BANKS OK THE MANZANABES. 
159 
Tlie waters of the Manzanares are very limpid, ill quality 
and this river has no resemblance to the Manzanares of 
Madrid, which appears the more magnificent in contrast with 
the fine bridge by which it is crossed. It takes its source, like 
all the rivers ot New A ndalusia, in the savannahs (llanos) 
known by the names of the plateaux of Jonoro, Atnana, and 
Guanipa * and it receives, near the Indian village of San 
Fernando, the waters of the Rio Juanillo. It has been 
several times proposed to the government, but without success, 
to construct a dyke at the first ipure, in order to form arti- 
ficial irrigations in the plain of Oharas ; for, notwithstanding 
its apparent sterility, the soil is extremely productive, 
wherever humidity is combined with the heat of the climate. 
The cultivators were gradually to refund the money advanced 
for the construction of the sliuces. Meanwhile, pumps 
worked by mules, and other hydraulic but imperfect ma- 
chines, have been erected, to serve till this project is carried 
into execution. 
The banks of the Manzanares are very pleasant, and 
are shaded by mimosas, erythrinas, ceibas, aiid other trees of 
gigantic growth. A river, the temperature of which, in the 
season of the floods, descends as low as twenty-two degrees, 
when the air is at thirty and thirty-three degrees, is an in- 
estimable benefit in a country where the heat is excessive 
during the whole year, and where it is so agreeable to bathe 
several times in the day. The children pass a considerable 
part of their lives in the water ; all the inhabitants, even the 
women of the most opulent families, know how to swim ; and 
in a country where man is so near the state of nature, one of 
the first questions asked on meeting in the morning is, 
whether the water is cooler than it was on the proceeding 
evening. One of the modes of bathing is curious. AVe 
every evening visited a family, in the suburb of the Guay- 
querias. In a fine moonlight night, chairs were placed in 
the water ; the men and women were lightly clothed, as in 
some baths of the north of Europe ; and the family and 
strangers, _ assembled _ in the river, passed some hours in 
smoking cigars, and in talking, according to the custom of 
* These three eminences bear the names of mesas , tables. An immense 
plain has an almost imperceptible rise from both sides to the middle, 
without any appearance of mountains or hills. 
