ABUNDANCE OF SERPENTS. 300 



of furniture to which they wish to give a tine white colour. 

 It thickens by the contact of the air, without growing yel- 

 low, and it appears singularly glossy. We have already 

 mentioned that the caoutchouc is the oily part, the butter 

 of all vegetable milk. It is, no doubt, a particular modifica- 

 tion of caoutchouc that forms this coagulum, this white and 

 glossy skin, that seems as if covered with copal varnish. If 

 different colours could be given to this milky varnish, a 

 very expeditious method would be found of painting and 

 varnishing our carriages by one process. The more we study 

 vegetable chemistry in the torrid zone, the more we shall 

 discover, in remote spots, and half-prepared in the organs of 

 plants, products which we believe belong only to the animal 

 kingdom, or which we obtain by processes which are often 

 tedious and difficult. Already we have found the wax that 

 coats the palm-tree of the Andes of Quindiu, the silk 

 of the palm-tree of Mocoa, the nourishing milk of the 

 palo de vaca, the butter-tree of Africa, and the caseous sub- 

 stances obtained from the almost animalized sap of the 

 Carica papaya. These discoveries will be multiplied, when, 

 as the political state of the world seems now to indicate, 

 European civilization shall flow in a great measure toward 

 the equinoctial regions of the New Continent. 



The marshy tract between Javita and the embarcadero 

 of Pimichin is infested with great numbers of vipers. 

 Before we took possession of the deserted hut, the Indiana 

 killed two great mapanare serpents.* These grow to tour 

 or five feet long. They appeared to me to be the same 

 species as those I saw in the Kio Magdalena. This serpent 

 is a beautiful animal, but extremely venomous, white on the 

 belly, and spotted with brown and red on the back. As 

 the inside of the hut was filled with grass, and we were 

 lying on the ground, there being no means of suspending 

 our hammocks, we were not without inquietude during the 

 night. In the morning a large viper was found on lifting 

 the jaguar-skin upon which one of our domestics had slept. 



* This name is given in the Spanish colonies to very different species. 

 The Coluber mapanare of the province of Caracas has one hundred and 

 forty-two ventral plates, and thirty. eight double caudal scales. The 

 Coluber mapanare of the Rio Magdalena has two hundred and eigbl 

 ventral plates, and sixty-four double caudal scales. 



TOL. II. 2 B 



