FOREST OF SANTA MARIA.

31

far into this cavern, believing that the souls of their ancestors inhabit its deep recesses; on this account, our travellers were unable to advance into it much beyond a quarter of a mile, but as far as they went they found it to preserve the same direction, breadth, and height, as at the entrance. To the same feeling on the part of the Indians the guacharos owe their safety; they would otherwise have been pursued into their retreats, and destroyed long ago. On the present occasion, two specimens of the bird were obtained by shooting at random in the dark.

The travellers remained some days at the convent of Caripe, actively engaged in examining the natural features and productions of the surrounding country. On the 22nd of September, they took their departure, and began to descend the mountains, towards the sea-coast. They passed in safety a very steep and slippery declivity, to which the missionaries have given the name of Purgatory, and down which the mules are accustomed to slide boldly, drawing back their bodies over their hind legs. They soon afterwards entered a dense forest, that of Santa Maria,—and were for some time occupied in descending through a ravine by a path formed of steps two or three feet high. The mules leaped down like goats; but our travellers, less confident than the natives, preferred walking to remaining in the saddle during this hazardous operation.

The trees in the forest of Santa Maria attracted attention, from their vast size. Some were seen whose height exceeded 130 feet, and others, whose diameter was upwards of nine feet. The splendour and magnificence of the vegetation were remarkable. The ferns assumed the form and magnitude of trees; and five

32

MAGNIFICENT VEGETATION.

new arborescent species of this plant were discovered here, while, in the days of Linnæus, botanists were acquainted with only four on the two continents.

66

Fern-trees," says Humboldt, "are observed to be generally much more rare than palms, nature having confined them to mild, humid, and shady situations. They shun the vertical rays of the sun; and, whilst the Pumos, the Corypha of the Steppes, and others of the palm tribe of America, delight in the open burning plains, these arborescent ferns, which, viewed afar off, look like palms, retain the characteristics and habits of cryptogamous plants. They prefer solitude, twilight, and a moist, temperate, and stagnant atmosphere. If, occasionally, they descend toward the coast, it is only under the safeguard of a dense shade. The old trunks of the Cyathea and Meniscium are coated with a coallike powder, which (free, perhaps, from hydrogen,) has a metallic lustre like graphite: no other species of vegetation presented this phenomenon; for the trunks of the Dicotyledons, notwithstanding the fierce heat of the climate, and the intensity of the light, are not blackened so much between the tropics as in the temperate zone. The trunks of the ferns, which, like the Monocotyledons, increase in bulk by the remains of the petioles, may be said to commence their decay towards the centre, and that, being deprived of cortical vessels, by which the elaborated juices descend to the roots, they are more readily charred by the oxygen of the atmosphere. I brought to Europe specimens of these lustrous metallic powders, taken from very old trunks of Meniscium and Aspidium. As we progressively descended the mountain of Santa Maria, we found the ferns diminish, and the number of palms increase.

THE STATION OF CATUARO.

333

The beautiful large-winged butterflies, the Nymphalæ, which fly to an amazing height, became more frequent. Everything announced our approach to the coast."

After a toilsome journey, they arrived in the evening at the mission of Vera Cruz; and on the following day, resuming their route towards the sea-coast, reached the station of Catuaro, occupying a wild and romantic situation in the midst, as it were, of a forest. Lofty trees still surrounded the church, and, at night-time, the tigers prowled about the settlement, in quest of the hogs and poultry of the Indians. They lodged at the house of the missionary, a doctor in theology, described as a little meagre man, of a petulant vivacity, querulous, dissatisfied, and possessed of an unhappy passion for what he called metaphysics. He talked continually of a law-suit, in which he was engaged with the superior of his convent, and was anxious to know what Humboldt thought of free-will, and the souls of animals. The corregidor of the district furnished them with three Indians, to assist in cutting a way through the close vegetation of the forest; and the missionary, accompanying them on the road, explained his peculiar notions concerning the innate wickedness of blacks, and the benefits which they derived from being kept in a state of slavery by Christians.

After a fatiguing march, our travellers reached the town of Cariaco, seated upon the gulf of that name. Here they found a large number of the inhabitants suffering from intermittent fevers, which sometimes assumed a malignant character. The situation of the place accounts for its unhealthiness; it lies low, the heat and moisture are excessive, and the stagnant marshes generated in the surrounding district during the rainy season, are a fertile source of noxious exha

D

34

THE TOWN OF CARIACO.

lations. Humboldt particularly regretted the insalubrity of Cariaco, as many of its inhabitants appeared to possess more easy manners and more enlarged ideas than those of any other place which he had visited.

Thinking it prudent to leave Cariaco, as soon as possible, our travellers departed for Cumana early in the morning, embarking on the Gulf of Cariaco. Their voyage was disagreeable in consequence of the unfavourable nature of the weather and the crowded state of their narrow canoe, which carried, besides passengers, raw sugar, plantains, and cocoa-nuts. The cocoa-tree is cultivated to a very considerable extent on the shores of this gulf; whole plantations of it being seen there. It is in the vicinity of the sea that this kind of palm is found to prevail in the greatest abundance; and Humboldt says, that when it is planted in the Missions of the Orinoco, a certain quantity of salt is always thrown into the hole which receives the nut. He observes, likewise, that of the plants cultivated by man, only the sugar-cane, the plaintain, the mammeaapple, and the alligator-pear, enjoy in common with the cocoa, the property of enduring irrigation with fresh or with salt water.

In the part of Humboldt's Narrative, which we have now reached, some space is devoted to an account of the different native tribes inhabiting New Andalusia, and more especially of the Chayma Indians, among whom his late excursion had chiefly lain. In this part of the new continent, the aborigines still form a large proportion of the scanty population. In the temperate regions of North America, the indigenous population has dwindled away in proportion as the white men have advanced among them; in the equinoctial regions of South America, the same results have not followed.

THE INDIANS OF NEW ANDALUSIA.

35

In the former, the Indians, averse to agriculture, live by hunting, and therefore require for their subsistence a vast extent of country; the encroachments of Europeans, narrowing their territory, has diminished their means of subsistence, and consequently their numbers. In South America, on the other hand, where agriculture existed long before the arrival of Europeans, and still exists in districts in which they have not yet established themselves, a small tract affords subsistence to a large population; therefore the intrusion of Europeans has not affected them in the same manner as in North America. In parts of Central America, where under the old Mexican empire, agriculture was practised for centuries before the arrival of Europeans, and more generally resorted to as affording the means of subsistence than in the equinoctial regions of South America, the Indians constitute a much larger proportion of the population.

The missions established in New Andalusia since the middle of the seventeenth century, have been the means of reducing the Indians to a sort of civilization. The difference between the wild and the civilized Indians is not, however, always such as the words would imply. Many of the former live by agriculture; and many of the latter, though they have been baptized, are as little entitled to the appellation of Christians as their heathen brethren. By means of the missions, civilization has advanced from the coast towards the interior; the planters have followed in the train of the missionaries, villages have been formed about the missions, and the manners and language of the original inhabitants have been giving way before those of their European masters. Fourteen different tribes of Indians are mentioned as inhabiting the provinces of New Andalusia and Bar