LEG-ENDS Of HEADLESS MEK. 
317 
diffused over the groutnd, in the air, and on the surface of 
the waters. But towards noon, when the sun reaches its 
zenith, these strong shadows gradually disappear, and the 
whole group is veiled by an aerial vapour of a much deeper 
azure than that of the lower regions of the celestial vault. 
These vapours, circulating around the rocky ridge, soften 
its outline, temper the effects of the light, and give the 
landscape that aspect of calmness and repose which in 
Mature, as in the works of Claude Lorraine and Poussin, 
arises from the harmony of forms and colours. 
Cruzero, the powerful chief of the Guaypunaves, long 
resided behind the mountains of Sipapo, after having 
quitted with his warlike horde the plains between the Bio 
Inirida and the Chamochiquini. The Indians told us that 
the forests which cover the Sipapo abound in the climbing 
plant called velmco de maimure. This species of liaua is 
celebrated among the Indians, and serves for making 
baskets and weaving mats. The forests of Sipapo are 
altogether unknown, and there the missionaries place the 
nation of the Hay as,* whose mouths are believed to be in 
their navels. An old Indian, whom we met at Carichana, 
and who boasted of having often eaten human flesh, had 
seen these acephali “with his own eyes.” These absurd 
fables are spread as far as the Llanos, where you are not 
always permitted to doubt the existence of the Baya Indians. 
In every zone intolerance accompanies credulity ; and it 
“dght be said that the fictions of ancient geographers had 
Passed from one hemisphere to the other, did we not know 
t bat the most fantastic productions of the imagination, like 
the works of nature, furnish everywhere a certain analogy 
°f aspect and of form. 
We landed at the mouth of the Bio Vicliada or Visata to 
famine the plants of that part of the country. The scenery is 
Ver y singular. The forest is thin, and an innumerable quantity 
* Haps, on account of the pretended analogy with the fish of this name, 
. e mouth of which seems as if forced downwards below the body. This 
® lr *gular legend has been spread far and wide over the earth. Shakespeare 
^ as described Othello as recounting marvellous tales 
• £ of cannibals that do each other eat • 
Of Anthropophagi, and men whose heads 
Do grow beneath their shoulders.” 
