•J2 ASPECTS OF TROPICAL NATURE 



lor liousehold 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 half- 

 liquid soil of their territory, and to their tree life. The fruits 

 of the mauritia, besides affording food to the Indian, are 

 eagerly devoured by monkeys and parrots. On approaching a 

 group of palms at the time when the fruits are ripening, thp 

 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. 

 The green colour of their plumage seldom betrays the parrots 

 to the eye among the equally green fronds of the palms. 



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 were 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 

 Llanos. 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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