THEIR APPETITE FOR BLOOD. 195 edly, and at every instant of life, you may be tormented by insects flying in the air, and how a multitude of these little animals may render vast regions almost uninhabitable. "However accustomed you may be to endure pain without complaint, however lively an interest you may take in the object of your researches, it is impossible not to be constantly disturbed by the moschetoes, zancudoes, jejens, and tempraneroes, that cover the face and hands, pierce the clothes with their long sucker in the shape of a needle, and, getting into the mouth and nostrils, set you coughing and sneezing whenever you attempt to speak in the open air." The plaga de las moscas, or plague of the flies, affords an inexhaustible subject of conversation in the missions; and the first questions asked on a morning salutation, are "How did you find the zancudoes during the night? How are we to-day for the moschetoes ?" 66 The rage with which they attack man is remarkable; and Humboldt observes, that this voracity, the appetite for blood, seems surprising, in little insects which live on vegetable juices, and in a country almost uninhabited. What would these animals eat if we did not pass this way?" say the Creoles, in going through the countries where there are only scaly-backed crocodiles and hairy-hided monkeys, both secure in their natural covering. It is amusing to find the missionaries dis puting on the size and voracity of the moschetoes at different parts of the same river. "How I pity your situation!" said the missionary of the Raudales to the missionary of Cassiquiare, who accompanied our travellers, you are alone like me in this country of tigers and monkeys; with you fish is still more rare, and the heat more violent; but as for my flies, I can boast that with one of mine I could beat three of yours." 66 196 POPULAR BELIEF OF THE MOON. Humboldt says, that as far up as the strait of Baraguan the traveller suffers from the sting of insects, but can easily bear it; but beyond that strait the scene instantly changes, and there is no longer any repose for him. If he has any poetical remembrance of Danţe, he will think he has entered the Citta dolente, or city of mourning, and fancy that he reads on the granite rocks of Baraguan those lines of Dante's in which he introduces the genti dolorose, or sorrowful people, We have come to the place, of which I have told thee, From the surface of the ground to the height of fifteen or twenty feet the air is filled with venomous insects, like a condensed vapour. At San Borja, the suffering is severe; but at Atures, and above all at Maypures, it may be said to obtain its maximum. "Idoubt," says Humboldt, "whether there be a country upon earth where man is exposed to more cruel torments in the rainy season. Having passed the fifth degree of latitude you are somewhat less stung; but on the Upper Orinoco the stings are more painful, because the heat and the absolute want of wind render the air more burning and more irritating in its contact with the skin." "How comfortable must people be in the moon!" said an Indian to a Jesuit missionary: "she looks so beautiful and so clear, that she must be free from moschetoes." These words, observes Humboldt, which denote the infancy of a people, are very remarkable. "The satellite of the earth is everywhere to the American savage the abode of the blessed, the country of abundance. The Esquimaux, who counts among his riches a plank, or a * See DANTE'S 3rd Canto Dell' Inferno, v. 16 and 17. SUCCESSIVE SPECIES OF INSECTS. 197 trunk of a tree thrown by the currents on a coast destitute of vegetation, sees in the moon plains covered with forests; the Indian of the forests of the Orinoco there beholds open savannahs, where the inhabitants are never stung by moschetoes." What appeared to our travellers very remarkable, and that which is a fact well known to all the missionaries, is that the different species of these noxious insects do not associate together, and all sting their unfortunate victims at once; but that at different hours of the day you are stung by different and distinct species. "Every time that the scene changes, and, to use the simple expression of the missionaries, other insects 'mount guard,' you have a few minutes, often a quarter of an hour, of repose. The insects that disappear have not their places instantly supplied in equal number by their successors." From half-past six in the morning till five in the afternoon the air is filled with moschetoes; their sting is very painful, and wherever their proboscis pierces the skin, it gives rise to a little reddish-brown spot, containing extravasated and coagulated blood. An hour before sunset a species of small gnats called tempraneroes, (because they appear at so early an hour,) take the place of the moschetoes; and then disappear between six and seven in the evening. "After a few minutes' repose, you feel yourself stung by zancudoes, another species of gnat with very long legs. The zancudo, the proboscis of which contains a sharp-pointed sucker, causes the most acute pain, and a swelling that remains several weeks. Its hum resembles that of our gnats in Europe, but is louder and more prolonged. The Indians pretend to distinguish by their song the zancudoes and the tempraneroes; the latter of which are real twilight in 198 MOUNTAIN-RANGES sects, while the zancudoes are most frequently nocturnal insects, and disappear towards sunrise." These insects attack both natives and Europeans, but their stings produce different effects in the two races. "The same venomous liquid deposited in the skin of a copper-coloured man of Indian race, and in that of a white man newly landed, causes no swelling to the former, while on the latter it produces hard blisters greatly inflamed and painful for several days.” The Indians suffer at the moment of being stung, but less severely than the whites. "Near Maypures," says Humboldt, "we saw some young Indians seated in a circle and rubbing cruelly each other's backs with the bark of trees dried at the fire. Indian women were occupied, with a degree of patience of which the copper-coloured race alone are capable, in extirpating, by means of a sharp bone, the little mass of coagulated blood which forms the centre of every sting, and gives the skin a speckled appearance." Whites, born in Equinoctial America, and Europeans who have long dwelt in the missions, suffer much more than the Indians, but infinitely less than Europeans newly arrived. "In proportion as you ascend the table-land of the Andes these evils disappear. Man breathes a fresh and pure air. These insects no more disturb the labours of the day or the slumbers of the night; documents can be collected in archives without our having to complain of the voracity of the termites. The moschetoes are no longer feared at two hundred toises of height; and the termites, still very frequent at three hundred toises of elevation, become very rare at Mexico, Santa Fe de Bogota, and Quito. In these great capitals, situato on the back of the Cordilleras, we find libraries and FREE FROM INSECTS. 199 archives that the enlightened zeal of the inhabitants augments from day to day. These circumstances, which I here only indicate, are combined with others that insure a moral preponderance to the alpine region over the lower regions of the torrid zone. If we admit, agreeably to the ancient traditions collected in both the old and new worlds, that, at the time of the catastrophe which preceded the renewal ofour species, man descended from the mountains into the plains, we may admit, with still greater confidence, that these mountains, the cradle of so many various nations, will for ever remain the centre of human civilization in the torrid zone. From their fertile and temperate table-lands-from these islets scattered in the aërial ocean-knowledge and the blessings of social institutions will be spread over the vast forests that extend to the foot of the Andes, and are inhabited in our days by tribes whom the very wealth of nature has retained in indolence." CHAPTER XVI. Departure from Atures-Cataract of Maypures-Region beyond the Great Cataracts-Black Waters-Arrival at San Fernando de Atabapo-Bats of Aricagua. On the 17th of April the travellers quitted Atures, and after a march of three hours reached the point, to which their boat had been previously conducted through the rapids. Continuing their ascent of the river, they arrived by nightfall on the 18th at the port of Maypures; a storm had overtaken them on the voyage, and they were wet to the skin: as the rain ceased, the zuncudoes re-appeared with that voracity which these insects dis |