BLOCKADE OF THE POET. 



the favourite beverage ; the wine of the palm-tree, which ia 

 use il on the Orinoco, being almost unknown on the coast. It 

 is curious to observe, that men in different zones, to satisfy 

 the passion of inebriety, employ not only all the families of 

 inonocotyledonous and dicotyledonous plants, but even the 

 poisonous Agaric (Amanita muscaria) of which, with dis- 

 gusting economy, the Coriacs have learnt to drink the same 

 juice several times during five successive days.* 



The packet boats (correos) from Corunna bound for the 

 Havannah and Mexico had been due three months ; and it 

 was believed they had been taken by the English cruisers 

 stationed on this coast. Anxious to reach Cumana, in order 

 to avail ourselves of the first opportunity that might offer 

 for our passage to Vera Cruz, we hired an open boat called a 

 lanclia, a sort of craft employed habitually in the latitudes 

 east of Cape Codera, where the sea is scarcely ever rough. 

 Our lanclia,) which was laden with cacao, carried on a con- 

 traband trade with the island of Trinidad. For this reason 

 the owner imagined we had nothing to fear from the enemy's 



Is, which then blockaded all the Spanish ports. \V& 

 embarked our collection oi plants, our instruments, and our 

 monkeys ; and, the weather being delightful, we hoped to 

 make a very short passage from the mouth of the Rio Never! 

 to Cumana: but we had scarcely reached the narrow 

 channel between the continent and the rocky isles of Bor- 

 radia and the Chimanas, when to our great surprise we came 



j;ht of an armed boat, which, whilst hailing us from a 



t distance, fired some musket-shot at us. The boat 

 belonged to a privateer of Halifax ; and I recognized among 

 the sailors a Prussian, a native of Memel. I had found 



:>|)ortunity, since my arrival in America, of expressing 

 nn sell in my native language, and I could have wished to 

 have spoken it on a less unpleasant occasion. Our protesta- 



* Mr. Langsdor (Wetterauisches Journal, pt. i. p. 254) first made 

 known this very extraordinary physiological phenomenon, which I prefer 

 describing in Latin : " Corisecorum gens, in ora Asiae septentrioni oppo- 

 sita, potum sibi excogitavit ex succo inebriante agaric! muscarii. Qui 

 *uccus(aeque ut asparagorum), vel pr humanum corpus transfusus, temu- 

 lentiam nihilominus facit. Quare gens misera et inops, quo rarius mentis 

 pit MISC. propriam urinam bibit identidem : continuoque mingens rursusque 

 h.iuriens eundem succum (dicas, ne ulla in parte munch desit ebrieUs), 

 pauculis agaricis producere in diem quintum temulentiam potest." 



