240 LLOVD S NATURAL HISTORY. 



of the large southern affluents of the Amazon. Here he 

 could get scarcely anything but fish to eat, and, as this diet 

 did not agree with him, he was obliged to have recourse 

 to the Coaita flesh. "I thought," he says, "the meat the 

 best flavoured I have ever tasted. It resembled beef, but 

 had a richer and sweeter taste . . . We smoke-dried 



the joints instead of salting them ; placing them for several 

 hours on a framework of sticks arranged over a fire. Nothing 

 but the hardest necessity could have driven me so near to can- 

 nibalism as this, but we had the greatest difficulty in obtaining 

 here a sufficient supply of animal food." Von Humboldt has 

 also referred to the cooking of these Monkeys by the natives 

 of the Upper Orinoko. " The manner of roasting these an- 

 thropomorphous animals," he writes, " contributes singularly 

 to render their appearance disagreeable in the eyes of civilised 

 Man. A little grating or lattice of very hard wood is formed, 

 and raised one foot from the ground. The Monkey is skinned 

 and bent into a sitting posture ; the head generally resting on 

 the arms, which are meagre and long ; but sometimes these 

 are crossed behind the back. When it is tied on the grating 

 a very clear fire is kindled below .... On seeing the 

 natives devour an arm or leg of a roasted Monkey, it is diffi- 

 cult not to believe that this habit of eating animals which so 

 much resemble Man in their physical organisation, has in a 

 certain degree contributed to diminish the horror of anthro- 

 pophagy among savages. Roasted Monkeys, particularly those 

 that have a very round head, display a hideous resemblance to 

 a child ; the Europeans, therefore, who are obliged to feed on 

 Quadrumanes, prefer separating the head and the hands, and 

 serve up only the rest of the animal at their tables. The flesh 

 of Monkeys is so lean and dry that Mr. Bonpland has pre- 



