OF BARON HUMBOLDT. 107 



southern military post of the Spaniards, and 

 scarcely two degrees from the equator. At 

 this station he had the option either to descend 

 the Amazon towards the coast of Brazil, or, 

 on the river Cassiquiare and Orinoco, to reach 

 again the north coast of Caracas. The latter 

 route was chosen by him. The voyage on the 

 river Cassiquiare was, independent of other 

 difficulties, much aggravated by the presence of 

 the mosquitoes, whose number increased the 

 further they removed from the Rio Negro. He 

 found only miserable Christian settlements on 

 the eastern and the almost uninhabited western 

 shore of the river. The human beings which he 

 encountered ate with the same satisfaction the 

 large ants which here abound as the Australians 

 their spiders. But Baron Humboldt found here 

 a still greater barbarity the eating of human 

 flesh. Only a few years before his arrival in 

 these primitive regions, an alcalde, born here, 

 had eaten one of his wives, having carefully 

 fattened her. The protest of the Europeans 

 against this detestable usage was of no avail. 

 These different tribes looked upon each other 

 as different beings, and claimed the same right 

 to slay each other as they had to kill the jackal 

 in the forest. 



Baron Humboldt called this voyage on the 



