MELAKC1IOLY FOBEBODItfGS. 521 



zeal for the progress of natural history. "We had not yet 

 passed a year in the torrid zone; and my too faithful 

 memory conjured up everything I had read in Europe on 

 the dangers of the atmosphere inhaled in the forests. 

 Instead of going up the Orinoco, we might have sojourned 

 some months in the temperate and salubrious climate of the 

 Sierra Nevada de Merida. It was I who had chosen the 

 path of the rivers ; and the danger of my fellow-traveller 

 presented itself to my mind as the fatal consequence of this 

 imprudent choice. 



After having attained in a few days an extraordinary 

 degree of exacerbation, the fever assumed a less alarming 

 character. The inflammation of the intestines yielded to the 

 use of emollients obtained from malvaceous plants. The 

 sidas and the melochias have singularly active properties in 

 the torrid zone. The recovery of the patient however waa 

 extremely slow, as it always happens with Europeans who 

 are not thoroughly seasoned to the climate. The period of 

 the rains drew near; and in order to return to the coast of 

 Cumana, it was necessary again to cross the Llanos, where, 

 amidst half-inundated lands, it is rare to find shelter, or any 

 other food than meat dried in the sun. To avoid exposing 

 M. Bonpland to a dangerous relapse, we resolved to stay at 

 Angostura till the 10th of July. We spent part of this 

 time at a neighbouring plantation, where mango-trees and 

 bread-fruit trees* were cultivated. The latter had attained 

 in the tenth year a height of more than forty feet. "We 

 measured several leaves of the Artocarpus, that were three 

 feet long and eighteen inches broad, remarkable dimensions 

 in a plant of the family of the dicotyledons. 



* Artocarpus incisa. Father Andujar, Capuchin missionary of the 

 province of Caracas, zealous in the pursuit of natural history, has intro- 

 duced the bread-fruit tree from Spanish Guiana at Varinas, and thence into 

 the kingdom of New Grenada. Thus the western coasts of America, 

 washed by the Pacific, receive from the English Settlements in the West 

 Indies a production of the Friendly Islands. 



END OF VOL. II. 



