JOURNEY ACROSS THE LLANOS.

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CHAPTER X.

Journey across the Llanos-Fatigue of travelling-Farm of El Cayman -Town of Calabozo-An ingenious inhabitant-Gymnoti, or electrical eels-Combat between the eels and horses-Description of the gymnoti-Effects of their shocks-The natives' dread of themDeparture from Calabozo-Heat and dust of the Llanos-An Indian girl found exhausted on the ground-The river Urituco and its crocodiles-Singular story of a crocodile-Arrival at San Fernando -Heat of that place-Periodical inundations, and destruction of horses.

[1800.]

OUR travellers, as we have said, entered the Llanos on the 12th. After passing two nights on horseback, and seeking in vain in the day-time for some shelter from the ardour of the sun beneath the tufts of the murichi palm-trees, they arrived just before the third night set in, at a little farm called El Cayman, or the Alligator. Here they found a solitary house surrounded by a few small huts covered with reeds and skins; there was no enclosure of any kind, the horses. mules, and oxen rambled where they pleased, and were easily brought together by people appointed for the purpose. men scour the savannahs on horseback, naked to the waist, and armed with a lance; they are known by the name of Peones Llaneros, and are partly slaves and partly free. Their food consists principally of a little meal dried in the air, and sprinkled with salt.

These

At this farm they found an old negro slave, who had the management of it during his master's absence; and he told them of herds composed of several thousand cows, under his care. Yet they asked in vain for a bowl of milk; and were obliged to content themselves with some fetid water, which they obtained from a neighbouring pool, and which, at the recommendation

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FATIGUE OF TRAVELLING.

of the negro, they drank through a piece of linen cloth, that they might not be incommoded by its smell, or obliged to swallow the fine yellowish clay which it held suspended. The mules being unloaded, were set at liberty and allowed to go in search of water; our travellers followed them, and soon came upon a copious reservoir, surrounded with palm-trees. Bathing had for some time been a necessary recreation with them; and after a toilsome journey across the hot sandy Llanos, they plunged with avidity into the tempting pool. Scarcely had they began to enjoy the refreshing coolness of the water, when they heard an alligator floundering in the mud, and of course made a precipitate retreat. Night came on, and they set out on their return to the farm, but were quite unable to find it. Just as they had resolved to seat themselves under a palm-tree, in a dry spot surrounded by short grass, an Indian who had been round collecting the cattle, came up, and was with some difficulty prevailed upon to conduct them to the house.

At two o'clock on the following morning they set out toward Calabozo, and on their way suffered greatly from the excessive heat of the sun. Whenever the wind blew, the temperature-rose to 104° or 106°, and the air was loaded with dust. Their guides advised them to fill their hats with leaves of the rhopala plant, in order to prevent the action of the solar rays upon the head; and from this expedient our travellers derived considerable advantage.

Calabozo- is described as a flourishing little town, in the midst of the Llanos, with a population of five thousand souls. The wealth of the inhabitants consists principally of cattle, of which there were said to be ninety-eight thousand in the neighbouring pastures.

TOWN OF CALABOZOo.

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It is computed by Depons, the author of a work on Colombia, that in the northern plains, stretching from east to west, between the mouth of the Orinoco and the Lake of Maracaybo, there are one million two hundred thousand oxen, one hundred and eighty thousand horses, and ninety thousand mules; and Humboldt observes, on the authority of a Spanish writer (Azara), that in the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, there are believed to exist twelve million cows, and three million horses, without comprising in this enumeration, the cattle which have no acknowledged owner. In the Llanos of Caraccas, the rich hateros, or proprietors of cattle farms, or hatos, are entirely ignorant of the number of cattle which they possess, the young are branded with a mark peculiar to each herd, and some of the most wealthy owners mark as many as fourteen thousand every year, and sell five thousand or six thousand.

At Calabozo, our travellers met with an ingenious inhabitant, named Carlos del Pozo, who had constructed an electrical machine with large plates, electrophori, batteries, and electrometers, forming an apparatus nearly as complete as scientific men in Europe possessed. Yet this individual had never seen any such instrument, or received any instructions from other persons; having been guided alone by the information which he had derived from Sigand de la Fond's treatise, and Franklin's Memoirs. He was delighted at meeting with two such men of science as Humboldt and Bonpland, who showed him the effect, then newly discovered, of the contact of different metals on the nerves of frogs; and thus, for the first time, the names of Galvani and Volta resounded in those vast solitudes."

Ever since his first arrival in South America, Hum