200 
FETID BIVEE-WATEB 
animated, strikes the imagination of the traveller when ho 
enters the basin of the Mediterranean, within the zone of 
olives, dwarf palms, and date-trees. 
W e passed the night on the eastern bank of the Orinoco, 
at the foot of a granitic hill. Near this desert spot was 
formerly seated the Mission of San Eegis. We could have 
wished to find a spring in the Baraguan, for the water of 
the river had a smell of musk, and a sweetish taste ex- 
tremely disagreeable. In the Orinoco, as well as in the 
Apure, we are struck with the difference observable in the 
various parts of the river near the most barren shore. The 
water is sometimes very drinkable, and sometimes seems to 
be loaded with a slimy matter. “It is the bark (meaning 
the coriaceous covering) of the putrified cayman that is the 
cause,” say the natives. “The more aged the cayman, the 
more bitter is his bark." I have no doubt that the carcasses 
of these large reptiles, those of the manatis, which weigh five 
hundred pounds, and the presence of the porpoises (toninas) 
with their mucilaginous skin, may contaminate the water, 
especially in the creeks, where the river has little velocity- 
Tet the spots where we found the most fetid water, were 
not always those where dead animals were accumulated on 
the beach. When, in such burning climates, where we are 
constantly tormented by thirst, we are reduced to drink the 
water of a river at the temperature of 27° or 28°, we cannot 
help wishing at least that water so hot, and so loaded with 
sand, should be free from smell. 
On the 8th of April we passed the mouths of the Suapure 
or Sivapuri, and the Caripo, on the east, and the outlet of 
the Sinaruco on the west. This last river is, next to the 
Rio Arauca, the most considerable between the Apure and 
the Meta. The Suapure, full of little cascades, is celebrated 
among the Indians for the quantity of wild honey obtained 
from the forests in its neighbourhood. The melipones there 
suspend their enormous hives to the branches of trees- 
Bather Gili, in 1766, made an excursion on the Suapure, and 
on the Turiva, which falls into it. He there found tribe* 
of the nation of Areverians. We passed the night a little 
below the island Macapinn. 
Early on the following morning we arrived at the beach 
>f Pararuma, where we found an encampment of Indian^ 
