been found on the coasts of the Northern Dorado, called also Quivira and Cibora.^[GM]

We know as yet too little of the languages of America entirely to renounce the hope that, amid their many varieties, some idiom may be discovered, that has been spoken with certain modifications in the interior of South America and Central Asia, or that might at least indicate an ancient affinity. Such a discovery would undoubtedly be one of the most brilliant to which the history of the human race can hope to attain! But analogies of language are only deserving of confidence where mere resemblances of sound in the roots are not alone the object of research, but attention is also directed to the organic structure, the grammatical forms, and those elements of language which manifest themselves as the product of the intellectual power of man.

30. p. 12—“Many other forms of animal life.”

The Steppes of Caracas abound in flocks of the so-called Cervus mexicanus. This stag when young is spotted, and resembles the roe. We have frequently met with perfectly white varieties, which is a very striking fact when the high temperature of this zone is taken into consideration. The Cervus mexicanus is not found on the declivities of the Andes in the equatorial region, at an elevation exceeding from 4476 to 5115 feet, but another white deer, which I could scarcely distinguish by any one specific characteristic from the European species, ascends to an elevation of nearly 13,000 feet. The Cavia capybara is known in the province of Caracas by the name of Chiguire. This unfortunate animal is pursued in the water by the crocodile, and on land by the tiger or jaguar. It runs so badly that we were often able to catch it with our hands. The extremities are smoked and eaten as hams, but have a most unpleasant taste, owing to the flavour and smell of musk by which they are impregnated; and on the Orinoco we gladly ate monkey-hams in preference. These beautifully striped animals—the Viverra mapurito, Viverra zorilla, and Viverra vittata—exhale a fetid odour.

31. p. 12—“The Guaranes and the fan-palm Mauritia.”

The small coast tribe of the Guaranes (called in British Guiana, the Warraws, or Guaranos, and by the Caribs U-ara-u) inhabit not only the swampy delta and the river net-work of the Orinoco (more particularly the banks of the Manamo grande and the Caño Macareo), but also extend, with very slight differences in their mode of living, along the sea-shore, between the mouths of the Essequibo and the Boca de Navios of the Orinoco.^[GN] According to the testimony of Schomburgk, the admirable observer referred to in the note, there are still about 1700 Warraus or Guaranos living in the vicinity of Cumaca, and along the banks of the Barime river, which empties itself into the gulf of the Boca de Navios. The social habits of the tribes settled in the delta of the Orinoco were known to the great historian Cardinal Bembo, the cotemporary of Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, and Alonzo de Hojeda. He says ^[GO] quibusdam in locis propter paludes incolæ domus in arboribus œdificant. It is hardly probable that instead of the Guaranos at the mouth of the Orinoco, Bembo should here allude to the natives of the country near the mouth of the gulf of Maracaibo, where Alonzo de Hojeda, in August, 1499, (when accompanied by Vespucci and Juan de la Cosa) found a population having their dwellings fondata sopra l’acqua come Venezia (“built like Venice on the water”).^[GP] Vespucci, in the account of his travels, in which we meet with the first traces of the etymology of the name of the province of Venezuela (Little Venice) as used for the province of Caracas, speaks only of houses built on a foundation of piles, and makes no mention of habitations in trees.

Sir Walter Raleigh bears a subsequent and incontrovertible evidence to the same fact, for he says expressly in his description of Guiana, that on his second voyage in 1595, when in the mouth of the Orinoco, “he saw the fire of the Tivitites and Qua-rawetes” (so he calls the Guaranes), “high up in the trees.”^[GQ] There is a drawing of the fire in the Latin edition of this work,^[GR] and Raleigh was the first who brought to England the fruit of the Mauritia palm, which he very justly compared, on account of its scales, to fir-cones. Father José Gumilla, who twice visited the Guaranes as a missionary, says, indeed, that this tribe have their dwelling in the Palmares (palm groves) of the morasses; but while he speaks more definitely of pendent habitations supported by high pillars, makes no mention of platforms attached to still growing trees.^[GS] Hillhouse and Sir Robert Schomburgk ^[GT] are of opinion that Bembo, through the relations of others, and Raleigh, by his own observation, were deceived into this belief in consequence of the high tops of the palm trees being lighted up in such a manner by the fires below them, that those sailing by thought the habitations of the Guaranes were attached to the trees themselves. “We do not deny,” says Schomburgk, “that in order to escape the attacks of the mosquitos, the Indian sometimes suspends his hammock from the tops of trees, but on such occasions no fires are made under the hammock.”^[GU]

According to Martius, the beautiful Palm, Moriche, Mauritia flexuosa, Quieteva, or Ita Palm,^[GV] belongs, together with Calamus, to the family of the Lepidocaryæ or Corypheæ. Linnæus has described it very imperfectly, as he erroneously considered it to be devoid of leaves. The trunk is 26 feet high, but it probably does not attain this height in less than 120 or even 150 years. The Mauritia extends high up the declivity of the Duida, north of the Esmeralda mission, where I found it in great beauty. It forms, in moist places, fine groups of a fresh and shining verdure, reminding us of that of our alders. The trees preserve the moisture of the ground by their shade, and hence the Indians believe that the Mauritia draws water around its roots by some mysterious attraction. In conformity with an analogous theory they advise, that serpents should not be killed, because the destruction of these animals is followed by the drying up of the lagoons. Thus do the rude children of nature confound cause and effect! Gumilla calls the Mauritia flexuosa of the Guaranes the tree of life (“arbol de la vida”). It is found on the mountains of Ronaima, east of the sources of the Orinoco, as high as 4263 feet. On the unfrequented banks of the Rio Atabapo, in the interior of Guiana, we discovered a new species of Mauritia having a prickly stem; our Mauritia aculeata.^[GW]

32. p. 13.—“An American Stylite.”

The founder of the sect of Stylites, the fanatical Pillar-saint, Simeon Sisanites of Syria, the son of a Syrian herdsman, is said to have passed thirty-seven years in holy contemplation, elevated on five columns, each higher than the preceding. He died in the year 461. The last of the pillars which he occupied was 40 ells in height. For seven hundred years there continued to be followers of this mode of life, who were called Sancti Columnares, or Pillar-saints. Even in Germany, in the see of Treves, attempts were made to found similar aërial cloisters; but the dangerous practice met with the constant opposition of the bishops.^[GX]

33. p. 14.—“Towns on the banks of the Steppe-rivers.”

Families who live by raising cattle and do not take part in agricultural pursuits have congregated together in the middle of the Steppe, in small towns, which, in the cultivated parts of Europe, would scarcely be regarded as villages. Among these are Calabozo, which, according to my astronomical observations, is situated in 8° 56′ 14″ north lat., and 67° 43′ west long.; Villa del Pao (8° 38′ 1″ north lat., and 66° 57′ west long.); Saint Sebastian, and others.

34. p. 14.—“Funnel-shaped clouds.”

The singular phenomenon of these sand-spouts, of which we see something analogous on the cross roads of Europe, is especially characteristic of the Peruvian sandy desert between Amotape and Coquimbo. Such dense clouds of sand may endanger the safety of the traveller who does not cautiously avoid them. It is remarkable that these partial and opposing currents of air should arise only when there is a general calm. The aërial ocean resembles the sea in this respect; for here, too, we find that the small currents (filets de courant) in which the water may frequently be heard to flow with a splashing sound, occur only in a dead calm (calme plat).

35. p. 14.—“Increases the stifling oppression.”

I have observed in the Llanos de Apure, at the cattle farm of Guadalupe, that the thermometer rose from 92°.7 to 97°.2 Fahr. whenever the hot wind began to blow from the desert, which was covered either with sand or short withered grass. In the middle of the sand-cloud the thermometer stood for several minutes together at 111° Fahr. The dry sand in the village of San Fernando de Apure had a temperature of 126° Fahr.

36. p. 15.—“The phantom of a moving undulating surface.”

The well known phenomenon of the mirage is called in Sanscrit “the thirst of the gazelle.”^[GY] All objects appear to float in the air, while their forms are reflected in the lower stratum of the atmosphere. At such times the whole desert resembles a vast lake, whose surface undulates like waves. Palm trees, cattle, and camels sometimes appear inverted in the horizon. In the French expedition to Egypt, this optical illusion often nearly drove the faint and parched soldiers to distraction. This phenomenon has been observed in all quarters of the world. The ancients were also acquainted with the remarkable refraction of the rays of light in the Lybian Desert. We find mention made in Diodorus Siculus of strange illusive appearances, an African Fata Morgana, together with still more extravagant explanations of the conglomeration of the particles of air.^[GZ]

37. p. 15.—“The Melocactus.”

The Cactus melocactus is frequently from 10 to 12 inches in diameter, and has generally 14 ribs. The natural group of the Cactaceæ, the whole family of the Nopaleæ of Jussieu, belongs exclusively to the New Continent. The Cactus assumes a variety of shapes, being ribbed and melon-like (Melocacti); articulated (Opuntiæ); upright-like columns (Cerei); of a serpentine or creeping form (Rhipsalides); or provided with leaves (Pereskiæ). Many extend high up the slopes of the mountains. Near the foot of the Chimborazo, in the sandy table-land around Riobamba, I found a new species of Pitahaya (Cactus sepium), even at an elevation of 10,660 feet.^[HA]

38. p. 16.—“The scene suddenly changes in the Steppe.”

I have endeavoured to describe the approach of the rainy season, and the signs by which it is announced. The deep blue of the heavens in the tropics is occasioned by the imperfect solution of vapour. The cyanometer indicates a lighter shade of blue as soon as the vapours begin to fall. The dark spot in the constellation of the Southern Cross becomes indistinct in proportion as the transparency of the atmosphere decreases, and this change announces the approach of rain. The bright radiance of the Magellanic clouds (Nubecula major and Nubecula minor) then gradually fades away. The fixed stars which had before been shining with a calm, steady, planetlike light, are now seen to scintillate in the zenith.^[HB] All these phenomena are the result of the increased quantity of aqueous vapour floating in the atmosphere.

39. p. 16.—“The humid clay soil is seen to rise slowly in a broad flake.”

Drought produces the same phenomena in animals and plants as the abstraction of heat. During the dry season many tropical plants lose their leaves. The crocodile and other amphibious animals conceal themselves in the mud and lie apparently dead, like animals in cold regions who are thrown into a state of hybernation.^[HC]

40. p. 17.—“A vast inland sea.”

Nowhere are these inundations on a larger scale than in the net-work of streams formed by the Apure, the Arachuna, the Payara, the Arauca, and the Cabuliare. Large vessels sail across the country over the Steppe for 40 or 50 miles.

41. p. 17.—“To the mountainous plain of Antisana.”

The great mountain plateau which surrounds the volcano of Antisana is 13,473 feet above the level of the sea. The pressure of the atmosphere is so inconsiderable at this height, that blood will flow from the nostrils and mouth of the wild bull when hunted with dogs.

42. p. 17.—“The marshy waters of Bera and Rastro.”

I have elsewhere more circumstantially described the capture of the gymnotus.^[HD] Mons. Gay Lussac and myself were perfectly successful in the experiments we conducted without a chain on a living gymnotus, which was still very vigorous when it reached Paris. The discharge of electricity is entirely dependent on the will of the animal. We did not observe any electric sparks, but other physicists have done so on numerous occasions.

43. p. 18.—“Awakened by the contact of moist and dissimilar particles.”

In all organic bodies dissimilar substances come into contact with each other, and solids are associated with fluids. Wherever there is organization and life, there must be electric tension, or, in other words, a voltaic pile must be brought into play, as the experiments of Nobili and Matteucci, and more especially the late most admirable labours of Emil Dubois, teach us. The last-named physicist has succeeded in “manifesting the presence of the electric muscular current in living and wholly uninjured animal bodies:” he shows that “the human body, through the medium of a copper wire, can at will cause the magnetic needle at a distance to deflect first in one direction and then in another.”^[HE] I have myself witnessed these movements produced at will, and have thus unexpectedly seen much light thrown on phenomena, to which I had laboriously and ardently devoted so many years of my earlier life.

44. p. 19.—“The myth of Osiris and Typhon.”

Respecting the struggle of two human races, the Arabian shepherd tribes of Lower Egypt and the cultivated agricultural races of Upper Egypt; on the subject of the fair-haired Prince Baby or Typhon, who founded Pelusium; and on the dark-complexioned Dionysos or Osiris; I would refer to Zoëga’s older and almost universally discarded views as set forth at p. 577 of his masterly work “De origine et usu obeliscorum.”

45. p. 19—“The boundaries of European semi-civilization.”

In the Capitania General de Caracas, as well as in all the eastern part of America, the civilization formerly introduced by Europeans is limited to the narrow strip of land which skirts the shore. In Mexico, New Granada, and Quito on the other hand, European civilization has penetrated far into the interior of the country and advanced up to the ridges of the Cordilleras. There existed already in the fifteenth century an earlier stage of civilization among the inhabitants of the last-named region. Wherever the Spaniards perceived this culture they pursued its track, regardless whether the seat of it was at a distance from the sea, or in its vicinity. The ancient cities were enlarged and their former significant Indian names mutilated, or exchanged for those of Christian saints.

46. p. 19—“Huge masses of leaden-coloured granite.”

In the Orinoco, and more especially at the cataracts of Maypures and Atures (not in the Black River or Rio Negro), all blocks of granite, even pieces of white quartz, wherever they come in contact with the water, acquire a grayish black coating, which does not penetrate beyond 0·01 of a line into the interior of the rock. The traveller might almost suppose that he was looking at basalt, or fossils coloured with graphite. Indeed, the crust does actually appear to contain manganese and carbon. I say “appears” to do so, because the phenomenon has not yet been thoroughly investigated. Something perfectly analogous to this was observed by Rozier in the syenitic rocks of the Nile (near Syene and Philæ); by the unfortunate Captain Tuckey on the rocky banks of the Zaire; and by Sir Robert Schomburgk at Berbice.^[HF] On the Orinoco these leaden-coloured rocks are supposed when wet to give forth noxious exhalations, and their vicinity is believed to be conducive to the generation of fevers.^[HG] It is also remarkable that the South American rivers generally, which have black waters (aguas negras), or waters of a coffee brown or wine yellow tint, do not darken the granite rocks; that is to say, they do not act upon the stone in such a manner as to form from its constituent parts a black or leaden-coloured crust.

47. p. 20—“The rain-foreboding howl of the bearded ape.”

Some hours before the commencement of rain, the melancholy cries of various apes, as Simia seniculus, Simia beelzebub, &c., fall on the ear like a storm raging in the distance. The intensity of the noise produced by such small animals can only be explained by the circumstance that one tree often contains a herd of seventy or eighty apes. I have elsewhere spoken of the laryngeal sac, and the ossification of the larynx of these animals.^[HH]

48. p. 20—“Its uncouth body often covered with birds.”

The crocodiles lie so motionless, that I have often seen flamingoes (Phœnicopterus) resting on their heads, while the other parts of the body were covered, like the trunk of a tree, with aquatic birds.

49. p. 20—“Down its dilating throat.”

The saliva with which the boa covers its prey tends to promote rapid decomposition. The muscular flesh is rendered gelatinously soft under its action, so that the animal is able to force entire limbs of its slain victim through its swelling throat. The Creoles call the giant boa Tragavenado (stag-swallower), and fabulously relate that the antlers of a stag which could not be swallowed by the snake have been seen fixed in its throat. I have frequently observed the boa constrictor swimming in the Orinoco, and in the smaller forest streams, the Tuamini, the Temi, and the Atabapo. It holds its head above water like a dog. Its skin is beautifully speckled. It has been asserted, that the animal attains a length of 48 feet, but the longest skins which have as yet been carefully measured in Europe do not exceed from 21 to 23 feet. The South American boa (a Python) differs from the East Indian.^[HI]

50. p. 20—“Living on gums and earth.”

It is currently reported throughout the coasts of Cumana, New Barcelona, and Caracas (which the Franciscan monks of Guiana are in the habit of visiting on their return from the missions,) that there are men living on the banks of the Orinoco who eat earth. On the 6th of June, 1800, on our return from the Rio Negro, when we descended the Orinoco in thirty-six days, we spent the day at the mission inhabited by these people (the Otomacs). Their little village, which is called La Concepcion de Uruana, is very picturesquely built against a granite rock. It is situated in 7° 8′ 3″ north lat.; and according to my chronometrical determination, in 67° 18′ west longitude. The earth which the Otomacs eat, is an unctuous, almost tasteless clay, true potter’s earth, of a yellowish grey colour, in consequence of a slight admixture of oxide of iron. They select it with great care, and seek it in certain banks on the shores of the Orinoco and Meta. They distinguish the flavour of one kind of earth from that of another; all kinds of clay not being alike acceptable to their palate. They knead this earth into balls measuring from four to six inches in diameter, and bake them before a slow fire, until the outer surface assumes a reddish colour. Before they are eaten, the balls are again moistened. These Indians are mostly wild, uncivilized men, who abhor all tillage. There is a proverb current among the most distant of the tribes living on the Orinoco, when they wish to speak of anything very unclean, “so dirty that the Otomacs eat it.”

As long as the waters of the Orinoco and the Meta are low, these people live on fish and turtles. They kill the former with arrows, shooting the fish as they rise to the surface of the water with a skill and dexterity that has frequently excited my admiration. At the periodical swelling of the rivers, the fishing is stopped, for it is as difficult to fish in deep river water as in the deep sea. It is during these intervals, which last from two to three months, that the Otomacs are observed to devour an enormous quantity of earth. We found in their huts considerable stores of these clay balls piled up in pyramidal heaps. An Indian will consume from three-quarters of a pound to a pound and a quarter of this food daily, as we were assured by the intelligent monk, Fray Ramon Bueno, a native of Madrid, who had lived among these Indians for a period of twelve years. According to the testimony of the Otomacs themselves, this earth constitutes their main support in the rainy season. In addition, they however eat, when they can procure them, lizards, several species of small fish, and the roots of a fern. But they are so partial to clay, that even in the dry season, when there is an abundance of fish, they still partake of some of their earth-balls, by way of a bonne bouche after their regular meals.

These people are of a dark, copper-brown colour, have unpleasant Tartar-like features, and are stout, but not protuberant. The Franciscan who had lived amongst them as a missionary, assured us that he had observed no difference in the condition and well-being of the Otomacs during the periods in which they lived on earth. The simple facts are therefore as follows:—The Indians undoubtedly consume large quantities of clay without injuring their health; they regard this earth as a nutritious article of food, that is to say, they feel that it will satisfy their hunger for a long time. This property they ascribe exclusively to the clay, and not to the other articles of food which they contrive to procure from time to time in addition to it. If an Otomac be asked what are his winter provisions—the term winter in the torrid parts of South America implying the rainy season—he will point to the heaps of clay in his hut. These simple facts do not, however, by any means decide the questions: whether clay can actually be a nutritious substance; whether earths can be assimilated in the human body; whether they only serve as ballast; or merely distend the walls of the stomach, and thus appease the cravings of hunger? These are questions which I cannot venture to decide.^[HJ] It is singular, that Father Gumilla, who is generally so credulous and uncritical, should have denied the fact of earth being eaten by and for itself.^[HK] He maintains that the clay-balls are largely mixed with maize-flour, and crocodile’s fat. But the missionary Fray Ramon Bueno, and our friend and fellow-traveller, the lay-brother Fray Juan Gonzales, who perished at sea off the coast of Africa (at the time we lost a portion of our collections), both assured us, that the Otomacs never mix their clay cakes with crocodile’s fat, and we heard nothing in Uruana of the admixture of flour.

The earth which we brought with us, and which was chemically investigated by M. Vauquelin, is quite pure and unmixed. May not Gumilla, by confounding heterogeneous facts, have intended to allude to a preparation of bread from the long pod of a species of Inga? as this fruit is certainly buried in the earth, in order to hasten its decomposition. It appears to me especially remarkable, that the Otomacs should not lose their health by eating so much earth. Has this tribe been habituated for generations to this stimulus?

In all tropical countries men exhibit a wonderful and almost irresistible desire to devour earth, not the so-called alkaline or calcareous earth, for the purpose of neutralizing acidity, but unctuous, strong-smelling clay. It is often found necessary to shut children up in order to prevent their running into the open air to devour earth after recent rain. The Indian women who are engaged on the river Magdalena, in the small village of Banco, in turning earthenware pots, continually fill their mouths with large lumps of clay, as I have frequently observed, much to my surprise.^[HL] Wolves eat earth, especially clay, during winter. It would be very important, in a physiological point of view, to examine the excrements of animals and men that eat earth. Individuals of all other tribes, excepting the Otomacs, lose their health if they yield to this singular propensity for eating clay. In the mission of San Borja we found the child of an Indian woman, which, according to the statement of its mother, would hardly eat anything but earth. It was, however, much emaciated, and looked like a mere skeleton.

Why is it that in the temperate and cold zones this morbid eagerness for eating earth is so much less frequently manifested, and is indeed limited almost entirely to children and pregnant women, whilst it would appear to be indigenous to the tropical lands of every quarter of the earth? In Guinea the negroes eat a yellowish earth, which they call caouac; and when they are carried as slaves to the West Indies they even endeavour there to procure for themselves some similar species of food, maintaining that the eating of earth is perfectly harmless in their African home. The caouac of the American islands, however, deranges the health of the slaves who partake of it; for which reason the eating of earth was long since forbidden in the West Indies, notwithstanding which a species of red or yellowish tuff (un tuf rouge jaunâtre) was secretly sold in the public market of Martinique in the year 1751.

“The negroes of Guinea say that in their own country they habitually eat a certain earth, the flavour of which is most agreeable to them, and which does not occasion them any inconvenience. Those who have addicted themselves to the excessive use of caouac are so partial to it, that no punishment can prevent them from devouring this earth.”^[HM] In the island of Java, between Sourabaya and Samarang, Labillardière saw small square reddish cakes publicly sold in the villages. The natives called them tana ampo (tanah signifies earth in Malay and Javanese); and on examining them more closely, he found that they were cakes made of a reddish clay, and intended for eating.^[HN] The edible clay of Samarang has recently (1847) beep sent, by Mohnike, to Berlin in the shape of rolled tubes like cinnamon, and has been examined by Ehrenberg. It is a fresh-water formation deposited in tertiary limestone, and composed of microscopic polygastrica (Gallionella, Navicula) and of Phytolitharia.^[HO] The natives of New Caledonia, to appease their hunger, eat lumps as large as the fist of friable steatite, in which Vauquelin detected an appreciable quantity of copper.^[HP] In Popayan and many parts of Peru calcareous earth is sold in the streets as an article of food for the Indians. This is eaten together with the Coca (the leaves of the Erythroxylon peruvianum). We thus find that the practice of eating earth is common throughout the whole of the torrid zone among the indolent races who inhabit the most beautiful and fruitful regions of the earth. But accounts have also come from the north, through Berzelius and Retzius, from which we learn, that in the most remote parts of Sweden hundreds of cartloads of earth containing infusoria are annually consumed by the country people as bread-meal, more from fancy (like the smoking of tobacco) than from necessity. In some parts of Finland a similar kind of earth is mixed with the bread. It consists of empty shells of animalcules, so small and soft, that they break between the teeth without any perceptible noise, filling the stomach without yielding any actual nourishment. Chronicles and archives often make mention during times of war of the employment as food of infusorial earth, which is spoken of under the indefinite and general term of “mountain meal.” Such, for instance, was the case in the Thirty Years’ War, at Camin in Pomerania, Muskau in the Lausitz, and Kleiken in the Dessau territory; and subsequently in 1719 and 1733, at the fortress of Wittenberg.^[HQ]