198 VIEWS OF NATUKE. 



deliberately along the bank, between the hedge and river, 

 affording the traveller the gratification of watching their 

 motions for sometimes four or five hundred paces, until they 

 disappear through the nearest opening. During a seventy- 

 four days' almost uninterrupted river navigation of 1520 

 miles up the Orinoco, to the neighbourhood of its sources, 

 and along the Cassiquiare, and the Rio Negro during the 

 whole of which time we were confined to a narrow canoe 

 the same spectacle presented itself to our view at many 

 different points, and, I may add, always with renewed excite- 

 ment. There came to drink, bathe, or fish, groups of crea- 

 tures belonging to the most opposite species of animals ; the 

 larger mammalia with many-coloured herons, palamedeas with 

 the proudly- strutting curasso w {Crax Alector, C. Pauxi). "It 

 is here as in Paradise" (es como en el Paradiso), remarked with 

 pious air our steersman, an old Indian, who had been brought 

 up in the house of an ecclesiastic. But the gentle peace of 

 the primitive golden age does not reign in the paradise of 

 these American animals, they stand apart, watch, and avoid 

 each other. The Capybara, a cavy (or river-hog) three or 

 four feet long (a colossal repetition of the common Brazilian 

 cavy, (Cavia Aguti), is devoured in the river by the crocodile, 

 and on the shore by the tiger. They run so badly, that we 

 were frequently able to overtake and capture several from 

 among the numerous herds. 



Below the mission of Santa Barbara de Arichuna we passed 

 the night as usual in the open air, on a sandy flat, on the 

 bank of the Apure, skirted by the impenetrable forest. We 

 had some difficulty in finding dry wood to kindle the fires 

 with which it is here customary to surround the bivouac, as 

 a safeguard against the attacks of the Jaguar. The air was 

 bland and soft, and the moon shone brightly. Several croco- 

 diles approached the bank; and I have observed that fire 

 attracts these creatures as it does our crabs and many other 

 aquatic animals. The oars of our boats were fixed upright 



