2GG HOMES or THE NATIVES. 



during the night? Because there is more calmness on 

 account of the absence of caloric (of the hottest}.* This 

 absence renders every thing calmer, for the sun is the prin- 

 ciple of all movement." Aristotle had no doubt a vague 

 presentiment of the cause of the phenomenon ; but he attri- 

 butes to the motion of the atmosphere, and the shock of the 

 particles of air, that which seems to be rather owing to 

 abrupt changes of density in the contiguous strata of air. 



On the 16th of April, towards evening, we received tidings 

 that in less than six hours our boat had passed the rapids, 

 and had arrived in good condition in a cove called el Puerto 

 de arriba, or the Port of the Expedition. "We were shown 

 in the little church of Atures some remains of the ancient 

 wealth of the Jesuits. A silver lamp of considerable weight 

 lay on the ground half-buried in the sand. Such an object, 

 it is true, would nowhere tempt the cupidity of a savage ; 

 yet T may here remark, to the honor of the natives of the 

 Orinoco, that they are not addicted to stealing, like the less 

 savage tribes of the islands in the Pacific. The former have 

 a great respect for property ; they do not even attempt to 

 steal provision, hooks, or" hatchets. At Maypures and 

 Atures, locks on doors are unknown : they will be introduced 

 only when whites and men of mixed race establish themselves 

 iu the missions. 



The Indians of Atures are mild and moderate, and accus- 

 tomed, from the effects of their idleness, to the greatest pri- 

 vations. Formerly, being excited to labour by the Jesuits, 

 they did not want for food. The fathers cultivated maize, 

 French beans (frijoles), and other European vegetables; 

 they even planted sweet oranges and tamarinds round the 

 villages; and they possessed twenty or thirty thousand 

 head of cows and horses, in the savannahs of Atures and 



* I have placed in a parenthesis, a literal version of the term employed 

 by Aristotle, to express in reality what we now term the matter of heat. 

 Theodore of Gaza, in his Latin translation, expresses in the shape ol 

 a doubt what Aristotle positively asserts. I may here remark, that, 

 notwithstanding the imperfect state of science among the ancients, 

 the works of the Stagirite contain more ingenious observations than those 

 of many later philosophers. It is in vain we look in Aristoxenes (De 

 Musica), in Theophylactus Simocatta (De Quaestionibus physicis), or in 

 the 5th Book of the Qusest. Nat. of Seneca, for an explanation of tua 

 nocturnal augmentation of sound. 



