248 THI^JCESS OF TUB POITLATION. 



black crusts than in those which abound in lamina of silvery 

 mica. When walking between the hours of one and three 

 m the afternoon, at Carichana, Atures, or Maypures, among 

 those blocks of stone destitute of vegetable mould, and piled 

 up to great heights, one feels a sensation of suffocation, as 

 if standing before the opening of a furnace. The winds, if 

 ever felt m those woody regions, far from bringing coolness, 

 appear more heated when they have passed over beds of 

 stone, and heaps of rounded blocks of granite. This aug- 

 mentation of heat adds to the insalubrity of the climate. 



Among the causes of the depopulation of the Eaudales, 

 I have not reckoned the small-pox, that malady which in 

 other parts of America makes such cruel ravages that the 

 natives, seized with dismay, burn their huts, kill their 

 children, and renounce every kind of society. This scourge 

 is almost unknown on the banks of the Orinoco, and should 

 it penetrate thither, it is to be hoped that its effects may 

 be immediately counteracted by vaccination, the blessings 

 if which are 'daily felt along the. coasts of Terra Firma. 

 The causes which depopulate the Christian settlements 

 are, the repugnance of the Indians for the regulations 

 of the missions, insalubrity of climate, bad nourishment, 

 want of care in the diseases of children, and the guilty 

 practice of preventing pregnancy by the use of deleterious 

 herbs. Among the barbarous people of Gluiana, as well as 

 those of the half-civilized islands of the South Sea, young 

 wives are fearful of becoming mothers. If they have chil- 

 dren, their offspring are exposed not only to the dangers 

 of savage life, but also to other dangers arising from the 

 strangest popular prejudices. When twins are born, false 

 notions of propriety and family honour require that one of 

 them should be destroyed. " To bring twins into the 

 world," say the Indians, " is to be exposed to public scorn ; 

 it is to resemble rats, opossums, and the vilest animals, 

 which bring forth a great number of young at a time.'* 

 Nay, more, they affirm that " tw r o children born at the same 

 tine cannot belong to the same father." This is an axiom 

 of physiology among the Salives ; and in every zone, and in 

 different states of society, when the vulgar seize upon an 

 axiom, they adhere to it with more stedfastness than the 

 better-informed men by whom it was first hazarded. To 



