ESTIVATION, OR SUMMER SLEEP. 147 



an alligator or serpent. " Sometimes, so the 

 aborigines relate," says Humboldt, " on the 

 margin of the swamps, the moistened clay is 

 seen to blister, and rise slowly in a kind of 

 mound ; then, with a violent noise, like the 

 outbreak of a small mud volcano, the heaped- 

 up earth is cast high into the air. The 

 beholder acquainted with the meaning of this 

 spectacle flies, for he knows there will issue 

 forth a gigantic watersnake, or a scaly croco- 

 dile, awakened from a torpid state by the first 

 fall of rain." Now all is activity ; the air teems 

 with insects ; the birds are all busy ; the forest 

 resounds with their mingled voices ; and the 

 plain is covered with vegetation. 



But in order to convey a picture of the whole 

 with due force, we must borrow the pencil of 

 one — a philosopher, and poet-painter — who has 

 himself witnessed the transition, and experi- 

 enced alike the drought and the shower : — 

 " When under the vertical rays of the never- 

 clouded sun, the carbonized turfy-covering (of 

 the llanos, or steppes) falls into dust, the in- 

 durated soil cracks asunder as if from the 

 shock of an earthquake. At such times, two 

 opposing currents, whose conflict produces a 

 rotatory motion, come in contact with the soil, 

 and the plain assumes a strange and singular 

 aspect. Like conical-shaped clouds, the points 

 of which descend to the earth, the sand rises 

 through the rarefied air, in the electrically- 

 charged centre of the whirling current, resem- 

 bling the loud waterspout dreaded by the 



