85 



potes, or simia satanas, that can have given rise 

 to such singular tales. 



After having spent two days near the cata- 

 ract of Atures, we were glad to have our boat 

 reladen, and leave a spot where the tempera- 

 ture of the air is generally by day twenty-nine 

 degrees, and by night twenty-six degrees of the 

 centigrade thermometer. This temperature 

 seemed to us to be still much more elevated, 

 from the feeling of heat which we experienced. 

 The want of concordance between the instru- 

 ments and the sensations must be attributed to 

 the continual irritation of the skin excited by 

 the moschettoes. An atmosphere filled with veno- 

 mous insects always appears to be more heated 

 than it is in reality. Saussure's hygrometer, ob- 

 served as usual in the shade*, marked by day, at 

 the minimum (at three in the afternoon) 78*2°; 

 by night, at the maximum, 81 '5°. This degree of 

 humidity is 5° less than the mean humidity of 

 the coast of Cumana ; but it is 10° above the 

 mean humidity of the Llanos, or plains destitute 

 of trees. The cataracts and the thickness of the 



* From 42° to 45° of the whale-bone hygrometer. (See 

 vol. iv, p. 145, 326, and 400. The barometer rose on the 

 15th of April, at the yuerto de arriba de Atures (at ten in the 

 morning) to 336* 5 lines ; in the village, situate in the middle 

 of a small table-land, on the 16th of April, at eleven in the 

 morning, to 834*3 lines. The centigrade thermometer at 

 noon in the shade was at 27*2°; in the sun at 31*9° j appa- 

 rent action of the sun, 4*7°. 



