677 



mariner would have fancied himself placed on a 

 projecting cape of a rocky coast. Our host was 

 a Frenchman*, who lived amid his numerous 

 herds. Though he had forgotten his native lan- 

 guage, he seemed pleased to learn, that we came 

 from his country, which he had left forty years 

 before ; and he wished to retain us for some 

 days at his farm. The political revolutions of 

 Europe were to him almost unknown. He saw 

 only a movement against the clergy and the 

 monks ; and observed, that " this movement 

 would last as long as the monks continued to 

 make resistance." This manner of seeing was 

 very natural for a man, who had passed his life 

 on the borders of the missions, and who had 

 heard unceasingly of the conflict between the 

 secular and ecclesiastical powers. The small 

 towns of Caycara and Cabruta were only a few 

 miles distant from the farm ; but during part of 

 the year our host was in complete solitude. 

 The Capuchino becomes an island by the inunda- 

 tions of the Apure and the Oroonoko, and the 

 communication with the neighbouring farms can 

 be kept up only by means of a boat-}-. The 



* M. Francois Doizan. 

 t To the south west are Hato del Re, and Hato de San An~ 

 tonio. From Uruana as far as the mouth of the Cuchivero, 

 the vegetation of these countries appeared to us to be charac^- 

 terized in the savannahs by isolepis squarrosa, i. vahlii, i. 

 gracilis, oplismenus Bwmanni ; and in woody places by the 



