408 PROSE HAIIEUTICS. 



than Humboldt, we select, as they may not be familiar 

 to all our readers, the following highly interesting para- 

 graphs. 



' Having, remained for three days, to no purpose, in 

 the town of Calabozo, and received but a single living 

 eel, and that rather weak, we resolved to proceed to the 

 banks of those pools in which the gymnoti abound, and 

 make our experiments in the open air ... . We were 

 greatly surprised when we were iorormed that the In- 

 dians were going to catch about thirty half-wild horses 

 in the neighbouring savannahs, to employ them in fish- 

 ing for these electric eels .... While our host was ex- 

 plaining to us this strange system of fishing, a troop of 

 horses and mides arrived. The Indians had made a 

 sort of enclosure around them, and pressing them closely 

 on all sides, forced them to enter the water .... Being 

 provided with very long reeds and harpoons, they placed 

 themselves around the basin. Some of them mounted 

 upon the trees, whose branches overhung the surface of 

 the water. They all prevented, by their cries and the 

 length of their reeds, the horses from attaining the shore. 

 The eels, stunned and confused by the noise of the, 

 horses, defended themselves by the reiterated discharge 

 of their electric batteries. For a long time they seemed 

 likely to gain the victory over the horses and mules ; 

 these were seen in every direction, stunned by the fre- 

 quency and force of the electric shocks, to disappear un- 

 der the water. Some horses, however, rose again, and 

 ia spite of the active vigilance of the Indians, gained the 

 shore exhausted with fatigue ; and their limbs being be- 

 numbed by the electric commotions, they stretched them- 

 selves at full length upon the ground. I could have 

 vrished. that a skilful paiater had had the opportunity of 

 seizing the moment when the scene was most animated. 

 The groups of Indians surrounding the basin; the 

 horses with their manes bristling, terror and anguish 



