206 
homes or m natives. 
daring the night? Because there is more calmness on 
account of the absence of caloric (of the hottest).* This 
absence renders every thing calmer, for the sun is the prin* 
ciple of all movement.” Aristotle had no doubt a vague 
presentiment of the cause of the phenomenon ; but he attri- 
butes to the motion of the atmosphere, and the shock of the 
particles of air, that which seems to be rather owing to 
abrupt changes of density iu the contiguous strata of air. 
On the 16th of April, towards evening, we received tiding 3 
that in less than sis hours our boat had passed the rapid 9 * 
and had arrived in good condition in a cove called el Puerto 
da arriba, or the Port of the Expedition. We were show® 
in the little church of Atures some remains of the ancient 
wealth of the Jesuits. A silver lamp of considerable weigh* 
lay on the ground half-buried in the sand. Such an object; 
it is true, would nowhere tempt the cupidity of a savage ! 
yet I may here remark, to the honor of the natives of the 
Orinoco, that they are not addicted to stealing, like the le 93 
savage tribes of the islands in the Pacific. The former hav® 
a great respect for property ; they do not even attempt to 
steal provision, hooks, or hatchets. At Maypures 
Atures, locks on doors are unknown : they will be introduced 
only when whites and men of mixed race establish themselv' eS 
in the missions. 
The Indians of Atures are mild and moderate, and accus- 
tomed, from the effects of their idleness, to the greatest p 11 ' 
rations. Formerly, being excited to labour by the Jesuit 3 ’ 
they did not want for food. The fathers cultivated maiz®’ 
French beans (frijoles), and other European vegetable 3 ’ 
they even planted sweet oranges and tamarinds round tb® 
villages ; and they possessed twenty or thirty thousand 
head of cows and horses, in the savannahs of Atures au® 
* I have placed in a parenthesis, a literal version of the term employ 13 * 
by Aristotle, to express in reality what we now term the matter of 
Theodore of Gaza, in his Latin translation, expresses in the shape 0 
a doubt what Aristotle positively asserts. 1 may here remark, tit*** 
notwithstanding the imperfect state of science among the ancient®* 
the works of the Stagirite contain more ingenious observations than tbof® 
of many later philosophers. It is in vain we look in Aristoxenes (” 
Mnsiea), in Theophylactns Simocatta (De Quatstiouihus physicis), o' ,' 
the 5th ( Book of the Qutest. Nat. of Seneca, for an explanation ot tl ' 
nocturnal augmentation of sound. 
