WATEH SNAKES. 
301 
and the pythons of India been called boas. Tbe first 
notions oi an enormous reptile capable of seizins; man, and 
even the great quadrupeds, came to us from India and the 
coast of Guinea. However indifferent names may be, we 
can scarcely admit the idea, that the hemisphere in which 
Virgil described the agonies of Laocoon, (a fable which the 
Greeks of Asia borrowed from much more southern nations) 
does not possess the boa-constrictor. I will not augment 
the confusion of zoological nomenclature by proposing new 
changes, and shall confine myself to observing that at least 
the missionaries and the latinized Indians of the missions, 
if not the planters of Guiana, clearly distinguish the traga- 
venados (real boas, with simple anal plates) from tbe culebras 
de agua, or water-snakes, like the camudu (pythons with 
double anal scales). The traga-venados have no transverse 
hands on the back, but a chain of rhombic or hexagonal 
spots. Some species prefer the driest places ; others love 
the water, as the pythons, or culebras de agua. 
Advancing towards the west, we find the hills or islets in 
the deserted branch of the Orinoco crowned with the same 
palm-trees that rise on the rocks of the cataracts. One of 
these hills, called Keri, is celebrated in the country on 
account of a white spot which shines from afar, and in 
which the natives profess to see the image of the full moon, 
I could not climb this steep rock, but I believe the white 
Spot to be a large nodule of quartz, formed by the union of 
several of those veins so common in granites passing into 
gneiss. Opposite Keri, or the Hock of the Moon, on the 
twin mountain Ouivitari, which is an islet in the midst of 
the cataracts, the Indians point out with mysterious awe a 
similar white spot. It has the form of a disc; and they 
s ay this is the image of the sun (Camosi). Perhaps the 
geographical situation of these two objects has contributed 
to their having received these names. Keri is on the side 
of the setting, Camosi on that of the rising sun. Languages 
ceing the most ancient historical monuments of nations, 
some learned men have been singularly struck by the ana- 
lo gy between the American word camosi and camoscli, which 
seems to have signified originally, tho sun, in one of the 
Semitic dialects. This analogy has given rise to hypotheses- 
