REMARKABLE DISPLAY OF FIRE-BALLS.

41

A few days afterwards, there occurred another phenomenon which powerfully attracted the attention of the scientific travellers. The red vapour had ceased to obscure the sky on the evening of the 7th of November, and the atmosphere then re-assumed its usual purity. On the morning of the 12th, between two and three o'clock, Bonpland, who had risen to enjoy the freshness of the air, observed in the east a number of falling meteors of a very extraordinary kind. For the space of four hours, thousands of fire-balls and falling stars succeeded each other, preserving an invariable direction of from north to south. So numerous were they, that for about thirty degrees on each side of the east point, (or throughout a third of the heavens), there was not a space equal in extent to three diameters of the moon, which was not at every moment filled with them. All these meteors left long, luminous traces, the phosphorescence of which continued for seven or eight seconds. Many of the falling stars had a very distinct nucleus or body, from which proceeded sparks of extremely vivid splendour; the fire-balls appeared to burst as if by explosion, but the largest of them disappeared without scintillation. As the inhabitants of Cumana had risen before four o'clock to attend the first mass, they were witnesses of these phenomena, which excited great alarm in the minds of the older portion, who called to mind that the dreadful earthquake of 1766 had been preceded by similar appearances. As the morning advanced, the meteors became more rare; yet even for a quarter of an hour after sunrise, there were a few distinguishable by their splendid white light, and the rapidity of their motion; a circumstance considered, however, by Humboldt as the less extraordinary, since in 1788, in the city of Papayan, the interior apart

ments of the houses were strongly illuminated in the middle of the day by an enormous aërolite.

Some time afterwards, when our travellers were engaged in their great expedition to the Rio Negro, they found that these meteors had been observed as far as the borders of Brazil under the equinoctial line, and compared to artificial fire-works. But this was nothing to what they learnt on their return to Europe; namely, that the meteors of the 12th of November had been visible over a portion of the globe comprising sixty-four degrees of latitude, and ninety-one degrees of longitude, having been seen, from various parts of the American continent, between the equator and Labrador,—likewise in Greenland,—and in Europe, near the German town of Weimar. From these facts, it was calculated that the height of the meteors above the earth's surface exceeded 1400 miles; and it was also inferred that they fell into the sea between Africa and South America to the west of the Cape Verd Islands. These deductions proceed upon the assumption that the meteors seen from so many places so remotely apart were the same; but their identity has been questioned by some, to whom it seems that their simultaneous appearance may be ascribed with far more probability to an identity of atmosphere, than of bodies moving through that atmosphere, at such distances from the earth's surface; as, according to the present state of our knowledge, it seems doubtful whether light or heat, or substance of any kind, could be sustained in a state so very much attenuated as it must necessarily be at such a height. Humboldt found falling stars to be more frequent in the equinoctial regions than in the temperate zone.

"Those natural philosophers," he says, "who have of late instituted such elaborate investigations into the

AND FALLING STARS.

43

nature of falling stars and their parallaxes, consider them as meteors belonging to the extreme limits of our atmosphere; as placed between the region of the aurora borealis and that of the lightest clouds. Some have been seen not higher than fourteen thousand toises, about four leagues; the most elevated appeared not to exceed thirty. They are frequently more than a hundred feet in diameter; and such is their rapidity, that they traverse a space of two leagues in a few seconds. Some have been measured which had a direction almost perpendicular, or which formed an angle of fifty degrees with the vertical line. This very remarkable circumstance led to the conclusion that falling stars are not aërolites, which after floating a long while in space, like the heavenly bodies, take fire upon accidentally entering our atmosphere and fall to the earth."

CHAPTER V.

Departure from Cumana-Sensations on leaving it-Voyage along the coast-Unhealthiness of the low shores-Influence of mangroves, and other trees in causing it-Situation of La Guayra-Its excessive heat-Introduction of the yellow fever therein-Road thence to Caraccas.

[1799.]

On the 18th of November, our travellers left Cumana on their main expedition. They proposed to proceed by sea to the town of La Guayra, which lies about three degrees to the westward; then to take up their abode in the neighbouring city of Caraccas until the terminaof the rainy season, when they would pass into the interior, and ascend the Orinoco as far as its junction with

44

DEPARTURE FROM CUMANA.

the Rio Negro; and descending the same river to Angostura, the capital of Spanish Guiana, thence return across the Llanos, or great plains, to the coast. They embarked in the evening, in one of the open boats which are employed in trading to the West India islands, and quickly descended the stream of the Manzanares, the sinuosities of which are marked by cocoa-trees, as the windings of a river in our climate are by poplars and willows. The thorny bushes on its banks glitter in the night with luminous insects, although in the day-time they present nothing but leaves covered with dust. The number of phosphorescent insects is greatly increased during the stormy months; and it is then delightful, says Humboldt, to observe the effect of these moving and deep red fires, which, reflected by the pellucid water, confound their figures with those of the starry vault of heaven.

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"We left the shores of Cumana," continues our author, as if we had been old inhabitants. It was the first spot we had touched under a zone on which my thoughts had been fixed from my earliest youth. Nature, under the climate of the Indies, gives birth to an impression so deep and powerful, that, after a few months' stay, we seem to have lived there a long succession of years. In Europe, the inhabitants of the north, and of plains, experience a similar sensation, when quitting, even after a transient visit, the shores of the Gulf of Naples, the delightful country between Tivoli and the Lake of Nemi, or the wild and awful scenery of the Upper Alps and the Pyrenees. throughout the temperate zone, there is but little contrast in the vegetable world. The pines and oaks which top the mountains of Sweden have a certain family likeness to those which flourish under the genial

Yet

SENSATIONS ON LEAVING IT.

45

climes of Greece and Italy. Between the tropics, on the contrary, in the lower regions of the two Indias, the whole face of nature is new and wonderful. In the plains, or in the gloom of the forests, the remembrance of Europe is almost effaced; for it is by vegetation that the character of scenery is determined; it is this which acts upon the imagination by its mass, by the contrast of its forms, and by the splendour of its colours. Our new impressions, in proportion to their strength and freshness, destroy those we have hitherto received. Their force gives them the semblance of age. I appeal to those who, more sensible to the beauties of nature than to the charms of social life, have spent much time in the torrid zone. With what fond remembrance do they cherish for the remainder of their days, the spot where they first planted their foot! A vague desire of seeing it again lingers in their thoughts to the most advanced period of life. Even now, Cumana and its dusty soil are oftener present to my imagination than all the wonders of Cordilleras. Under the soft sky of the south, the earth, even when nearly destitute of vegetation, derives beauty from the light and enchanting hues of the atmosphere. The sun does not merely illumine every object it colours, it throws round it an ethereal vapour, which, without affecting the transparency of the air, renders the tints more harmonious, tempers the power of the light, and sheds throughout nature that calm which is reflected on our souls. explain this vivid impression, excited by the scenery of the two Indies, and this too upon coasts but thinly wooded, it may be sufficient to recall to mind, that the beauty of the sky from Naples to the equator, augments almost as much as from Provence to the south of Italy." The class of boats in one of which Humboldt had

To