CHAPTER XXVII.

ELEVENTH AND TWELFTH DAYS ON THE LLANOS.

WE left San Pedro at twelve o'clock, a cavalcade of donkeys. The day was cloudy, and lthough not cool, a burning sun did not troulle us as at other times in mid-day. We passed by a stream, which, the guide told us, was a noted haunt for electric eels; and he told us of seveal adventures and accidents occurring to man, aid horse, and oxen, in wading through the eel poni. In the wet season, it was necessary to make a detour, from the inconvenience of the marsh, and tle dread of encountering these unpleasant reptiles*

*"Humboldt gives a spirited account of the manner in which the electric eels (Gymnotus electricus), found in the basins of stagnant water on the Llanos of South America, and in the cofluents of the Orinoco, are taken. He was conducted to a strean, which, in the dry season, forms a pool of muddy water, surrounded by trees. It being very difficult to catch the gymnoti with nas, on account of their extreme agility, it was resolved to procure sone

Morechal Mountains.

265

In a few hours we were on the heights of the range of Morechal mountains, and in the vicinity

of the source of the rio La Peña.

The sun had

by intoxicating or benumbing them with the roots of certain plants, which, when thrown into the water, produce that effect. At this juncture, the Indians informed them that they would fish with horses, and soon brought, from the savanna, about thirty of these animals, which they drove into the pool. The result may be given in the words of the traveller :-‘The extraordinary noise caused by the horses' hoofs makes the fishes issue from the mud, and excites them to combat. These yellowish and livid eels, resembling large aquatic snakes, swim at the surface of the water, and crowd under the bellies of the horses and mules. The struggle between animals of so different an organisation affords a very interesting sight. The Indians, furnished with harpoons and long slender reeds, closely surround the pool. Some of them climb the trees, whose branches stretch horizontally over the water. By their wild cries, and their long reeds, they prevent the horses from coming to the edge of the basin. The eels, stunned by the noise, defend themselves by repeated discharges of their electrical batteries, and, for a long time, seem likely to obtain the victory. Several horses sink under the violence of the invisible blows which they receive in the organs most essential to life, and, benumbed by the force and frequency of the shocks disappear beneath the surface. Others, panting with erect mane and haggard eyes, expressive of anguish, raise themselves, and endeavour to escape from the storm which overtakes them, but are driven back by the Indians. A few, however, succeed in eluding the active vigilance of the fishers; they gain the shore, stumble at every step, and stretch themselves out on the sand, exhausted with fatigue, and having their limbs benumbed by the electric shocks of the gymnoti. In less than five minutes, two

A

just set when we arrived at a small hato. maiden of twenty, brown skinned, with long black hair, and a lad of some thirteen years, her brother, were just then penning up the cattle for the night. The mother, who looked young and

horses were killed. The eel, which is five feet long, presses itself against the belly of the horse, and makes a discharge along the whole extent of its electric organ. It attacks at once the heart, the vicera, and the coeliac plexus of the abdominal nerves. It is natural that the effect which a horse experiences should be more powerful than that produced by the same fish on man, when he touches it only by one of the extremities. The horses are probably not killed, but only stunned; they are drowned from the impossibility of rising amid the prolonged struggle between the other horses and eels. Some of the gymnoti, having expended their energy, were afterwards secured, and were found to be from five to six feet in length, of a fine olive-green colour. They are objects of dread to the natives, and their presence is considered to be the principal cause of the absence of fish in the pools of the Llanos. All the inhabitants of the waters avoid them, and it became necessary to change the direction of the road near Uritico, in consequence of the number of mules lost in fording a river in which they were very numerous. It is supposed that they can communicate their electric shock through a thick mass of water, and kill, from a distance, the prey they are anxious to devour."-MILNER'S Gallery of Nature.

Some of the black people of Guiana believe that, by slitting the flesh of the outer part of the hand, and introducing therein a piece of flesh from an electric eel the instant it is caught out of the water, a blow from that hand will stun the person struck by it.

active, was before a large iron pot, with a heap of pared cheese, which she was making into queso mano, by partly boiling in hot water, stirring them with two thin long sticks in a very clever manner, then taking them out, she tossed and turned and patted them continually, until she made a flat cheese, which is eaten by tearing off flakes of it. It is considered a delicacy. She made a good many in a short time. The girl placed on a wooden hook a large pan of fresh milk, which was destined for butter and cheese.

We slung our hammocks, made some coffee, and bought milk to put into it; the girl and boy watched us with curiosity during the process of mixing the coffee and milk together, for they never in that house thought of using milk with their coffee.

M. Wilhelm and I happened to have our chinchoras slung in close proximity, and a little apart from the others; and as he was a great talker he said something to me which led to my asking him why it was that he had so imprudently startled the good 'Nor Gabriel with the insinua

tion of his infidelity, especially as I believed he could not have been in earnest.

"One cannot," he replied, "always account for one's impulses of speech and thought. There was Mack so desponding, when, at a hint from me, he evinced a faith that was amazing, which had been sleeping until then. And our guide— poor old bat, without knowing the full importance of his own saying, seemed to have feared that Mack was confining the faith to pantheism when he added the faith in a personal providence. The doctrine was not new to me; but it then came with the interest of novelty, as a ray of ineffable glory to a long benighted soul; as a blessed hope to those who were not utterly hopeless. If I could believe in the personality of Infinitude I should, I know, be a changed man. It were worth the effort. But I must stand despairingly before the paradise of thought, and be content to remain as I am. I know that you think me hard and worldly, and insensible to the finer feelings of humanity. But you err. I long for an object worthy of love, that would draw out from the