

DEPARTURE FROM SAN FERNA1TDO. 151 



at San Fernando. The good Capuchin, Fray Jose Mafia de 

 Malaga, gave us sherry wine, oranges, and tamarinds, tc 

 make cooling beverages. We could easily foresee that a 

 roof constructed of palm-tree leaves would become exces- 

 sively hot on a large river, where we were almost always 

 exposed to the perpendicular rays of the sun. The Indians 

 relied less on the provision we had purchased, than on their 

 hooks and nets. We took also some fire-arms, which we 

 found in general use as far as the cataracts; but farther 

 south the great humidity of the air prevents the mission- 

 aries from using them. The Rio Apure abounds in fish, 

 manatis, and turtles, the eggs of which afford an aliment 

 more nutritious than agreeable to the taste. Its banks are 

 inhabited by an innumerable quantity of birds, among which 

 the pauxi and the guacharaca, which may be called the tur- 

 keys and pheasants of those countries, are found to be the 

 most useml. Their flesh appeared to be harder and less 

 white than that of the gallinaceous tribe in Europe, because 

 they use much more muscular exercise. We did not forget 

 to add to our provision, fishing-tackle, fire-arms, and a few 

 casks of brandy, to serve as a medium of barter with the 

 Indians of the Orinoco. 



We departed from San Fernando on the 30th of March, 

 at four in the afternoon. The weather was extremely hot ; 

 the thermometer rising in the shade to 34, though the 

 breeze blew very strongly from the south-east. Owing to 

 this contrary wind we could not set our sails. We were 

 accompanied, in the whole of this voyage on the A pure, the 

 Orinoco, and the Rio Negro, by the brother-in-law of the 

 governor of the province of Varinas, Don Nicolas Soto, 

 who had recently arrived from Cadiz. Desirous of visiting 

 countries so calculated to excite the curiosity of a Euro- 

 pean, .he did not hesitate to confine himself with us during 

 seventy-four days in a narrow boat infested with mosquitos. 

 His amiable disposition and gay temper often helped to 

 make us forget the sufferings of a voyage which was not 

 wholly exempt from danger. We passed the mouth of the 

 Apurito, and coasted the island of the same name, formed 

 by the Apure and the Gruarico. This island is in fact only 

 a very low spot of ground, bordered by two great rivers, 

 both of which, at a little distance from each other, fall uito 



