312 TlMEHRI. 
the surrounding plain, and on either hand opened out 
most lovely valleys, each watered by its own little stream, 
whose course was marked out by the JEta. palms, or 
Moriches, as they are here called. The grass too, with 
which the plain was covered, is of excellent quality, well 
suited for cattle. Along this ridge I rode for two days, 
all the time marvelling at the beautiful panorama spread 
before me. Game was in abundance and I had no 
difficulty in procuring more than I could eat. Each night 
the grass was my couch, as it was safer to sleep in the 
open plain than to sling a hammock in a belt of forest, 
since pumas and jaguars abound wherever the trees 
afford them a shelter. The third day I saw in the 
distance on my right a magnificent lagoon, but as it was 
fully ten miles away I had not time to visit it. On 
the morning of the fourth day I noticed that the 
ridge was taking me too much to the left, and 
that the forest of the Ariare was almost lost from 
view, I therefore descended once more to the plain 
and directed my course a little more to the right, and 
about noon reached a small village of the Indians, 
deserted apparently at my approach. The village con- 
sisted of two oblong open-sided benabs, and one adobe, 
or clay-hut, of the same shape, with a low doorway at each 
end. Having tied up my mule, I took out a few strings 
of beads, and looked about for any trace of a human 
being. On peeping into the adobe hut, which was very 
dark and clouded with smoke, I discovered an old woman, 
very infirm,, with a sick child in a hammock. To each of 
these I gave a string of beads, with which they were 
evidently pleased ; but they were apparently scared, and 
it was not possible to make them comprehend anything 
