200 FETID RITER- WATER 



animated, strikes the imagination of the traveller when 

 enters the basin of the Mediterranean, within the zone of 

 olives, dwarf palms, and date-trees. 



We passed the night on the eastern bank of the Orinoco, 

 at the foot of a granitic hill. Near this desert spot was 

 formerly seated the Mission of San Regis. "We could have 

 wished to find a spring in the Baraguan, for the water of 

 the river had a smell of musk, and a sweetish taste ex- 

 tremely disagreeable. In the Orinoco, as well as in the 

 Apure, we are struck with the difference observable in the 

 various parts of the river near the most barren shore. The 

 water is sometimes very drinkable, and sometimes seems to 

 be loaded with a slimy matter. " It is the bark (meaning 

 the coriaceous covering) of the putrified cayman that is the 

 cause," say the natives. " The more aged the cayman, the 

 more Utter is his bark" I have no doubt that the carcasses 

 of these large reptiles, those of the manatis, which weigh five 

 hundred pounds, and the presence of the porpoises (toninas) 

 with their mucilaginous skin, may contaminate the water, 

 especially in the creeks, where the river has little velocity. 

 Yet the spots where we found the most fetid water, were 

 not always those where dead animals were accumulated on 

 the beach. When, in such burning climates, where we are 

 constantly tormented by thirst, we are reduced to drink the 

 water of a river at the temperature of 27 or 28, we cannot 

 help wishing at least that water so hot, and so loaded with 

 sand, should be free from smell. 



On the 8th of April we passed the mouths of the Suapure 

 or Sivapuri, and the Caripo, on the east, and the outlet of 

 the Sinaruco on the west. This last river is, next to the 

 Rio Arauca, the most considerable between the Apure and 

 the Meta. The Suapure, full of little cascades, is celebrated 

 among the Indians for the quantity of wild honey obtained 

 from the forests in its neighbourhood. The melipones there 

 suspend their enormous hives to the branches of trees. 

 Father Grili, in 1766, made an excursion on the Suapure, and 

 on the Turiva, which falls into it. He there found tribes 

 of the nation of Areverians. We passed the night a little 

 below the island Macapina. 



Early on the following morning we arrived at the beach 

 tf Pararuma, where we found an encampment of Indian^ 



