to Humboldt were already under water; and in a remarkable manner the great explorer and his friends were preserved from a watery grave. The Orinoco, though still about 194 miles from its source, is here very broad, and near Pararuma the pilot would not proceed further. Humboldt hired another ship from a missionary, and continued his journey on the upper Orinoco on the 20th of April. The difficulties and dangers they had to encounter were numerous and varied first, the inadequate room of their ship; the fires they had to keep in the night, in order to chase away the jackals, who surrounded their resting-place; the oppressive heat; the troublesome mosquitoes; and other inevitable impediments, too numerous to relate. Baron Humboldt said, in retrospect of these days, "that only a naturally cheerful disposition, mutual kindness, and a soul alive and susceptible to grand scenes of nature's beauty, could vanquish such difficulties and privations." An unusual rise of the river afforded Humboldt an opportunity of instituting observations regarding the condition of the waters. On his voyage on the upper Orinoco, the ship passed several smaller rivers its tributaries; especially the greater Meta, which much resembles the Danube. They passed the city of Atures, where Humboldt, besides the missions, visited the great cataracts,* which produced a lasting impression on his mind. This was the case also at the sight of the cataracts of Atures and Maypures, where the travellers remained five days. He visited afterwards San Fernando de Atabapo, and continued his voyage on the Cassiquiare, which in reality unites the Orinoco and the Rio Negro. At the little place called Atabapo a new route had been projected, at the suggestion of the principal of the mission in that district. Humboldt and his companions resolved, accordingly, to navigate first the river Atabapo, and follow afterwards the course of the rivers Temi and Tuamini. Baron Humboldt found himself suddenly in an entirely new country, and on the shores of a river whose name he had never before heard. He penetrated regions where man had scarcely left a trace of his * "Cloud-girdled thunder! embodied storm! Howison. F existence. Indians, man-hunters, inhabited these deserts, and caused frequent annoyance to the missionary stations. In these wild regions of America, Humboldt believed himself translated to that period when the earth became gradually inhabited. He appeared in these primitive regions a witness to the first formation of human society. The human beings with whom he here became acquainted knew no other object of worship than the forces of nature. On the 6th of May Baron Humboldt reached the Rio Negro, noted on account of its serpentine course, after he had spent thirty-six days in a narrow boat, on a most perilous voyage. The rise of a single person from his seat, without giving due notice to the pilot, would have caused the boat to overturn. Although Humboldt suffered much from the sting of insects, the unhealthy climate and other inevitable difficulties had not injured him; and therefore, on his arrival at the isthmus of the Orinoco and the Amazon, he reviewed with satisfaction his past dangers and difficulties, supported by the assurance of having accomplished the most important object of this voyage, viz., that of determining astronomically the course of that arm of the Orinoco which flows into the Rio Negro, and of confirming its existence, which had been for half a century both asserted and denied. Baron Humboldt's experience in these regions was of the greatest importance, for the purpose of rectifying the mistakes of existing maps. Humboldt's feelings in sight of this region, in close approximation to the equator, are best expressed in his own words:-"In these interior parts of America we become almost accustomed to regard man as something non-essential in the order of nature. The earth is overburdened by a vegetation unrestrained in its process of development. Immense banks testify to the continual operations of organic forces; the crocodile and the boa rule the rivers; the jackal and other wild beasts rove without fear or danger through the forests. The sight of a luxuriant nature, in which man is nothing in comparison, is strange and saddening. Here, in a most fertile region, ever green, one searches in vain for traces of human activity, and believes oneself to be in a different world. These impressions become fortified in proportion to their duration." Baron Humboldt visited the various Roman Catholic missions which are here dispersed ; amongst others Maroa, and the still more southern fortress St. Carlos the extreme southern military post of the Spaniards, and scarcely two degrees from the equator. At this station he had the option either to descend the Amazon towards the coast of Brazil, or, on the river Cassiquiare and Orinoco, to reach again the north coast of Caracas. The latter route was chosen by him. The voyage on the river Cassiquiare was, independent of other difficulties, much aggravated by the presence of the mosquitoes, whose number increased the further they removed from the Rio Negro. He found only miserable Christian settlements on the eastern and the almost uninhabited western shore of the river. The human beings which he encountered ate with the same satisfaction the large ants which here abound as the Australians their spiders. But Baron Humboldt found here a still greater barbarity-the eating of human flesh. Only a few years before his arrival in these primitive regions, an alcalde, born here, had eaten one of his wives, having carefully fattened her. The protest of the Europeans against this detestable usage was of no avail. These different tribes looked upon each other as different beings, and claimed the same right to slay each other as they had to kill the jackal in the forest. Baron Humboldt called this voyage on the |