SLIGHT SLOPE Or THE KITES. 
493 
•destitute of animals capable of furnishing it # ; but bow can 
we avoid being astonished at this indifference in the 
immense Chinese population, living in great part beyond 
the tropics, and in the same latitude with the nomad and 
pastoral tribes of central Asia ? If the Chinese have ever 
been a pastoral people, how have they lost the tastes and 
habits so intimately connected with that state, which 
precedes agricultural institutions ? These questions are 
interesting with respect both to the history ot the nations 
of oriental Asia, and to the ancient communications that 
are supposed to have existed between that part of the world 
and the north of Mexico. 
We went down the Orinoco in two days, from Carichana 
to the mission of TJruana, after having again passed the 
celebrated strait of Baraguan. We stopped several times to 
determine the velocity of the river, and its temperature at 
the surface, which was 27 '4°. The velocity was found to 
be two feet in a second (sixty-two toises in 3' 6") , in places 
where the bed of the Orinoco was more than twelve thou- 
sand feet broad, and from ten to twelve fathoms deep. The 
slope of the river is in fact extremely gentle from the Great 
Cataracts to Angostura ; and, if a barometric measurement 
were wanting, the diflerence of height might he determined 
by approximation, by measuring from time to time the 
velocity of the stream, and the extent of the section in 
breadth and depth. We had some observations of the stars 
at TJruana. I found the latitude of the mission to he 7 ° 
8'; but the results from different stars left a doubt of 
more than 1'. The stratum of mosquitos, which hovered 
over the ground, was so thick that I could not succeed in 
rectifying properly the artificial horizon. I tormented my- 
* The rein deer are not domesticated in Greenland as they are in 
Lapland; and the Esquimaux care little for their milk. The bisons 
taken very young, accustom themselves, on the west of the Alleghanies, 
to graze with herds of European cows. The females in some districts of 
India yield a little milk, but the natives have never thought of milking 
them. What is the origin of that fabulous story related by Gomara 
(chap. 43, p. 36). according to which the first Spanish navigators saw, on 
the coast of South Carolina, “ stag? led to the savannahs by herdsmen ? 
The female bisons, according to Mr. Buchanan and the philosophical 
historian of the Indian Archipelago, Mr. Crawford, yield more milk than 
common cows. 
