Jean de La Fontaine - "The Tales and Novels, v23: The River Scamander &c."

Charlotte M. Yonge - "Love and Life"

Stephen Leacock - "My Discovery of England"

Jean de La Fontaine - "The Tales and Novels, v8: The Ephesian Matron and Others"

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Books: Equinoctial Regions of America V2

A >> Alexander von Humboldt >> Equinoctial Regions of America V2




The state of perfect health enjoyed by the Ottomacs during the time
when they use little muscular exercise, and are subjected to so
extraordinary a regimen, is a phenomenon difficult to be explained. It
can be attributed only to a habit prolonged from generation to
generation. The structure of the digestive apparatus differs much in
animals that feed exclusively on flesh or on seeds; it is even
probable that the gastric juice changes its nature, according as it is
employed in effecting the digestion of animal or vegetable substances;
yet we are able gradually to change the regimen of herbivorous and
carnivorous animals, to feed the former with flesh, and the latter
with vegetables. Man can accustom himself to an extraordinary
abstinence and find it but little painful if he employ tonic or
stimulating substances (various drugs, small quantities of opium,
betel, tobacco, or leaves of coca); or if he supply his stomach, from
time to time, with earthy insipid substances that are not in
themselves fit for nutrition. Like man in a savage state some animals,
when pressed by hunger in winter, swallow clay or friable steatites;
such are the wolves in the northeast of Europe, the reindeer and,
according to the testimony of M. Patrin, the kids in Siberia. The
Russian hunters, on the banks of the Yenisei and the Amour, use a
clayey matter which they call rock-butter, as a bait. The animals
scent this clay from afar, and are fond of the smell; as the clays of
bucaro, known in Portugal and Spain by the name of odoriferous earths
(tierras olorosas), have an odour agreeable to women.* (* Bucaro (vas
fictile odoriferum). People are fond of drinking out of these vessels
on account of the smell of the clay. The women of the province of
Alentejo acquire a habit of masticating the bucaro earth; and feel a
great privation when they cannot indulge this vitiated taste.) Brown
relates in his History of Jamaica that the crocodiles of South America
swallow small stones and pieces of very hard wood, when the lakes
which they inhabit are dry, or when they are in want of food. M.
Bonpland and I observed in a crocodile, eleven feet long, which we
dissected at Batallez, on the banks of the Rio Magdalena, that the
stomach of this reptile contained half-digested fish, and rounded
fragments of granite three or four inches in diameter. It is difficult
to admit that the crocodiles swallow these stony masses accidentally,
for they do not catch fish with their lower jaw resting on the ground
at the bottom of the river. The Indians have framed the absurd
hypothesis that these indolent animals like to augment their weight,
that they may have less trouble in diving. I rather think that they
load their stomach with large pebbles to excite an abundant secretion
of the gastric juice. The experiments of Majendie render this
explanation extremely probable. With respect to the habit of the
granivorous birds, particularly the gallinaceae and ostriches, of
swallowing sand and small pebbles, it has been hitherto attributed to
an instinctive desire of accelerating the trituration of the aliments
in a muscular and thick stomach.

We have mentioned that tribes of Negroes on the Gambia mingle clay
with their rice. Some families of Ottomacs were perhaps formerly
accustomed to cause the maize and other farinaceous seeds to rot in
their poya, in order to eat earth and amylaceous matter together:
possibly it was a preparation of this kind, that Father Gumilla
described indistinctly in the first volume of his work when he affirms
that the Guamos and the Ottomacs feed upon earth only because it is
impregnated with the sustancia del maiz (substance of maize) and the
fat of the cayman. I have already observed that neither the present
missionary of Uruana, nor Fray Juan Gonzales, who lived long in those
countries, knew anything of this mixture of animal and vegetable
substances with the poya. Perhaps Father Gumilla has confounded the
preparation of the earth which the natives swallow with the custom
they still retain (of which M. Bonpland acquired the certainty on the
spot) of burying in the ground the beans of a species of mimosacea,*
(* Of the genus Inga.) to cause them to enter into decomposition so as
to reduce them into a white bread, savoury, but difficult of
digestion. I repeat that the balls of poya, which we took from the
winter stores of the Indians, contained no trace of animal fat, or of
amylaceous matter. Gumilla being one of the most credulous travellers
we know, it almost perplexes us to credit facts which even he has
thought fit to reject. In the second volume of his work he however
gainsays a great part of what he advanced in the first; he no longer
doubts that half at least (a lo menos) of the bread of the Ottomacs
and the Guamos is clay. He asserts, that children and full grown
persons not only eat this bread without suffering in their health, but
also great pieces of pure clay (muchos terrones de pura greda.) He
adds that those who feel a weight on the stomach physic themselves
with the fat of the crocodile which restores their appetite and
enables them to continue to eat pure earth.* (* Gumilla volume 2 page
260.) It is certain that the Guamos are very fond, if not of the fat,
at least of the flesh of the crocodile, which appeared to us white,
and without any smell of musk. In Sennaar, according to Burckhardt, it
is equally esteemed, and sold in the markets.

The little village of Uruana is more difficult to govern than most of
the other missions. The Ottomacs are a restless, turbulent people,
with unbridled passions. They are not only fond to excess of the
fermented liquors prepared from cassava and maize, and of palm-wine,
but they throw themselves into a peculiar state of intoxication, we
might say of madness, by the use of the powder of niopo. They gather
the long pods of a mimosacea which we have made known by the name of
Acacia niopo,* cut them into pieces, moisten them, and cause them to
ferment. (* It is an acacia with very delicate leaves, and not an
Inga. We brought home another species of mimosacea (the chiga of the
Ottomacs and the sepa of the Maypures) that yields seeds, the flour of
which is eaten at Uruana like cassava. From this flour the chiga bread
is prepared, which is so common at Cunariche, and on the banks of the
Lower Orinoco. The chiga is a species of Inga, and I know of no other
mimosacea that can supply the place of the cerealia.) When the
softened seeds begin to grow black, they are kneaded like a paste;
mixed with some flour of cassava and lime procured from the shell of a
helix, and the whole mass is exposed to a very brisk fire, on a
gridiron made of hard wood. The hardened paste takes the form of small
cakes. When it is to be used, it is reduced to a fine powder, and
placed on a dish five or six inches wide. The Ottomac holds this dish,
which has a handle, in his right hand, while he inhales the niopo by
the nose, through the forked bone of a bird, the two extremities of
which are applied to the nostrils. This bone, without which the
Ottomac believes that he could not take this kind of snuff, is seven
inches long: it appeared to me to be the leg-bone of a large sort of
plover. The niopo is so stimulating that the smallest portions of it
produce violent sneezing in those who are not accustomed to its use.
Father Gumilla says this diabolical powder of the Ottomacs, furnished
by an arborescent tobacco-plant, intoxicates them through the nostrils
(emboracha por las narices), deprives them of reason for some hours,
and renders them furious in battle. However varied may be the family
of the leguminous plants in the chemical and medical properties of
their seeds, juices, and roots, we cannot believe, from what we know
hitherto of the group of mimosaceae, that it is principally the pod of
the Acacia niopo which imparts the stimulant power to the snuff of the
Ottomacs. This power is owing, no doubt, to the freshly calcined lime.
We have shown above that the mountaineers of the Andes of Popayan, and
the Guajiros, who wander between the lake of Maracaybo and the Rio la
Hacha, are also fond of swallowing lime as a stimulant, to augment the
secretion of the saliva and the gastric juice.

A custom analogous to the use of the niopo just described was observed
by La Condamine among the natives of the Upper Maranon. The Omaguas,
whose name is rendered celebrated by the expeditions attempted in
search of El Dorado, have like the Ottomacs a dish, and the hollow
bone of a bird, by which they convey to their nostrils their powder of
curupa. The seed that yields this powder is no doubt also a mimosacea;
for the Ottomacs, according to Father Gili, designate even now, at the
distance of one hundred and sixty leagues from the Amazon, the Acacia
niopo by the name of curupa. Since the geographical researches which I
have recently made on the scene of the exploits of Philip von Huten,
and the real situation of the province of Papamene, or of the Omaguas,
the probability of an ancient communication between the Ottomacs of
the Orinoco and the Omaguas of the Maranon has become more interesting
and more probable. The former came from the Meta, perhaps from the
country between the Meta and the Guaviare; the latter assert that they
descended in great numbers to the Maranon by the Rio Jupura, coming
from the eastern declivity of the Andes of New Grenada. Now, it is
precisely between the Guayavero (which joins the Guaviare) and the
Caqueta (which takes lower down the name of Japura) that the country
of the Omagua appears to be situate, of which the adventurers of Coro
and Tocuyo in vain attempted the conquest. There is no doubt a
striking contrast between the present barbarism of the Ottomacs and
the ancient civilization of the Omaguas; but all parts of the latter
nation were not perhaps alike advanced in civilization, and the
example of tribes fallen into complete barbarism are unhappily but too
common in the history of our species. Another point of resemblance may
be remarked between the Ottomacs and the Omaguas. Both of these
nations are celebrated among all the tribes of the Orinoco and the
Amazon for their employment of caoutchouc in the manufacture of
various articles of utility.

The real herbaceous tobacco* (for the missionaries have the habit of
calling the niopo or curupa tree-tobacco) has been cultivated from
time immemorial by all the native people of the Orinoco; and at the
period of the conquest the habit of smoking was found to be alike
spread over both North and South America.

(* The word tobacco (tabacco), like the words savannah, maize,
cacique, maguey (agave), and manati, belongs to the ancient language
of Haiti, or St. Domingo. It did not properly denote the herb but the
tube through which the smoke was inhaled. It seems surprising that a
vegetable production so universally spread should have different names
among neighbouring people. The pete-ma of the Omaguas is, no doubt,
the pety of the Guaranos; but the analogy between the Cabre and
Algonkin (or Lenni-Lenape) words which denote tobacco may be merely
accidental. The following are the synonyms in thirteen languages.

North America. Aztec or Mexican; yetl: Algonkin; sema: Huron; oyngoua.

South America. Peruvian or Quichua; sayri: Chiquito; pais. Guarany;
pety: Vilela; tusup: Mbaja (west of the Paraguay), nalodagadi: Moxo
(between the Rio Ucayale and the Rio Madeira); sabare. Omagua; petema.
Tamanac; cavas. Maypure; jema. Cabre; scema.)

The Tamanacs and the Maypures of Guiana wrap maize-leaves round their
cigars, as the Mexicans did at the time of the arrival of Cortes. The
Spaniards have substituted paper for the leaves of maize in imitation
of them. The poor Indians of the forests of the Orinoco know as well
as did the great nobles at the court of Montezuma that the smoke of
tobacco is an excellent narcotic; and they use it not only to procure
their afternoon nap, but also to put themselves into that state of
quiescence, which they call dreaming with the eyes open, or
day-dreaming. The use of tobacco appears to me to be now very rare in
the missions; and in New Spain, to the great regret of the
revenue-officers, the natives, who are almost all descended from the
lowest class of the Aztec people, do not smoke at all. Father Gili
affirms that the practice of chewing tobacco is unknown to the Indians
of the Lower Orinoco. I rather doubt the truth of this assertion,
having been told that the Sercucumas of the Erevato and the Caura,
neighbours of the whitish Taparitos, swallow tobacco chopped small,
and impregnated with some other very stimulant juices, to prepare
themselves for battle. Of the four species of nicotiana cultivated in
Europe* (* Nicotiana tabacum, N. rustica, N. paniculata, and N.
glutinosa.) we found only two growing wild; but the Nicotiana
loxensis, and the Nicotiana andicola, which I found on the back of the
Andes, at the height of eighteen hundred and fifty toises (almost the
height of the Peak of Teneriffe), are very similar to the N. tabacum
and N. rustica. The whole genus, however, is almost exclusively
American, and the greater number of the species appeared to me to
belong to the mountainous and temperate region of the tropics.

It was neither from Virginia, nor from South America, but from the
Mexican province of Yucatan, that Europe received the first tobacco
seeds, about the year 1559.* (* The Spaniards became acquainted with
tobacco in the West India Islands at the end of the 15th century. I
have already mentioned that the cultivation of this narcotic plant
preceded the cultivation of the potato in Europe more than 120 or 140
years. When Raleigh brought tobacco from Virginia to England in 1586,
whole fields of it were already cultivated in Portugal. It was also
previously known in France, where it was brought into fashion by
Catherine de Medicis, from whom it received the name of herbe a la
reine, the queen's herb.) The celebrated Raleigh contributed most to
introduce the custom of smoking among the nations of the north. As
early as the end of the sixteenth century bitter complaints were made
in England of this imitation of the manners of a savage people. It was
feared that, by the practice of smoking tobacco, Englishmen would
degenerate into a barbarous state.* (* This remarkable passage of
Camden is as follows, Annal. Elizabet. page 143 1585; "ex illo sane
tempore [tabacum] usu cepit esse creberrimo in Anglia et magno pretio
dum quamplurimi graveolentem illius fumum per tubulum testaceum
hauriunt et mox e naribus efflant; adeo ut Auglornm corporum in
barbarorum naturam degenerasse videantur, quum iidem ac barbari
delectentur." We may see from this passage that they emitted the smoke
through the nose; but at the court of Montezuma the pipe was held in
one hand, while the nostrils were stopped with the other, in order
that the smoke might be more easily swallowed. Life of Raleigh volume
1 page 82.)

When the Ottomacs of Uruana, by the use of niopo (their arborescent
tobacco), and of fermented liquors, have thrown themselves into a
state of intoxication, which lasts several days, they kill one another
without ostensibly fighting. The most vindictive among them poison the
nail of their thumb with curare; and, according to the testimony of
the missionary, the mere impression of this poisoned nail may become a
mortal wound if the curare be very active and immediately mingle with
the mass of the blood. When the Indians, after a quarrel at night,
commit a murder, they throw the dead body into the river, fearing that
some indications of the violence committed on the deceased may be
observed. "Every time," said Father Bueno, "that I see the women fetch
water from a part of the shore to which they are not accustomed to go,
I suspect that a murder has been committed in my mission."

We found in the Indian huts at Uruana the vegetable substance called
touchwood of ants,* (* Yesca de hormigas.) with which we had become
acquainted at the Great Cataracts, and which is employed to stop
bleeding. This substance, which might less improperly be called ants'
nests, is in much request in a region whose inhabitants are of so
turbulent a character. A new species of ant, of a fine emerald-green
(Formica spinicollis), collects for its habitation a cotton-down, of a
yellowish-brown colour, and very soft to the touch, from the leaves of
a melastomacea. I have no doubt that the yesca or touchwood of ants of
the Upper Orinoco (the animal is found, we were assured, only south of
Atures) will one day become an article of trade. This substance is
very superior to the ants' nests of Cayenne, which are employed in the
hospitals of Europe, but can rarely be procured.

On the 7th of June we took leave with regret of Father Ramon Bueno. Of
the ten missionaries whom we had found in different parts of the vast
extent of Guiana, he alone appeared to me to be earnestly attentive to
all that regarded the natives. He hoped to return in a short time to
Madrid, where he intended to publish the result of his researches on
the figures and characters that cover the rocks of Uruana.

In the countries we had just passed through, between the Meta, the
Arauca, and the Apure, there were found, at the time of the first
expeditions to the Orinoco, in 1535, those mute dogs, called by the
natives maios, and auries. This fact is curious in many points of
view. We cannot doubt that the dog, whatever Father Gili may assert,
is indigenous in South America. The different Indian languages furnish
words to designate this animal, which are scarcely derived from any
European tongue. To this day the word auri, mentioned three hundred
years ago by Alonzo de Herrera, is found in the Maypure. The dogs we
saw at the Orinoco may perhaps have descended from those that the
Spaniards carried to the coast of Caracas; but it is not less certain
that there existed a race of dogs before the conquest, in Peru, in New
Granada, and in Guiana, resembling our shepherds' dogs. The allco of
the natives of Peru, and in general all the dogs that we found in the
wildest countries of South America, bark frequently. The first
historians, however, all speak of mute dogs (perros mudos). They still
exist in Canada; and, what appears to me worthy of attention, it was
this dumb variety that was eaten in preference in Mexico,* and at the
Orinoco. (* See on the Mexican techichi and on the numerous
difficulties that occur in the history of mute dogs and dogs destitute
of hair the Views of Nature Bohn's edition page 85.) A very well
informed traveller, M. Giesecke, who resided six years in Greenland,
assured me that the dogs of the Esquimaux, which pass their lives in
the open air and bury themselves in winter beneath the snow, do not
bark, but howl like wolves.* (* They sit down in a circle, one of them
begins to howl alone and the others follow in the same tone. The
groups of alouate monkeys howl in the same manner, and among them the
Indians distinguish the leader of the band. It was the practice at
Mexico to castrate the mute dogs in order to fatten them. This
operation must have contributed to alter the organ of the voice.)

The practice of eating the flesh of dogs is now entirely unknown on
the banks of the Orinoco; but as it is a Tartar custom spread through
all the eastern part of Asia, it appears to me highly interesting for
the history of nations to have ascertained that it existed heretofore
in the hot regions of Guiana and on the table-lands of Mexico. I must
observe, also, that on the confines of the province of Durango, at the
northern extremity of New Spain, the Comanches have preserved the
habit of loading the backs of the great dogs that accompany them in
their migrations with their tents of buffalo-leather. It is well known
that employing dogs as beasts of burthen and of draught is equally
common near the Slave Lake and in Siberia. I dwell on these features
of conformity in the manners of nations, which become of some weight
when they are not solitary, and are connected with the analogies
furnished by the structure of languages, the division of time, and
religious creeds and institutions.

We passed the night at the island of Cucuruparu, called also Playa de
la Tortuga, because the Indians of Uruana go thither to collect the
turtles' eggs. It is one of the best determined points of latitude
along the banks of the Orinoco. I was there fortunate enough to
observe the passage of three stars over the meridian. To the east of
the island is the mouth of the Cano de la Tortuga, which descends from
the mountains of Cerbatana, continually wrapped in electric clouds. On
the southern bank of the Cano, between the tributary streams Parapara
and Oche, lies the almost ruined mission of San Miguel de la Tortuga.
The Indians assured us that the environs of this little mission abound
in otters with a very fine fur, called by the Portuguese water-dogs
(perritos de agua); and what is still more remarkable, in lizards
(lagartos) with only two feet. The whole of this country, which is
very accessible between the Rio Cuchivero and the strait of Baraguan,
is worthy of being visited by a well-informed zoologist. The lagarto
destitute of hinder extremities is perhaps a species of Siren,
different from the Siren lacertina of Carolina. If it were a saurian,
a real Bimanis (Chirotes, Cuvier), the natives would not have compared
it to a lizard. Besides the arrau turtles, of which I have in a former
place given a detailed account, an innumerable quantity of land
tortoises also, called morocoi, are found on the banks of the Orinoco,
between Uruana and Encaramada. During the great heats of summer, in
the time of drought, these animals remain without taking food, hidden
beneath stones, or in the holes they have dug. They issue from their
shelter and begin to eat, only when the humidity of the first rains
penetrates into the earth. The terekay, or tajelu turtle which lives
in fresh water, has the same habits. I have already spoken of the
summer-sleep of some animals of the tropics. As the natives know the
holes in which the tortoises sleep amidst the dried lands, they get
out a great number at once, by digging fifteen or eighteen inches
deep. Father Gili says that this operation, which he had seen, is not
without danger, because serpents often bury themselves in summer with
the terekays.

From the island of Cucuruparu, to the capital of Guiana, commonly
called Angostura, we were but nine days on the water. The distance is
somewhat less than ninety-five leagues. We seldom slept on shore but
the torment of the mosquitos diminished in proportion as we advanced.
We landed on the 8th of June at a farm (Hato de San Rafael del
Capuchino) opposite the mouth of the Rio Apure. I obtained some good
observations of latitude and longitude.* (* I had found, on the 4th of
April, for the Boca del Rio Apure (on the western bank of the
Orinoco), the latitude 7 degrees 36 minutes 30 seconds, the longitude
59 degrees 7 minutes 30 seconds; on the 8th of June I found, for the
Hato del Capuchino (on the eastern bank of the Orinoco), the latitude
7 degrees 37 minutes 45 seconds, the longitude 69 degrees 5 minutes 30
seconds.) Having two months before taken horary angles on the bank
opposite Capuchino, these observations were important for determining
the rate of my chronometer, and connecting the situations on the
Orinoco with those on the shore of Venezuela. The situation of this
farm, being at the point where the Orinoco changes its course (which
had previously been from south to north), and runs from west to east,
is extremely picturesque. Granite rocks rise like islets amidst vast
meadows. From their tops we discerned towards the north the Llanos of
Calabozo bounding the horizon. We had been so long accustomed to the
aspect of forests, that this view made a powerful impression on us.
The steppes after sunset assume a tint of greenish gray. The visual
ray being intercepted only by the rotundity of the earth, the stars
seemed to rise as from the bosom of the ocean, and the most
experienced mariner would have fancied himself placed on a projecting
cape of a rocky coast. Our host was a Frenchman who lived amidst his
numerous herds. Though he had forgotten his native language, he seemed
pleased to learn that we came from his country, which he had left
forty years before; and he wished to retain us for some days at his
farm. The small towns of Caycara and Cabruta were only a few miles
distant from the farm; but during part of the year our host was in
complete solitude. The Capuchino becomes an island by the inundations
of the Apure and the Orinoco, and the communication with the
neighbouring farms can be kept up only by means of a boat. The horned
cattle then seek the higher grounds which extend on the south toward
the chain of the mountains of Encaramada. This granitic chain is
intersected by valleys which contain magnetic sands (granulary
oxidulated iron), owing no doubt to the decomposition of some
amphibolic or chloritic strata.