SEARCH FOE WATER. 101 



Instinct. No sooner is the stable opened, than the horses 

 and mules, especially the latter (for the penetration of these 

 animals exceeds the intelligence of the horses), rush info 

 the savannahs. With upraised tails and heads thrown bad: 

 they run against the wind, stopping from time to time as 

 if exploring space ; they follow less the impressions of sight 

 than of smell ; and at length announce, by prolonged neigh- 

 ings, that there is water in the direction of their course. 

 All these movements are executed more promptly, and with 

 readier success, by horses born in the Llanos, and which 

 have long enjoyed their liberty, than by those that come 

 from the coast, and descend from domestic horses. In 

 animals, for the most part, as in man, the quickness of the 

 senses is diminished by long subjection, and by the habits 

 that arise from a fixed abode and the progress of culti- 

 vation. 



We followed our mules in search of one of those pools, 

 whence the muddy water had been drawn, that so ill 

 quenched our thirst. We were covered with dust, ana 

 tanned by the sandy wind, which burns the skin even more 

 than the rays of the sun. We longed impatiently to take 

 a bath, but we found only a great pool of feculent water, 

 surrounded with palm-trees. The water was turbid, though, 

 to our great astonishment, a little cooler than the air. 

 Accustomed during our long journey to bathe whenever we 

 6ad an opportunity, often several times in one day, we 

 hastened to plunge into the pool. We had scarcely begun 

 to enjoy the coolness of the bath, when a noise which we 

 heard on the opposite bank, made us leave the water preci- 

 pitately. It was an alligator plunging into the mud. 



We were only at the distance of a quarter of a league 

 from the farm, yet we continued walking more than an hour 

 without reaching it. We perceived too late that we had 

 taken a wrong direction. Having left it at the decline of 

 day, before the stars were visible, we had gone forward into 

 ^ie plain at hazard. We were, as usual, provided with 

 i compass, and it might have been easy for us to steer our 

 course from the position of Canopus and the Southern 

 Cross; but unfortunately we were uncertain whether, on 

 \eaving the farm, we had gone towards the east or the south. 

 We attempted to return to the spot where we had bathed, 



