394 



humboldt's ctjba. 



On the evening of the 15th of March, we left 

 Trinidad, and our departure was widely different 

 from our arrival, on horseback with the Catalan 

 shopkeepers. The municipal council sent us to the 

 mouth of the Guaurabo in a coach lined with ancient 

 red damask ; and to increase the embarrassment we 

 felt, an ecclesiastic, who was also the poet of the 

 place, dressed throughout in velvet notwithstanding 

 the great heat, celebrated in a sonnet our voyage to 

 the Orinoco. On the way to the harbor we were sin- 

 gularly surprised with a spectacle which a residence 

 of more than two years in the tropics should have 

 made familiar to us. 



Nowhere else have I seen such an innumerable 

 quantity of fireflies 1 (cocuyos), for trees, branches, 

 and leaves glowed with them in their brilliant and 

 moving light, the intensity of which varies with the 

 will of the insect that produces it ; it seemed to me 

 as though the starry vault of heaven had fallen 

 upon the plain. In the habitations of the poorer 

 classes in the county, a dozen of these insects placed 

 in a perforated gourd, suffice for a light during the 

 night. By shaking the gourd quickly, the insect is 

 roused, and lights up the luminous discs which are 

 placed on each side of its head. The inhabitants 



1 Elater noctilucus. — H. 



