^6G Letter from M, A, Humhold't 



and proceeds from west to east to join the mountains of the 

 French part of Guyana. What variety among the Indian 

 races ! All free, all governing themselves and eating each 

 other, from the Guaicas of Gehetta, a pygmy nation, the 

 largest of whom are about four feet two inches in height, to 

 the white Guajaribos, who have really the whiteness of Eu- 

 ropeans; from the Otomacos, who eat a pound and a half 

 of earth per day, to the Marivitanos and the Magueritares, 

 who feed on ants and resin. Having already spoken of all 

 these in a letter*, which I dispatched from the mouths of 

 the Orenoquo to our good friend Pommard,^! shall confine 

 myself at present to a few astronomical observations, which, 

 I think, T have made with a considerable degree of care. 



IVIy time-keeper, by Berthoud, continues to go with great 

 correctness. I regulate it every four, five, or six days, by cor- 

 responding altitudes, taken with my instruments, which do 

 not err a second ; viz. sextants by Ramsdcn and Troughton, 

 a quadrant by Bird, and a horizon by Carroche. You know 

 that I am not very learned in the mathematics, and that astro- 

 nomy is not the object of my travels; yet with zeal and ap- 

 plication, and by daily handling the same instruments, I 

 have been able to do something, and to do it better. As I 

 traversed a country never visited by Europeans till about thirty 

 years ago, in which all the Christian missions do not amount 

 to 1800 souls, and consequently where no one has ever yet 

 been able to make observations, I conceived that I ought not 

 to neglect so favourable an opportunity of enlarging our geo- 

 graphical knowledge. You would have laughed had you seen 

 me amidst the Ydapamianeres Indians in the forest of Casqui- 

 ara, with my instruments mounted on boxes or trunks, while 

 the shells of tortoises served us as stools. Eight or nine apes, 

 which we carried with us, had a strong desire to handle my 

 hygrometers, barometers, and electrometers also : around all 

 these ten or twelve Indians stretched out in their hammocks, 

 together with fires to secure us from the tigers, which are no 

 less ferocious here than in Africa. The want of nourishment, 

 the mosquitoes, the ants ; the chigers, which enter the skin 

 and plough up the flesh ; the desire of cooling ourselves in 



* This letter, when this was published, had not reached France. 



th9 



