303 



agricultural activity *, learnt with astonishment, 

 that Greek priests had arrived in their neigh- 

 bourhood ; and that two nations, who inhabit 

 the eastern and western extremities of Europe, 

 were become neighbours on a coast of America 

 opposite to China. In Guyana circumstances 

 were of a very different complexion : the Span- 

 iards found on their frontiers those very Portu- 

 gueze, who, by their language, and their muni- 

 cipal institutions, form with them one of the 

 most noble remains of Roman Europe; but 

 whom mistrust, founded on unequal strength, 

 and too great proximity, has converted into an 

 often hostile, and always rival power. When 

 quitting the coasts of Venezuela (where, as at 

 the Havannah, and in the rest of the West India 

 islands, men are daily occupied by the commer- 

 cial politics of Europe), you proceed toward 

 the south, you feel that you are removing daily 

 with increased rapidity from all that belongs to 

 the mother country. Amid the steppes of the 

 Llanos, in those huts covered with ox-hides and 

 surrounded by wild herds, the subjects of con- 

 versation are the cares that the cattle require, 

 the drought of the climate, so unfavourable to 

 pasturage, and the damage occasioned by the 

 bats among the heifers and the colts. Em- 

 barked on the Oroonoko, and arrived at the 



* See my Political Essay on New Spain, vol. I, p. 320, 



