relics of a vast shipwreck, are highly interesting in the philosophical study of our species.

In their progress from Encaramada the voyagers landed on an island near the Boca de la Tortuga, celebrated for a fishery of turtles. About three hundred Indians were here living in huts of palm-leaves. They consisted of individuals of several tribes: and each tribe was separately encamped, and was distinguished by the painting of their skins. A missionary from the Uruana, a native of the country, had come to meet them, for the purpose of celebrating mass during what was called the "harvest of eggs," of procuring oil for the church, and keeping order among the different tribes. He was astonished to see Europeans; and thought the object of their voyage very mysterious: he could not imagine it possible that they should have left their country to be devoured by musquitoes, and to measure lands that were not their own.

The turtles that approach the shores of the islands in this neighbourhood weigh from forty to fifty pounds each. In the month of January they issue in troops from the water to repose on the sands; and in March they begin to lay their eggs. For this purpose each turtle, with its hind legs, which are strong and furnished with claws, digs a hole about three feet in diameter and two feet deep. They generally deposit their eggs in these holes during the night, and cover them up before morning. The collecting of the eggs by the Indians is conducted with great regularity. The ground is measured out and distributed among the tribes; and from the eggs they obtain a great quantity of oil. This they put into large jars for use. Each turtle is reckoned to lay from a hundred to a hundred and twenty eggs. The Indians are said to collect annually about five thousand jars of oil; and, to obtain this quantity, it is estimated that three hundred and thirty thousand turtles must deposit near thirty-three millions of eggs, on the shores that are appropriated to this harvest.

The voyagers, on the 7th of April, passed the mouth

of the Arauca, celebrated for the immense number of birds that frequent its banks; and, at a mission, a little beyond this river, called Uruana, they were shown some heaps of a kind of earth which the Otomac Indians eat. The Oronoko, at a little distance from Uruana, was upwards of three miles in width. The shores were barren, and the rocks that bordered the river were destitute of vegetation. All the stones were covered with lizards. These animals were motionless, had their heads raised, and their mouths open, as if to suck in the heated air. The weather was still extremely hot, not a breath of wind was to be felt. The sun was at its highest elevation, and its dazzling light was reflected by the surface of the river, and contrasted with the reddish vapour that enveloped all the surrounding objects. "How vivid," says Baron de Humboldt, "is the impression produced by the calm of nature, at noon, in these burning climates! The beasts of the forests retire to the thickets; and the birds hide themselves beneath the foliage of the trees, or in crevices of rocks. Yet, amid this apparent silence, when we lend an attentive ear to the most feeble sounds transmitted by the air, we hear a dull vibration, a continual murmur, a hum of insects, that fill, if we may use the expression, all the lower strata of the air. Nothing is better fitted to make man feel the extent and power of organic life. Myriads of insects creep upon the soil, and flutter round the plants parched by the ardour of the sun. A confused noise issues from every bush, from the decayed trunks of trees, from the clefts of rocks, and from the ground undermined by lizards, centipedes, and other animated creatures. These are so many voices proclaiming to us, that all nature breathes; and that, under a thousand different forms, life is diffused throughout the cracked and dusty soil, as well as in the bosom of the waters, and in the air that circulates around us."

Early in the morning of the 9th they arrived at Pararuma, where there was another turtle harvest. Baron de Humboldt here observed some missionary monks

seated on the ground, playing at cards, and smoking tobacco in long pipes. From their ample blue garments, their shorn heads, and long beards, he says they might I have been mistaken for natives of the east. From one

of these missionaries he purchased a new canoe, which, like all Indian boats, had been formed out of the single trunk of a tree, hollowed by the double means of the hatchet and fire. It was forty feet long, and only three feet wide. In the after part of it a low roof of branches was erected to keep off the burning rays of the sun; but it only admitted of those under it either to lie down, or to sit double; and their legs reached far beyond the covering, so that, when it rained, half the body was drenched.

Speaking of the Indians whom he saw at Pararuma, Baron de Humboldt says, that although they were naked, yet their bodies were so covered with paint, that, at a distance, they seemed to be dressed in laced clothes. And if painted nations, he adds, were to be examined with the same attention as clothed nations, it would be perceived that the most fertile imagination, and the most mutable caprice, have created the fashions of painting as well as those of garments.

In the camp at Pararuma he was surprised to observe that women, far advanced in years, were more occupied with their ornaments than the youngest women. He saw an Indian woman, of the Otomac nation, employing two of her daughters in the operation of rubbing her hair with the oil of turtles' eggs, and painting her back in a sort of lattice work of black lines crossing each other on a red ground. Each little square had a black dot in the middle, and the whole was a work which required incredible patience.

While the voyagers were at Pararuma they had an opportunity, for the first time, of examining numerous animals alive, particularly different kinds of monkeys, which before they had only seen in cabinets in Europe. These animals here form a branch of commerce, and are obtained at very low prices from the Indians of the

Oronoko. The voyagers purchased several of them, and kept them in cages, during the rest of their voyage the river.

up

They left Pararuma on the 10th of April. In their voyage this day they were excessively annoyed by musquitoes, and suffered much from the parching heat of the sun. On the ensuing day they passed the mission of Carichana, the principal village of the nation called Salivas, a social, mild, and almost timid people. These Indians have a taste for music. In remote periods they had trumpets formed of baked earth, four or five feet long, and with several large globular cavities communicating with one another by narrow pipes, which sent forth the most dismal sounds imaginable. Of late, however, they had been instructed to play on European instruments.

The environs of the mission of Carichana appeared extremely delightful. The little village was situated in a plain covered with luxuriant grasses. A line of fo

rests was seen in the distance; and the horizon was on every side bounded by mountains, partly covered with wood and of a dark tint, and partly naked, and exhibiting rocky summits.

As the voyagers proceeded, they found the course of the Oronoko to be in many places obstructed by blocks of granite rocks. They passed several rapids, or small cascades, made by rocks rising out of the bed of the river. In one place it was requisite for the Indians to row against the current, for more than twelve hours without cessation. They passed through channels that were not five feet broad. Sometimes the canoe was jammed between blocks of granite; and through all these passages, the water rushed with an horrible noise. This was called the cataract of Cariven.

From Cabruta to the mouth of the river Sinaruco, the left bank of the Oronoko is entirely uninhabited. They passed the mouth of the river Meta, and reached a mission called San Borja, where they found six houses, inhabited by uncatechized Indians, called Gua

hiboes. They differed in nothing from the wild Indians. Their eyes, which were tolerably large and black, expressed more vivacity than those of the Indians who inhabited the ancient missions. The faces of the young girls were marked with round black spots, like the patches by which the women of Europe formerly imagined they set off the whiteness of their skin. The bodies of the Guahiboes were not painted. Several of them had beards, of which they seemed to be proud. Their shape was in general slender, and their countenances were sad and gloomy, but neither stern nor ferocious.

In the further ascent of the voyagers up the river, the torment of the musquitoes augmented. Notwithstanding the decrease of the heat, they had never suffered so much by them as they did near San Borja. They could neither speak nor uncover their faces without having their mouths and noses filled with these insects; and the extreme irritation of their skin rendered the heat almost intolerable. On the 14th of April they passed the mouth of the river Parueni. Beyond this the mountains of the great cataract bounded the horizon toward the south-east; and, as they advanced, they perceived that the shores of the Oronoko exhibited a more composing and picturesque appearance than had been observable in the lower parts of the stream.

At the great cataract the bed of the stream is divided by masses of rock, into various reservoirs and natural dykes. The water, however, is not, as at Niagara, heaved at once over a deep precipice, but it falls in a graduated series of small cascades, The spectator suddenly beholds a foaming sheet of water, a mile in length. Masses of rock, of dark ferruginous hue, shoot up from it, like lofty towers. Every small island and every rock. are decked with crowded groups of stately trees. Above the surface of the water, a thick vapour incessantly hovers; and through this cloud of mist, formed by the spray of the stream, dart forth the tops of the aspiring palm-trees. When the glowing rays of the