347 



not attempt to employ means in which they pro- 

 fess to have great confidence. When interro- 

 gated on the effect of the tembladores, they never 

 fail to tell the Whites, that they may be touched 

 with impunity, while you are chewing tobacco. 

 This fable of the influence of tobacco on animal 

 electricity is as general on the continent of South 

 America, as t he belief among mariners of the effect 

 of garlick and tallow on the magnetic needle. 



Impatient of waiting, and having obtained 

 very uncertain results from an electrical eel that 

 had been brought to us alive, but much en- 

 feebled, we repaired to the Cano de Bera, to 

 make our experiments in the open air, on the 

 . borders of the water itself. We set off on the 19th 

 of March, at a very early hour, for the village 

 of Rastro de abaxo ; thence we were conducted 

 by the Indians to a stream, which, in the time 

 of drought, forms a basin of muddy water, sur- 

 rounded by fine trees * s the clusia, the amyris, 

 and the mimosa with fragrant flowers. To catch 

 the gymnoti with nets is very difficult, on account 

 of the extreme agility of the fish, which bury 

 themselves in the mud like serpents. We would 

 not employ the barbasco, that is to say, the roots 

 of the piscidea erithryna, jacquinia armillaris, 

 and some species of phyllanthus, which, thrown 



t Amyris lateriflora, a. coriacea, Iaurus pichurm, myroxylora 

 secundum, maJpighia reticulata. 



