Page images
PDF
EPUB

Inclosure, thou'rt a curse upon the land,
And tasteless was the wretch who thy existence
plann'd,

O England! boasted land of liberty,
With strangers still thou may'st thy title

own,

But thy poor slaves the alteration see,

With many a loss to them the truth is known:
Like emigrating bird thy freedom's flown;
While mongrel clowns, low as their rooting
plough,

Disdain thy laws to put in force their own ;.
And every village owns its tyrants now,
And parish slaves must live as parish kings al-
low.'

[ocr errors]

There was a day when love was young,
And nought but bliss did there belong;
When blackbirds nestling o'er us sung,
Ah me! what sweetness wak'd his song,
I wish not springs for ever fled;
I wish not birds' forgotten strain;
I only wish for feelings dead

To warm and wake, and feel again.
But ah! what once was joy is past;
The time's gone by; the day and hour
Are whirring fled on trouble's blast..
As winter nips the summer flower.
A shadow is but left the mind,

[ocr errors]

With all our predilections for the first fruits of natural genius, we must admit that Clare has improved by culti vation; and though some of his earlier prodactions are striking from their neatness and simplicity, yet his more inatured efforts, though not deficient in this respect, have a refinement of language and a correctness of style, which give them an increased value. Should these new volumes extend the public patronage sufficiently to relieve him from that oppressive anxiety which still bears him down, we may fairly expect the poet to take a loftier and more extensive range of subject, and to add new claims to those he already possesses as a man of genius; though stronger claims to public sympathy and public support no one can present, than the poor Northamptonshire peasant; and with all the warmth of admiration for his talents, and sympathy for his miseBe where I may, when death brings in his ries, we recommend him and his works to the public.

Of joys that once were real to view; An echo only fills the wind This is the last extract which we With mocking sounds, that once were true. shall make from the Village Minstrel,' Though there is no species of poetry a poem which of itself would justify all more common than the sounet, yet the praise that has been bestowed on there are few who succeed in it. Clare John Clare, who, in vivid descriptions has indulged in it largely, and given us of rural scenery, in originality of ob- no less than sixty specimens of his taservation and strength of feeling, rich-lents in this species of composition, in ness of style and delicacy of sentiment, which we think him very successful. may rank with the best of poets of We quote three of them :the day, though a humble and uututored peasant.

Among the minor poems in these volumes, we have been much pleased with Autumn,' 'Cowper Green,' 'Song of Praise,' and some of the pastorals, a style in which Clare would have been successful, had he not abandoned it early in his poetic career. The songs and sonnets are many of them very pretty, and some of them possess considerable merit. We shall enrich our present article with a few of these pieces. The first is a sweet ballad :

I love thee, sweet Mary, but love thee in fear; Were I but the morning breeze, healthy and airy,

As thou goest a walking I'd breathe in thine

Dear,

And whisper and sigh how I love thee, my
Mary!

I wish but to touch thee, but wish it in vain;
Wert thou but a streamlet, a winding so
clearly,

And I little globules of soft dropping rain,

How fond would I press thy white bosom, my Mary!

'I would steal a kiss, but I dare not presume; Wert thou but a rose in thy garden, sweet fairy,

And I a bold bee for to rifle its bloom,

A whole summer's day would I kiss thee, my Mary !

918

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

'A WISH.

bill,
Or in my native village nestling still,
Demanding payment for life's ling'ing debt,

Or tracing scenes I've never known as yet,
O let one wish, go where I will, be mine,-

To turn me back and wander home to die,
'Mong nearest friends my latest breath resign,

And in a church-yard with my kindred lie,
'Neath the thick-shaded sycamore's decay,

Its broad leaves trembling to the breeze of days

To see its shadow o'er my ashes wave,
How soothing will it be, while hovering near,

My unseen spirit haunts its daisied grave,
Pausing on scenes in life once lov'd so dear'

TO TIME.

་ ་

In Fancy's eye, what an extended span,
Time, hoary herald, has been stretch'd by

thee:

Vain to conceive where thy dark burst began,

An Account of the Interior of Ceylon and of its Inhabitants. By John Davy, M. D., F. R. S.

(Continued from p. 610.) of Kandy was hereditary, yet it had ALTHOUGH the succession to the throne

much of the form of an elective monarchy; and the consent of the people was required before a successor could be declared. When it was publicly which was not until his successor had announced that the king was dead,

been chosen,

Thou birthless, boundless, vast immensity! A tent was pitched before the hall of Vain all conceptions of weak-minded man audience, in which, on a piece of iron, Thee to unravel from thy mystery!and a basin of mixed metal, a man stood In mortal wisdom, thou'st already ran by the side of a heap of paddy, and beat A circled travel of eternity; the mourning tom-tom-the public signal Still, but a moment of thy mighty plan Seems yet unwound, from what thy age shall themselves in black, and authorizing the of the event, warning the chiefs to dress

see,

Consuming tyrant of all mortal kind!

And what thon art, and what thou art to be,
Is known to none, but that Immortal Mind
Who reigns alone superior to thee.'

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

storms,

And falling leaves, and pastures lost to

flowers;

༄།།།

A luscious charm hangs on thy faded forms,
More sweet than Summer in her loveliest
hours, g

Who, in her blooming uniform of green,
Delights with samely and continued joy;
But give me, Autumn, where thy hand hath
been,

For there is wildness that can never cloy,—
The russet hue of fields left báre, and all
The tints of leaves and blossoms ere they fall.
In thy dull days of clouds a pleasure comes,
Wild music softens in thy hollow winds;

And in thy fading woods a beauty blooms,
That's more than dear to melancholy minds."

people to give vent to their grief, and cry, and lament aloud.

Till the body of the deceased monarch was consumed, it was contrary to custom for the prince to take any refreshment. The corpse, inclosed in a coffin, was carried in a palanqueen to the Awadana-madoowe, or royal burying-ground, attended by the chiefs, their wives, and daughters. As the funeral procession moved on, two women, standing on a platform, carried by four men, threw rice over the coffin. The priests of the different temples of Boodhoo were assentbled at the burying-ground, and having offered up the proper prayer for the happiness of the deceased monarch in his metempsychosis, were presented with cloths that were laid on the coffin, to be given them for discharging their pious office. The coffin was now placed in a kind of wooden cage, and was surrounded

[blocks in formation]

"The mourning tom-tom was sounded, and the funeral fire was kept alive till the eleventh day, when the chiefs proceeded to the burying ground with offerings of betel, areka nut, and such articles of diet as might be presented to the king with propriety. The fire was now extinguish ed, by pouring on it milk and cocoa-nut water; some of the calcined bones were put into a pot or urn of earthenware, and covered and sealed, whilst the rest of the bones and ashes were collected and deposited in a grave with the presents brought for the deceased king.

day after the marriage rites were com-
pleted,-

The king and queen amused themselves with throwing perfumed balls, and with squirting scented water at each other, a diversion to which the wives of the chiefs were admitted, and of which at liberty to pelt and bespatter even roy they were allowed to partake, being quite alty itself as much as they pleased. When the king was tired of the exercise, he retired to an apartment overlooking an adjoining room, in which vessels of scented water, and small copper cups were prepared for use, and in which the chiefs were assembled, only waiting for the appearance of the king, to deluge each other, with sweets.'

A banquet followed in the evening, in which there were two or three hundred different kind of curries, the drink being milk, or a beverage resembling lemonade. Dancing and singing extended the feast until day-break. We pass over the account of their national festivals, which are somewhat tedious, and quote the ceremony of receiving ambassadors by the old court of Kandy:

The urn was placed on the head of a man masked, and covered all over with black, who, holding a sword in his hand, and mounted on an elephant or horse, and attended by the chiefs, proceeded to the Mahawellé ganga. At the ferry called Katagastotta, two small canoes, made of the Kakoonga, were prepared, lashed The king held his court in the hall of together, and covered with boughs, in the audience, and transacted all business with form of a bower. The masked bearer his officers seated on the throne. Behind entering the canoe, was drawn towards the throne there was a secret door, by the mid-channel of the river, by two men which his majesty passed unobserved; swimming; who, when they approached and before it seven curtains, which were the deepest part of the stream, pushed the not drawn up till the king was seated and canoe forward and hastily retreated. composed, and in perfect readiness to Now the mask having reached the pro-appear. On ordinary occasions, all the per station, with the sword in one hand curtains were raised at once; and after and the urn in the other, divided the urn the chiefs had prostrated three times, they with the sword, and in the act plunged were desired to be at their ease, which into the stream, and diving, caine up as was resting on their knees, and on which, far as possible below, and landing on the when the business was over, they left the opposite side, disappeared. The canoes hall backward, his majesty remaining till were allowed to float down the river; the all had departed. On the presentation of horse or elephant was carried across, and ambassadors, extraordinary pomp and celeft to graze at large, never to be used remony were observed. A great conany more; and the women who threw the course of people was assembled; the rice over the coffin, with the men who royal elephants were drawn out; all the carried them, were also transported to the guards were on duty, and the approaches other side of the river, under the strict to the hall were illuminated. On enterprohibition of re-crossing. The chiefs ing the hall, the chiefs and ambassadors returned to the great square, informed the had to prostrate before the curtains, prince that the ceremony was ended, and which were now managed with peculiar were again ordered to purify themselves.' fines e: they were all suddenly drawn Another ceremony remained to be úp, and as suddenly let down, affording, at first, only a momentary glimpse of his performed before the prince could be majesty; after a pause, they were slowly considered completely king-that was drawn up, one after another, a certain choosing a name and putting on the number of prostrations being required for regal sword, for which a fortunate day each, till the throne was disclosed, and and a fortunate name were fixed by the king exposed to view: then the amthe royal astrologers. Coronation is bassador, actually crawling, was led to the not one of the ceremonies of the Kan foot of the throne by the ministers, walkdyan monarchy, though a very rich ing in the most submissive attitude; and having delivered his letters, he had the crown belonged to the kings of Kandy. troublesome task to perform of crawling The marriage ceremony of the king backward.' was long, complicated, and expensive, and, as will appear by the following part of it, somewhat disgusting. The

The judicial and legislative, as well as the executive power, formerly centered in the king; but all officers, from

[ocr errors]

the king downwards, exercised judicial powers, more or less; appeals laying from an inferior to a superior, till it reached the king himself, whose sentence was in all cases decisive. No one but the king had the power of passbut for high treason, the only capital ing sentence of death; for murder, it was carried into effect by hanging; crime besides, the sword was used instead of the halter, and the criminal nished by fine, imprisonment, and flogwas decapitated. Robbery was pu ging:

The crime of adultery, by the Singalese, was punished in a very summary institute a suit at law to recover damages; manner. The injured husband did not if he caught the adulterer in his house, he might beat him soundly, or even cut off his hair and ears, or have him flogged in public, and his wife flogged in the royal store-house, the place of punishment for women; after which, by his own ipse dixit, he might divorce her, and in disgrace send her home to her family.'

The cruel punishment for insolvency among the Singalese, forms a strange contrast to the mildness of their laws, in regard to offences. The creditor proving his debt, and the debtor acknowledging his incapacity to pay it, he and his family become slaves to the creditor, who retains them and their offspring till payment of the debt is inade.

The religion of the Singalese is that of the Boodhists; they do not believe in the existence of a supreme Being, the creator and preserver of the universe, but are materialists in the strictest sense of the term. Their opinions of heaven and hell bear some affinity to those of the Hindoos, of which we gave an account in our review of Mr. Ward's valuable work in our last year's volume.

The language of Ceylon, the Singalese, is distinct and peculiar, and is considered of so much consequence, that it is almost the only subject that is studied. Very many of the natives are grammatically acquainted with it; and reading and writing are almost as general amongst the male part of the population as in England :

The Singalese write very neatly and expeditiously, with a sharp-pointed fron style; and they colour the characters they have scratched by nibbling them with an ink made of lampblack and a solution of and actually formed of leaves of trees, gum. Their books are all manuscript, and confined by boards. The leaf most used, as best adapted to the purpose, is the immense leaf of the talipot-plant, occasionally nearly thirty feet in circumfer

ence. It is well and slowly dried in the shade, rubbed with an oil, and cut into

The subjects of their writing are various; chiefly theology, history, medicine, astrology, and poetry :

All

(To be concluded in our next.)

Personal Narrative of Travels to the
Equinoctial Regions of the New
Continent. By Alexander de Hum.
boldt and Aimé Boupland.

(Concluded from p, 452)
We concluded our former notice of
this valuable work with a description
of the caoutchouc and the process of
preparing it, and we now give an ac-
count of the Indian poison, which is
fabricated at Esmeralda, a most soli-
tary Christian mission of about eighty
inhabitants, on the Upper Oroonoko.
This active poison is employed in war,
in the chase, and, what is more singu-
lar, as a remedy for gastric obstruc-
tions. M. Humboldt says,-

In the arts, the Singalese have made in Ceylon, but the inhabitants are not more progress than in the sciences; unskilful in agriculture, pieces of suitable dimensions, the length particularly in some of the ornamental of which always greatly exceeds the or fine arts. Of these, painting is the width near the two extremities each least advanced. They are unacquaintpiece is perforated, that they may be connected by means of a cord, to which theed with perspective, or with the effect of boards are also attached, to form a book. light and shade in colouring. The boards are generally neatly painted their paints are mixed with gum, and and decorated. Occasionally, but rarely, of oil painting they are entirely ignotheir books are made of thin copper- rant. Lacker painting is an art much plates.' in use among the Singalese, and of which they are very fond, and which they perform with a good deal of skill and taste. It is chiefly used to ornament bows and arrows, spears, sticks, ivory boxes, priest's screens or fans, and wooden pillars. Their lacker is obtained from a shrub called kapitia (crocum lacciferum), very common in most parts of Ceylon. In statuary the Singalese have been more successful than in painting; religion affords the most common subject; and artists are instructed in their designs to three postures, the standing, sitting, and recumbent, and to the priestly costume, no one venturing the slightest innovation. The statues are always coloured. The art of casting is not behind that of sculpture, and there is now at Kandy a figure of Boodhoo, in copper, as large as life, which Dr. Davy says is so well done that it would be admired even in Europe.

• Almost every Singalese is more or less a poet; or at least can compose what they call poetry. Love is not their great inspiring theme, but interest-a young Kandyan does not indite a ditty to his mistress's eyebrows; the bearded chief is the favourite of his muse, to whom he sings his petition in verse, whether it be to ask a favour or beg an indulgence. All their poetry is sung or recited; they have seven tunes by which they are modulated. Their most admired tune is called "The Horse-trot;" from the resemblance which it bears to the sound of the trotting of a horse. Of their music, which is extremely simple, they are very fond, and prefer it greatly to our's, which they say they do not understand.'

The Singalese tunes are seven in number; and they have also seven musical instruments, on which they are most commonly played; these, of which Dr. Davy has given drawings, are principally of the drum kind; there is one made of brass, somewhat like a symbal, which is beat with a stick, a second in the shape of a clarionet, and a third of the violin

order.

In architecture the Singalese have not any peculiar or national style; but they execute work in gold and silver for jewelry with great taste and dexterity, and this with very few tools; the best artist only requiring the following:

The poison of the ticunas of the Amazon, the upas-tieute of Java, and the curare of Guyana, are the most deleterious substances that are known. Raleigh. toward the end of the sixteenth century, had heard the name of urari pronounced a vegetable substance, with as being which arrows were envenomed; yet no fixed notions of this poison had reached Europe. The missionaries, Gumilla and Gili, had not been able to penetrate into the country where the curare is manufactured. Gumilla asserts, "that this preparation was enveloped in great myștery; that its principal ingredient was furnished by a subterraneous plant, by a tuberose root, which never puts forth leaves, and which is called the root, by the venomous exhalations which arise way of eminence, raiz de si misma; that from the pots, cause the old women (the most useless) to perish, who are chosen to watch over this operation; finally, that these vegetable juices never appear sufficiently concentrated, till a few drops produce, at a distance, a repulsive action on the blood. An Indian wounds himself slightly; and a dart dipped in the liquid curare is held near the wound.

If it

The sciences can scarcely be said to A low earthen pot full of chaff or exist among the Singalese. Of mathe-saw-dust, on which he makes a little charcoal fire; a small bamboo blow-pipe, matics and geometry they are entirely about six inches long, with which he exignorant, and even of arithmetic their cites the fire; a short earthen tube or nozknowledge is very limited. They have zle, the extremity of which is placed at no figures of their own to represent the bottom of the fire, and through which numbers, and, according to their own the artist directs the blast of the blow-make the blood return to the vessels withmethod, they are obliged to use let-pipe; two or three small crucibles, made out having been brought into contact with of the fine clay of ant-hills; a pair of them, the poison is judged to be suffitongs; an anvil; two or three small ham-ciently concentrated." I shall not stop to refute these popular tales collected by mers; a file; and, to conclude, the last, a few small bars of iron and brass, about Father Gumilla. two inches long, differently pointed, for different kinds of work. It is astonishing what an intense little fire, more than sufficiently strong to melt silver and gold, can be kindled in a few minutes in the way just described. Such a simple port able forge deserves to be better known; it is, perhaps, even deserving the attention of the scientific experimenter, and may be useful to him when he wishes to excite a small fire, larger than can be procured by the common blow-pipe, and he has not a forge to command.

ters; they have lately adopted the Malabar or Tamul figures, with their tables of multiplication and subtraction. Their weights and measures are necessarily very defective. They are ignorant of astronomy, but greatly addicted to astrology; their knowledge of medicine is extremely superficial; of anatomy they are quite ignorant, and of chemistry their knowledge does not extend beyond distillation, which is principally used for extracting an ardent spirit from the fermented juice of the cocoa-nut tree. Their skill in pharmacy, surgery, and pathology, is in a very rude state.

Gardening is hardly known as an art

. When

we arrived at Esmeralda, the greater part of the Indians were returning from an excursion which they had made to the east, beyond the Rio Padamo, to gather juvias, or the fruit of the bertholletia, and the liana which yields the curare. Their return was celebrated by a festival, which is called in the mission, la fiesta de las juvias, and which resembles our harvest homes and vintage feasts. The women had prepared

a

quantity of fermented liquor, and during two days the Indians were in a state of intoxication. Among nations that attach

In addition to the ready-made shirts, the spathes of certain palm-trees furnish pointed caps, which resemble coarse net-work. M. Humboldt refutes the ancient traditions respecting the dwarf and fair Indians said to be near the sources of the Oroonoko.” Proceeding down this great river, he came to the cavern of Ataruipe, which he thus describes.

We soon reckoned in this tomb of a

great importance to the fruits of the palm-a cone, and placed in another stronger of the Oroonoko garments are found ready trees, and of some others useful for the cone, made of the leaves of the palm-tree. made on the trees."' nourishment of man, the period when The whole of this apparatus was supportthese fruits are gathered is marked by ed by slight frame-work, made of the pepublic rejoicings, and time is divided ac- tioli and ribs of palm leaves. A cold incording to these festivals, which succeed fusion is first prepared by pouring water one another in a course invariably the on the fibrous matter, which is the ground same. We were fortunate enough to find bark of the maracure. A yellowish water an old Indian less drunk than the rest, filters during several hours, drop by drop, who was employed in preparing the cu- through the leafy funnel. This filtered rare poison from freshly gathered plants. water is the venomous liquor, but it acHe was the chemist of the place. We quires strength only when it is concenfound at his dwelling, large earthen pots trated by evaporation, like molasses, in a for boiling the vegetable juice, shallower large earthern pot. The Indian, from vessels to favour the evaporation by a time to time, invited us to taste the lilarger surface, and leaves of the plaintain- quid; its taste, more or less bitter, de- whole extinct tribe near six hundred sketree rolled up in the shape of our filters, cides when the concentration by fire has letons well preserved, and so regularly and used to filtrate the liquids, more or been carried sufficien ly far. There is no placed, that it would have been difficult less loaded with fibrous matter. The danger in this operation, the curare being to make an error in their number. Every greatest order and neatness prevailed in deleterious only when it comes into im- skeleton reposes in a sort of basket, made this hut, which was transformed into a mediate contact with the blood. The va- of the petioles of the palm-tree. These chemical laboratory. The Indian who pours, therefore, that are disengaged from baskets, which the natives call mapires, was to instruct us, is known throughout the pans, are not hurtful, notwithstanding have the form of a square bag. Their the mission by the name of the muster of what has been asserted on this point by size is proportioned to the age of the poison, (amo del curare;) he had that self- the missionaries of the Oroonoko. Fon-dead; there are some for infants cut off sufficient air and tone of pedantry, of tana, in his fine experiments on the poison at the moment of their birth. We saw which the pharmacopolists of Europe of the ticunas of the river of Amazons, them from ten inches to three feet four were formerly accused, "I know," said long ago proved, that the vapours rising inches long, the skeletons in them being he, "that the whites have the secret of fa- from this poison, when thrown on burn bent together. They are all ranged near bricating soap, and that black powder, ing charcoal, may be inhaled without ap- each other, and are so entire, that not a which has the effect of making a noise, prehension; and that it is false as M. de rib or a phalanx is wanting. The bones and killing animals when they are wanted. La Condamine has announced, that In- have been prepared in three different The curare, which we prepare from father dian women, when condemned to death, manners, either whitened in the air and to son, is superior to any thing you can have been killed by the vapours of the the sun; dyed red with onoto, a colourmake down yonder (beyond sea.) It is the poison of the ticunas,' ing matter extracted from the bixa oreljuice of an herb which kills silently When the darts are touched with lana; or, like real mummies, vamished (without any one knowing whence the this juice, which is mixed with a glu- with odoriferous resins, and enveloped in This chemical operation, to which the tinous substance, in order to make it leaves of the heliconia or of the plaintain tree. The Indians related to us, that the master of the curare attached so much in-stick, they are mortal; large birds, fresh corpse is placed in damp ground, in portance, appears to us extremely simple. when wounded with one of these ar-order that the flesh may be consumed by The liana, (bejuco,) which is used at Es- rows in the thigh, perish in two or three degrees; some months after, it is taken meralda for the preparation of the poison, minutes; but it is often ten or twelve out, and the flesh remaining on the bones bears the same name as in the forests of before a pig or a pecari expires. Our is scraped off with sharp stones. Severak Javita. It is the bejuco de maracure, author is not acquainted with any an-hordes in Guyana still observe this cus which is gathered in abundance east of tidote for this poison. Among uncivi- tom. Earthern vases half-baked are, the mission, on the left bank of the lized nations, various things are resort- found near the mapires, or baskets. They Oroonoko, beyond the Rio Amaguaca, ined to for a covering, but it is the In-appear to contain the bones of the same fa

stroke comes.)"

the mountainous and granitic lands of Guanaya and Yumariquin.

The juice of the liana, when it has been recently gathered, is not regarded as poisonous; perhaps it acts in a sensible manner only when it is strongly concentrated. It is the bark and a part of the alburnum which contains this terrible poi

son.

dians of the Oroonoko alone who are
so amply provided for by nature, as to
furnish them with shirts ready made.
Mr. H.

says,

mily. The largest of these vases or funeral urns, are three feet high, and five feet and ' a-half long. Their colour is greenish grey; and their oval form is sufficiently pleasing to the eye. The handles are We saw on the slope of the Cerra made in the shape of crocodiles or ser.. Duida, shirt-trees, fifty feet high. The pents; the edge is bordered with meanIndians cut off cylindrical pieces, two feet ders, labyrinths, and real grecques, in. Branches of the macacure, four or in diameter, from which they peel the straight lines variously combined. Such five lines in diameter, are scraped with a red and fibrous bark, without making any paintings are found in every zone, among knife: and the bark that comes off is longitudinal incision. This bark affords nations the most remote from each other, bruised, and reduced into very thin fila- them a sort of garment, which resembles either with respect to the spot which they ments, on the stone employed for grind- sacks of a very coarse texture, and without occupy on the globe, or to the degree of ing cassava. The venomous juice being a seam. The upper opening serves for civilization which they have attained. yellow, the whole fibrous mass takes this the head, and two lateral holes are cut to The inhabitants of the little mission of colour. It is thrown into a funnel nine admit the arms. The natives wear these Maypures, still execute them on their inches high, with an opening four inches shirts of marima in the rainy season; they commonest pottery; they decorate the wide. This funnel was, of all the instru- have the form of the ponchos and ruanas bucklers of the Otaheitans, the fishing ments of the Indian laboratory, that of of cotton, which are so common in New implenients of the Eskimoes, the walls of which the muster of poison seemed to be Grenada, at Quito, and in Peru. As in the Mexican Palace of Mitla, and the most proud. He asked us repeatedly these climates the riches and beneficence vases of ancient Greece. Every where a if por allà (down yonder, that is in Eu- of nature are regarded as the primary rythmic repetition of the same forms flatrope,) we had ever seen any thing to be causes of the indolence of the inhabitants, ter the eye, as the cadensed repetition of compared to his empeudo. It was a leaf of the missionaries do not fail to say in show-sounds soothes the ear, Analogies foundthe plaintain tree rolled up in the form of i ing the shirts of marima," in the forests ed on the internal nature of our feelings,

on the natural dispositions of our intellect, are not calculated to throw light on the filiation and the ancient connections of nations.

[ocr errors]

Fray Juan Gonzales, a young monk of
the order of St. Francis.

'We withdrew in silence from the cavern of Ataruipe. It was one of those We could not acquire any precise calm and serene nights, which are so comidea of the period to which the origin of mon in the torrid zone. The stars shone the mapires and the painted vases, con- with a miild and planetary light. Their tained in the ossuary cayern of Ataruipe, scintillation was scarcely sensible at the can be traced. The greater part seemed horizon, which seemed illumined by the not to be more than a century old; but it great nebula of the southern hemisphere. may be supposed, that, sheltered from all An innumerable multitude of insects humidity, under the influence of a uniform spread a reddish light on the ground, temperature, the preservation of these ar-loaded with plants, and resplendent with ticles would be no less perfect if it dated these living and moving fires, as if the from a period far more remote. A tradi- stars of the firmament had sunk down on tion circulates among the Guahiboes, that the Savannah. On quitting the cavern, the warlike Atures, pursued by the Carib- we stopped several times to admire the bees, escaped to the rocks that rise in the beauty of this singular scene. The odomiddle of the great cataracts; and there riferous vanilla, and festoons of bignonia, that nation, heretofore so numerous, be- decorated the entrance; and above, on came gradually extinct, as well as its lan- the summit of the hill, the arrowy guage. The last family of the Atures still branches of the palm-trees waved murexisted in 1767, in the time of the mission- muring in the air.” ary Gili, At the period of our voyage, an old parrot was shown at Maypures, of which the inhabitants related, and the fact is worthy of observation, that, "they did not understand what it said, because it spoke the language of the Atures." "

four feet high. These balls were five or six inches in diameter. The earth which the Otomacs eat is a very fine and un 'tuous clay, of a yellowish grey color; and, being slightly baked in the fire, the hardened crust has a tint inclining to red, owing to the oxide of iron which is mingled with it. We brought away some of this earth, which we took from the winter pr vision of the Indians; and it is absolutely false that it is steatitic, and contains ma nesia. Mr. Vauquelin did not discover any traces of this earth in it; but he fom d that it contained more silex than alumer, and three or four per cent. of lime.

[ocr errors]

The Otomacs do not eat every kind of clay indifferently; they choose the alluvial beds, or strata that contain the most unctuous earth, and the smoothest to the feel. I inquired of the missionary, whether the moistened clay were made to undergo, as Father Gumilla asserts, that peculiar decomposition, which is indicated M. Humboldt has some very curious sulphuretted hydrogen, and which is deby a disengagement of carbonic acid and observations on the earth-eaters, which signated in every language by the term of are not only to be found on the Oroo-putrefaction; but he assured us, that the noko, but among the negroes on the natives neither cause the clay to rot, nor coast of Guinea, the savage inhabitants do they mingle it with flour of maize, oil M. Humboldt and his companion of New Caledonia, in the Pacific of turtle's eggs, or fat of the crocodile. opened several of these mapires or bas-Ocean, and the Javanese. We shall, Oroonoko and after our return to Paris, We ourselves examined, both at the kets, in order to examine attentively however, only quote the facts as they the balls of earth which we brought the form of the skulls, all of which dis- relate to the Otomacs of the Oroo- away with us, and found no trace of the played the characteristics of the Ame- noko:mixture of any organic substance, whe rican race, except two or three which ther oily or farinaceous. The savage reapproached to the Caucasian. Our gards every thing as nourishing that aptravellers having some of the skulls and peases hunger; when, therefore, you inskeletons, loaded a mule with them, quire of an Otomac on what he subsists but, says M. H.during the two months when the river is the highest, he shows you his balls of clayey earth. This he calls his principal food; for at this period he can seldom procure a lizard, a root of fern, or a dead fish swimming at the surface of the water. If the Indian eat earth from want during two months, (and from three quarters to who consider them as barbarians, have a five quarters of a pound in twenty-four common saying, " nothing is so disgusting hours,) he does not the less regale himthat an Otomac will not eat it." While self with it during the rest of the year. the waters of the Oroonoko and its tribu- Every day in the season of drought, when tary streams are low, the Otonacs sub-fishing is most abundant, he scrapes sist on fish and turtles. The former they his balls of poya, and mingles a little clay kill with surprising dexterity, by shooting with his other aliment. What is most them with an arrow, when they appear at surprising is, that the Otomacs do not bethe surface of the water. When the ri- come lean by swallowing such quantities vers swell, which in South America, as of earth; they are, on the contrary, exwell as in Egypt and Nubia, is erroneous-tremely robust, and far from having the ly attributed to the melting of the snows, belly tense and puffed up. The missionand which occurs periodically in every ary, Fray Ramon Bueno, asserts, that he part of the torrid zone, fishing almost en- never remarked any alteration in the tirely ceases. It is then as difficult to health of the natives at the period of the procure fish in the rivers which are be- great risings of the Oroonoko. come deeper, as when you are sailing on The following are the facts, in all their 'One of the skulls, which we took the open sea. It often fails the poor mis- simplicity, which we are able to verify. from the cavern of Ataruipe, has appeared sionaries, on fast-days as well as flesh- The Otomacs, during some months, eat in the fine work published by my old mas- days, though all the young Indians are daily three quarters of a pound of clay, ter, Blumenbach, on the varieties of the under the obligation of "shing for the slightly, hardened by fire, without their human species. The skeletons of the convent." At the period of these inun-health being sensibly affected by it. They Indians were lost on the coast of Africa,dations, which last two or three months, moisten the earth afresh when they are together with a considerable part of our the Otomacs swallow a prodigious quan- going to swallow it. It has not been poscollections, in a shipwreck, in which tity of earth. We found heaps of balls in sible to verify, hitherto, with precision, 'perished our friend and fellow-traveller, their huts, piled up in pyramids three or how much nutritious vegetable or animal

The inhabitants of Uruana belong to those nations of the savannahs, (Indios andantes,) who, more difficult to civilize than the nations of the forest, (Indios del monte,) have a decided aversion to cultivate the land, and live almost excluUnfortunately for us, the penetration sively on hunting and fishing. They are of the Indians, and the extreme quick-men of a very robust constitution; but ness of their senses, rendered all our pre- ugly, savage, vindictive, and passionately cautions useless. Wherever we stopped, fond of fermented liquors. They are in the missions of the Caribbees, amid omniverous animals in the highest dethe Llanos, between Angostura and Nue-gree; and, therefore, the other Indians, va Barcelona, the natives assembled round our mules to admire the monkeys which we had purchased at Oroonoko. These good people had scarcely touched our baggage, when they announced the approaching death of the beast of burden, that carried the dead." In vain we told them that they were deceived in their conjectures, and that the baskets contained the bones of crocodiles and manatees; they persisted in repeating, that they smelt the resin that surrounded the skeletons, and "that they were their old relations." We were obliged to make the monks interpose their authority, in order to conquer the aversion of the natives, and procure for us a change of mules.

« PreviousContinue »