440 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1818. 



plants, drew from him a sarcastic 

 smile; iand he acknowledged, with 

 the naivete peculiar to those cli- 

 mates, that of all the enjoyments 

 of life, without excepting sleep, 

 none was comparable to the plea- 

 sure of eating good beef [carne de 

 vacca) ; so true it is, that sensua- 

 lity obtains an ascendancy, where 

 there is no occupation for the 

 mind. Our host often engaged 

 us to pay a visit with him to his 

 cow, which he had just purchased ; 

 and on the morrow, at sunrise, he 

 would not dispense with our see- 

 ing it killed after the fashion of 

 the country, that is, by ham- 

 stringing the animal, and then 

 plunging a large knife into the 

 vcrtebrag of the neck. This dis- 

 gusting Operation served to show 

 us the great address of the 

 Chayma Indians, eight of whom, 

 in less than twenty minutes, cut 

 up the animal into small pieces. 

 The price of the cow was onlj' 

 seven piastres; but this price 

 seemed to be thought very con- 

 siderable. The same day the 

 missionary had paid eighteen 

 piastres to a soldier of Cumana, 

 for having succeeded, after many 

 fruitless attempts, in bleeding him 

 in the foot. This fact, though 

 seemingly very unimportant, is a 

 striking proof how greatly, in 

 uncultivated countries, the price 

 of things differs from that of 

 labour. 



The Mission of San Fernando 

 was founded toward the end of 

 the 17tli century, near the junc- 

 tion of the small rivers of the 

 Manzanares and Lucasperez.* A 

 fire, which consumed the church, 



* Caulin, Hist, corogr. dt la Nueva 

 Andalusia, p. 309. 



and the huts of the Indians, 

 induced the capuchins to place 

 the village in its present fine 

 situation. The number of families 

 is increased to one hundred, and 

 the missionary observed to us, 

 that the custom of marrying at 

 thirteen or fourteen years of age 

 contributes greatly to this rapid 

 increaseof population. He denied 

 that old age was so premature 

 among the Chaymas, as is com- 

 monly believed in Europe. The 

 government of these Indian 

 parishes is very complicated ; 

 they have their governor, their 

 major-alguazils, and their militia 

 commanders, who are all copper- 

 coloured natives. The company 

 of archers have their colours, and 

 perform their exercise with the 

 bow and arrow, in shooting at a 

 mark ; this is the national guard 

 [militia] of the country. This 

 military establishment, under a 

 purely monastic system, seemed 

 to us very singular. 



In this village lives a labourer, 

 Franfisco Lozano, who presented 

 a physiological phenomenon, 

 highly calculated to strike the 

 imagination, though it is very 

 conformable to the known laws 

 of organized nature. This man 

 has suckled a child with his own 

 milk. The mother having fallen 

 sick, the father, to quiet the 

 infant, took it into his bed, and 

 pressed it to his bosom. Lozano, 

 then thirty-two years of age, had 

 never remarked till that day that 

 he had milk : but the irritation of 

 the nipple, sucked by the child, 

 caused the accumulation of that 

 liquid. The milk was thick and 

 ver}' sweet. The father, astonished 

 at the increased size of his breast, 

 suckled his child two or three 



times 



