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THE LLAXOS. 19 



I 



were partly covered with moist clay, on which fire was made 

 for household purposes ; and the flames afforded a strange 

 sight to travellers sailing on the river at night. Even now the 

 light-footed Guaranas owe their independence to the marshy 

 nature of their territory, and to their arboreal life. 



The fruits of the mauritia, besides affording food to the 

 Indian, are eagerly devoured by monkeys and parrots. On ap- 

 proaching a group of palms at the time when the fruits are 

 ripening, the profound silence which within the tropics chiefly 

 characterises the noon, is interrupted by a scream of warning, 

 and soon after a numerous troop of birds wheels screeching about 

 the grove. 



When the Spaniards first settled in the beautiful mountain 

 valleys of Caraccas and on the Orinoco, they found the Llanos, 

 in spite of their abundant verdure, almost entirely uninhabited 

 by man, for the Indians w^ere unacquainted with pastoral life ; 

 and if the mauritia had not here and there tempted a few 

 savages to settle on the open savannahs, they would have been 

 left entirely to the animal life which from time immemorial 

 had thriven on their herbage. But the Spaniards introduced 

 new quadrupeds into the new world, — the ox, the horse, the ass, 

 our faithful companions over the whole surface of the globe, — 

 and the progeny of these domestic animals, returning to their 

 wild state, has multiplied amazingly in the vast pastures of the 

 lilanos. Man has followed them into their new domain ; and 

 small hamlets, often situated whole days' journeys one from 

 another, and consisting only of a few wretched huts, though 

 generally dignified with the name of towns, proclaim that he 

 has at least made a beginning to establish his empire over 

 these boundless plains. 



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