EFFECT OF THE MIRAGE. Ill 



the effects of refraction, and, soon losing its flattened 

 form, ascended rapidly and straight towards the zenith. 



In proportion as the sun rose towards the zenith, and 

 the earth and the strata of superincumbent air took 

 different temperatures, the phenomenon of the mirage 

 displayed itself in its numerous modifications. The 

 little currents of air that swept the surface of the soil 

 had so variable a temperature that, in a drove of wild 

 oxen, one part appeared with the legs raised above the 

 surface of the ground, while the other rested on it. 

 A well-informed person assured them, that he had seen, 

 between Calabozo and Uritucu, the image of an animal 

 inverted, without there being any direct image. They 

 several times thought they saw on the horizon the figures 

 of tumuli and towers, which disappeared at intervals, 

 without their being able to discern the real shape of the 

 objects. They were hillocks perhaps, or small emi- 

 nences. 



The plain assumed at sunrise a more animated aspect. 

 The cattle which had reposed during the night along the 

 pools, or beneath clumps of mauritias and rhopalas, were 

 now collected in herds ; and these solitudes became 

 peopled with horses, mules, and oxen, that lived here 

 free, without settled habitations, and disdaining the care 

 and protection of man. 



They found at Calabozo, in the midst of the Llanos, 

 an electrical machine with large plates, electrophori, 

 batteries, and electrometers; an apparatus nearly as com- 

 plete as the first scientific men in Europe possessed. It 

 was the work of a man who had never seen any instru- 

 ment, who had no person to consult, and who was 

 acquainted with the phenomena of electricity only by 



