100 HALT AT THE HATO. 



by the name of peones llaneros, are partly freed- men and 

 partly slaves. They are constantly exposed to the burn- 

 ing heat of the tropical sun. Their food is meat, dried in 

 the air, and a little salted; and of this even their horses 

 sometimes partake. Being always in the saddle, they fancy 

 they cannot make the slightest excursion on foot. We 

 found an old negro slave, who managed the farm in the 

 absence of his master. He told us of herds composed of 

 several thousand cows, that were grazing in the steppes; yet 

 we asked in vain for a bowl of milk. "We were offered, in a 

 calabash, some yellow, muddy, and fetid water, drawn from a 

 neighbouring pool. The indolence of the inhabitants of the 

 Llanos is such that they do not dig wells, though they know 

 that almost everywhere, at ten feet deep, fine springs are 

 found in a stratum of conglomerate, or red sandstone. 

 After suffering during one half of the year from the effect 

 of inundations, they quietly resign themselves, during the 

 other half, to the most distressing deprivation of water. 

 The old negro advised us to cover the cup with a linen 

 cloth, and drink as through a filter, that we might not be 

 incommoded by the smell, and might swallow less of the 

 yellowish mud suspended in the water. We did not then 

 think that we should afterwards be forced, during whole 

 months, to have recourse to this expedient. The waters of 

 the Orinoco are always loaded with earthy particles ; they 

 are even putrid, where dead bodies of alligators are found 

 in the creeks, lying on banks of sand, or half-buried in the 

 mud. 



No sooner were our instruments unloaded and safely 

 placed, than our mules were set at liberty to go, as they 

 say here, para luscar agua, that is, "to search for water."- 

 There are little pools round the farm, which the animals 

 find, guided by their instinct, by the view of some scattered 

 tufts of mauritia, and by the sensation of humid coolness, 

 caused by little currents of air amid an atmosphere which to 

 us appears calm and tranquil. When the pools of water 

 are far distant, arid the people of the farm are too lazy to 

 load the cattle to these natural watering-places, they confine 

 them during five or six hours in a very hot stable before 

 they let them loose. Excess of thirst then augments their 

 sagacity, sharpening as it were their senses and theii 



