7'» TIIK l ATHKIi-MoTHKR. 



tin,',! for lodging travellers ; and, as our travellers often 

 perienced, infinitely valuable in a country where the 

 name of an inn was unknown. 



The missionary of San Fernando was a Capuchin, a 

 native of Aragon, far advanced in years, bul strong and 

 healthy. 1 1 is extreme corpulency, his hilarity, the in 

 teresl he took in battles and si . ill accorded with the 

 ideas we form of the melancholy reveries and the con- 

 templative life of missionaries. Though extremely busy 



about a COW which was to be killed next day. the old 



monk received Humboldt and Bonpland with kindness, 

 and permitted them to hang up their hammocks in a 

 llery of his house. Seated, without doing anything, 

 the greater part of the daw in an arm-chair of red wood, 

 he complained bitterly of what he called the indolence and 

 ignorance of his countrymen. The Bight of Humboldt's 



instruments, and books, and the dried plants of Bon- 

 pland drew from him a sarcastic smile; and he acknow- 

 ledged, with the naivete* peculiar to the inhabitants of 

 those countries, that of all the enjoyments of life, without 



excepting sleep, none was comparable to the pleasure 

 of eating good beef. 



In the village of Arenas, at which they next arrived, 

 lived a labourer, Francisco Lozano, who presented a curi- 

 ous physiological phenomenon. This man had suckled 

 iiild with his own milk. The mother having fallen 

 ';. the father, to quiet the infant, took it into bed, and 

 press- -d it to his bosom. Lozano, then thirty-two years 

 had never before remarked that he had milk: 

 but the irritation of the nipple, sucked by the child, 

 caused the accumulation of that liquid. The milk was 

 thick and very sweet Astonished at the increased size 



