of the map of New Spain, deposited by M. de H. in the department of state at Washington in 1804. That any individual should have been disposed to make use of the labors of an illustrious foreigner, thus entrusted to the safeguard of the national faith, is matter to us of great regret; that being disposed, he should have been permitted, is still more unpleasant; and we cannot but hope that the whole had its origin in misconception.

In addition to the Atlas Pittoresque and the Atlas of New Spain, each part of the Historical Narrative is accompanied with four or five maps, so that when this division of the work is completed there will be a third atlas in three folio volumes. This being sold separately* will be equally useful to the possessors of the quarto and of the octavo edition of the work. An enumeration and account of the maps published up to the year 1817, may be found at the close of the fourth volume of the octavo edition of the Historical Relation.

We have thus laid before our readers an account of the principal works of M. de Humboldt on America. It was our intention before closing this article to give something like an analysis, with extracts, of the two volumes, of which we have placed the title at the head of our article. This we have not left ourselves room to do, but we have made a translation from the first chapter, which may serve as a specimen, instructive as well as amusing, of their contents.

'We were horribly tormented in the day time, by the mosquitos, the jejen, small flies or poisonous simulia, and by night by the zancudos, a large species of gnats (cousins) formidable even to the natives. Our hands began to swell; and this swelling increased from day to day, till our arrival on the banks of the Temi. The means resorted to, to avoid these little animals, are very extraordinary. The good missionary, Bernardo Zea, who passes his life amidst the torments of the mosquitos, had constructed near his church, on a scaffold of trunks of palm trees, a little apartment, in which he could breathe more freely. We ascended thither at night, by means of a ladder, to dry our plants and write our journal. The missionary had correctly noticed that the insects abound most in the lower stratum of air, within twelve or fifteen feet from the ground. At Maypurès, the Indians leave the village at night, to go and sleep on the islets, in the midst of the cataracts. There they enjoy some repose, as the insects ap* The Atlas Piltoresque is also sold separately. 4

New Series, No. 13.

pear to fly an atmosphere surcharged with vapor. Every where we have found fewer in the middle, than on the sides of a river; and also that we suffered less from them, in descending than in ascending the Orinoco. Those who have not navigated the great rivers of equinoctial America, as the Orinoco or the Rio de la Magdelena, can scarce conceive to what degree, at every moment of life, one may be tormented by insects flying in the air; to what degree the multitude of these little animals may render vast regions almost uninhabitable. However accustomed one may be to bear pain without complaint, however lively an interest one may take in the objects he is pursuing, it is impossible not to be constantly distracted by the mosquitos, zancudos, jejen, and temperanos, which cover hands and face, penetrate the clothes with their proboscis, prolonged into the shape of a needle, and which forcing themselves into the nostrils and mouth, make you cough and sneeze whenever you speak in the open air. In consequence in the missions of the Orinoco, in the villages placed on the banks of the river, surrounded by immense forests, the plaga de las moscas, the torment of the flies, presents an inexhaustible topic of conversation. When two persons meet in the morning, the first questions which they address each other are these, How have you found the zancudos tonight? How is it today in point of mosquitos ? These questions bring to mind a Chinese compliment, indicative of the former savage state of the country. The salutation of the celestial empire was formerly, Vou-to-hou, have you been incommoded the past night by serpents? We shall presently see that on the banks of the Tuamini, in the river of the Magdalen, and especially at Choco, the country of gold and platina, one might add the Chinese compliment of the serpents to that of the mosquitos.

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This is the place to speak of the geographical distribution of the tipulary insects, which presents appearances worthy of note. It does not appear to depend solely on the heat of the climate, the excess of the humidity, or the thickness of the forests, but on local circumstances difficult to characterize. It may be remarked in the first place, that the plague of the mosquitos and zancudos is not so general in the torrid zone as is commonly thought. On the high table-land of more than four hundred toises above the ocean, in the very dry plains which are distant from the large rivers, for instance at Cumana and Calobozo, there are not perceptibly more of them than in the most inhabited parts of Europe. They increase prodigiously at New Barcelona, and more westerly on the coast toward cape Codera. Between the little port l'Higuerote and the mouth of the Rio Unare, the ill fated inĥabitants are accustomed to stretch themselves on the ground, and to pass the night buried in the sand three or four inches deep,

leaving nothing out but the head, which is covered with a handkerchief. You suffer from the stings of insects, but not insupportably, in descending the Orinoco, from Cabruta toward Angostura, and remounting it from Cabruta toward Uruana, between the 70 and 8° of latitude. But beyond the mouth of the Rio Arauca, after passing the strait of Baraguan, the scene changes all at once. From this point onward, there is no more peace for the traveller. If he have any poetical recollections of Dante, he will think that he is entering the città dolente; and that he reads upon the rocks of granite of Baraguan these memorable lines of the third canto of the Inferno,

Noi sem venuti al luogo, ov' i' t'ho detto

Che tu vedrai le gente dolorose.

The lower strata of the air to the height of fifteen or twenty feet are filled with venomous insects as with a condensed vapor. If one places himself in any dark spot, as the grottos found in the cataracts by overhanging blocks of granite, and directs his eyes towards the opening illuminated by the sun, he sees clouds of mosquitos, more or less thick, according as these little animals cluster together or disperse, in their slow and measured movements. At the mission of San Borja, the mosquitos are more oppressive than at Carichana, but in the Rapids, the Aturès, and above all, at Maypurès, the annoyance attains its maximum. I doubt whether there is a region on earth, where man is exposed to more cruel torments in the rainy season. On passing the fifth degree of latitude, one is a little less stung; but in the HighOrinoco, the stings are more piercing, because the heat and the absolute stillness of the air render it more burning and irritating in its contact with the skin. 'How happy the inhabitants of the moon must be,' said a Saliva Indian to father Gumilla, 'it is so beautiful and light, it must be clear of mosquitos.' These words, expressive of the infancy of a people, are quite remarkable. In every quarter, the moon is for the American savage, the abode of the happy, the region of plenty. The Esquimau who places his riches in a plank, a trunk of a tree thrown by the currents on a coast devoid of vegetation, sees in the moon plains covered with forests. The Indian of the forests of the Orinoco sees there open savannas, whose inhabitants are never stung by mosquitos. Farther toward the south, where the waters of the rivers begin to assume a tinge of yellowish brown, which bear in general the name of aguas negras or black waters, on the banks of the Atabapo, of the Temi, of the Tuamini, and the Rio Negro, we enjoyed a repose, I had almost said, a happiness unlooked for. These rivers, like the Orinoco, traverse immense forests; but the tipulary insects, as well as the crocodiles, avoid the black waters. Are these waters, a little cooler and chemically differing from the white, ungrateful

to the larvæ and nymphæ of the tipule of the gnats, which may be considered as real aquatic animals? Some small rivers, whose water is either deep blue, or yellowish brown; the Toparo, the Mataveni, and the Zama, are exceptions to the general rule of the absence of mosquitos from the dark waters. These three rivers swarm with them, and the Indians themselves called our attention to the problematical causes of the phenomenon. In descending the Rio Negro we breathed freely at Maroa, at Davipe, and at San Carlos, villages situated on the frontiers of Brazil. But this relief was short, our sufferings recommenced in entering the Cassiquiaire. At Esmeralda, at the eastern extremity of the high Orinoco, where the terra cognita of the Spaniards ends, the clouds of mosquitos are scarcely less dense than at the great cataracts. At Mondava we found an old missionary, who said to us with a sad air, that "he had passed his twenty years of mosquitos in America." He would have us look at his legs, that we might one day be able to tell "por Allà (beyond the sea) what the poor monks suffer, in the forests of the Cassiquiaire." As every sting leaves a little blackish brown spot, his legs were speckled to such a degree that it was hardly possible to recognise any white skin, through the spots of coagulated blood. If the insects of the genus Simulium abound in the Cassiquiaire, which has white waters, the Culex or the Zancudos, on the other hand, are proportionably rare. You scarce meet any of them, while in the rivers with black waters, in the Atabapo and Rio Negro, there are generally zancudos and no mosquitos. It has been already observed that in the little revolutions, which agitate from time to time the order of the observance of St Francis, when the father guardian wishes to inflict a punishment on a lay brother, he sends him to Esmeralda: a banishment, as the monks say, "where one is condemned to the mosquitos." Such is the geographical distribution of the venomous insects. What seemed very remarkable to us, but is confirmed by all the missionaries is, that the different species do not associate, and that at different hours of the day one is stung by different species. Every time that the scene changes, and according to the familiar phrase of the missionaries, other insects "mount guard," you have a few moments, sometimes a quarter of an hour, of rest. From half past six in the morning till five in the afternoon, the air is filled with mosquitos, who are not as is stated by some travellers* of the form of our gnats, (culex pipiens) but of that of a small fly. These are the simulia of the family of Nemocères in the system of M. Latreille. Their sting is painful like that of the conops calcitrans. It leaves a little reddish brown spot, formed of blood extravasated and coagulated, where the * Kalm, Reise in Nord America, ii. 268.

trunk has pierced the skin. An hour before sunsetting the mosquitos are succeeded by a species of little gnats, called temperanos, because they also appear at sunrise. They remain scarcely an hour and a half. They vanish between six and seven in the evening, or, in the missionary phrase, after the angelus (evening prayer. After a few minutes of rest, you begin to be stung by the zancudo, another species of culex, with very long legs. The zancudo, whose trunk contains a piercing sucker, causes the keenest pain and swellings which last several weeks. Its noise is like that of the gnats of Europe, but stronger and more prolonged.

Since

'I have been informed that from time to time these insects migrate, like the apes (singes Alouattes) that live in a gregareous manner. Species, whose sting has never before been felt, appear at certain places in the commencement of the rainy season. We were told on the Rio de la Magdelena, that at Simitì no other culex was formerly known than the jejen. The nights were tranquil in that quarter, for the jejen is not a nocturnal insect. the year 1801, the great blue winged gnat (culex cyanopterus) has appeared in such abundance that the poor inhabitants of Simitì know not how to procure a comfortable night's sleep. In the swampy canals of the isle of Barû, near Carthagena, there is a little white fly called cafafi. It is scarcely visible to the naked eye, and causes highly painful swellings. It is necessary to wet the cotton mosquito nets, that the cafafi may not penetrate between the threads. This insect, happily rare, ascends in the month of January, by the canal or dike of Mahates, to Morales.'

After several other facts and observations, M. de Humboldt closes his chapter with these remarks:

I have thus collected, at the close of this chapter, all that we have observed in the course of our travels, with respect to phenomena singularly neglected by naturalists hitherto, although they exercise a great influence on the wellbeing of the inhabitants, the salubrity of the climate, and the establishment of new colonies along the rivers of equinoctial America. I should not have allowed myself to treat the subject, with a detail which might seem trifling, if it did not connect itself with more extensive physiological views. As our imagination is not powerfully arrested but by that, which is physically grand, it belongs to the philosophy of nature, to study what is small. We have seen that winged insects, concealing in their trunks a liquor, which irritates the skin, render vast regions almost uninhabitable. Other insects equally small, the termites, create important obstacles to civilization, in many warm and temperate portions of the equinoctial zone.