ISLAND OF PANUMANA. 237 



had themselves invented all these exaggerated fictions ; the}' 

 derived them in great part from the recitals of the Indians. 

 A fondness for narration prevails in the Missions, as it does 

 at sea, in the East, and in every place where the mind 

 seeks amusement. A missionary, from his vocation, is not 

 inclined to scepticism; he imprints on his memory what 

 the natives have so often repeated to him ; and, when 

 returned to Europe, and restored to the civilized world, he 

 finds a pleasure in creating astonishment by a recital of 

 facts which he thinks he has collected, and by an animated 

 description of remote things. These stories, which the 

 Spanish colonists call 'tales of travellers and of monks' 

 (cuentos de viageros y frailes), increase in improbability in 

 proportion as you increase your distance from the forests 

 of the Orinoco, and approach the coasts inhabited by the 

 whites. "When, at Cumana, JSTueva Barcelona, and other 

 seaports which have frequent communication with the Mis- 

 sions, you betray any sign of incredulity, you are reduced 

 to silence by these few words : " The fathers have seen it, 

 but far above the Great Cataracts (mas arriba de los Kau 

 dales)." 



On the 15th of April, we left the island of Panumana at 

 four in the morning, two hours before sunrise. The sky 

 was in great part obscured, and lightnings flashed over dense 

 clouds at more than forty degrees of elevation. "We were 

 surprised at not hearing thunder; but possibly this was 

 owing to the prodigious height of the storm ? It appears 

 to us, that in Europe the electric flashes without thunder, 

 vaguely called heat-lightning, are seen generally nearer the 

 horizon. Under a cloudy sky, that sent back the radiant 

 caloric of the soil, the heat was stifling; not a breath oi 

 wind agitated the foliage of the trees. The jaguars, as 

 usual, had crossed the arm of the Orinoco by which we were 

 separated from the shore, and we heard their cries extremely 

 near. During the night the Indians had advised us to quit 

 our station in the open air, and retire to a deserted hut 

 belonging to the conucos of the inhabitants of Atures. They 

 had taken care to barricade the opening with planks, a 

 precaution which seemed to us superfluous; but near the 

 Cataracts tigers are very numerous, and two years before, 

 in these very conucos of Panuinaua, an Indian returning to 



