160 



acacia, which grows in the plain, at some dis- 

 tance from the hut ; while he stretched himself 

 at the foot of the tree, and did not permit his 

 daughter to descend, till the sportsmen had de- 

 parted. Travellers have not always found this 

 timorous watchfulness, this great austerity of 

 manners, among the inhabitants of islands. 



The lake is in general well stocked with fish ; 

 though it furnishes only three kinds, the flesh of 

 which is soft and insipid, the guavina, the vagra, 

 and the sardina. The two last descend into 

 the lake by the streams that flow into it. The 

 guavina, of which I made a drawing on the 

 spot, is twenty inches long, and 3*5 thick. It 

 is perhaps a new species of the genus erythrina 

 of Gronovius. It has large silvery scales, edged 

 with green. This fish is extremely voracious, 

 and destroys the other kinds. The fishermen 

 assured us, that a small crocodile, the bava % 

 which often approached us when we were bathing, 

 contributes also to the destruction of the fish. 

 We never could succeed in procuring this reptile, 

 so as to examine it near : it generally attains 



* The bava, or bavilla, is very common at Bordones, near 

 Cumana. See above, vol. ii, p. 47 and 211. The name of 

 bava [baveusej has singularly misled Mr. Depons ; he takes 

 this reptile for a fish of our seas, the blenniuspholis. (Voyage 

 h la Terre Ferme, vol. iv, p. 142). (The blenniuspholis, smooth 

 blenny, is called by the French baveuse (slaverer), in Spanish 

 6a6a.— Ed.) 



\ 



