ATMOSPHERIC PHENOMENA. 8 



another place that the mauritia palm-tree, the " tree of life" 

 of the missionaries, not only affords the Guaraons a safe 

 dwelling during the risings of the Orinoco, but that ita 

 shelly fruit, its farinaceous pith, its juice, abounding in sac- 

 charine matter, and the fibres of its petioles, furnish them 

 with food, wine,* and thread proper for making cords and 

 wraving hammocks. These customs of the Indians of the 

 delta of the Orinoco were found formerly in the Gulf of 

 Darien (Uraba), and in the greater part of the inundated 

 lands between the Guarapiche and the mouths of the 

 Amazon. It is curious to observe in the lowest degree of 

 human civilization the existence of a whole tribe depending 

 on one single species of palm-tree, similar to those insects 

 which feed on one and the same flower, or on one and the 

 same part of a plant. 



The navigation of the river, whether vessels arrive by the 

 Boca de Navios, or risk entering the labyrinth of the bocas 

 chicaSy requires various precautions, according as the waters 

 are high or low. The regularity of these periodical risings 

 of the Orinoco has been long an object of admiration to 

 travellers, as the overflowings of the Nile furnished the 

 philosophers of antiquity with a problem di EG cult to solve. 

 The Orinoco and the Nile, contrary to the direction of the 

 Ganges, the Indus, the Bio de la Plata, and the Euphrates, 

 flow alike from the south toward the north ; but the sources 

 of the Orinoco are five or six degrees nearer to the equator 

 than those of the Nile. Observing every day the accidental 

 variations of the atmosphere, we find it difficult to persuade 

 ourselves, that in a great space of time the effects of these 

 variations mutually compensate each other : that in a long 

 succession of years the averages of the temperature of the 

 humidity, and of the barometric pressure, differ so little 

 from month to month ; and that nature, notwithstanding 

 the multitude of partial perturbations, follows a constant 

 type in the series of meteorological phenomena. Great 

 rivers unite in one receptacle the waters which a surface 



to establish their aerial cloisters in the country of Treves, in Germany ; 

 but the bishops opposed these extravagant and perilous enterprises. 

 (Mosheim, Instit. Hist. Eccles., p. 192.) See Humboldt's Views qf 

 Nature (Bohn), pages 13, 136. 



* The use of this moriche wine however is not very common. Th* 

 Guaraons prefer in general a beverage of fermented honey. 



