BLACK AND WHITE WATEB3. 
97? 
‘ute want of wind render the air more burning and more 
irritating in its contact with the skin. 
“ How comfortable must people be in the moon !” said a 
Salive Indian to Father Gumilla ; “ she looks so beautiful 
a nd so clear, that she must be free from mosquitos.” These 
w ords, which denote the infancy of a people, are very remark- 
able. The satellite of the earth appears to ail savage 
nations the abode of the blessed, the country of abundance, 
"he Esquimaux, who counts among his riches a plank or 
trunk of a tree, thrown by the currents on a coast destitute 
°f vegetation, sees in the moon plains covered with forests ; 
the Indian of the forests of Orinoco there beholds open savan- 
nahs, where the inhabitants are never stung by mosquitos. 
After proceeding further to the south, where the system 
nl yellowish-brown waters commences,* on the banks of the 
Atabapo, the Timi, the Tuamini, and the Eio .Negro, we 
Enjoyed an unexpected repose. These rivers, like the 
Orinoco, cross thick forests, but the tipulary insects, as well 
the crocodiles, shun the proximity of the black waters. 
possibly these waters, which are a little colder, and chemically 
m lie rent from the white waters, are adverse to the larvae of 
npulary insects and gnats, which may be considered as real 
^uatic animals. Some small rivers, the colour of which is 
<ee P blue, or yellowish-brown (as the Toparo, the Mataveni, 
“*nd the Zama), are exceptions to the almost general rule of 
t* e absence of mosquitos over the black waters. These 
hree rivers swarm with them ; and the Indians themselves 
•^ed our attention on the problematic causes of this pheno- 
;u« on ' going down the Kio Negro, we breathed freely 
^ Maroa, Daripe, and San Carlos, villages situated on the 
°undaries of Brazil. But this improvement of our situation 
as ot short continuance; our sufferings recommenced as soou 
* we entered the Cassiquiare. At Esmeralda, at the eastern 
reality of the Upper Orinoco, where ends the known 
a °*dd of the Spaniards, the clouds of mosquitos are almost 
thick as at the Great Cataracts. At Mandavaca we found 
}, e old missionary, who told us with an air of sadness, that 
had had “his twenty years of mosquitos”* in America. 
* Generally called * black waters’ (ayuas negrax). 
f “ Yo tengo mis veinte afloa de mosquito*.’" 
T 2 
