·

those who have seen any thing of the man, we are apprehensive of trespassing too far on the patience of the general reader. The letters are written in a clear distinct style, and in a very good penmanship; and his account of the state of things in America, so far as it goes, shows that Alexander has been in his youth, no unattentive or unworthy member of some of the literary and commercial' clubs so common among the weavers of the west of Scotland. His notice of Mr. Cobbet is laconic enough. You mention that you could wish to hear about Mr. Cobbet; but I can hear little about him, as there is few people that I have spoken to that likes him, and they say that he cannot be believed: he has an office at No. 19, Wall street, and lives at Brooklyn, a small town in Long Island, forenent New York.' The letters are all concluded in a very polite manner, as thus: 'Be pleased, sir, to give our best respects to your father and sisters, and our compliments to your servant-maids; meantime, we remain, sir, your most obedient and very humble servants, ARCHD. & ISABELLA CAMPBELL.'

We trust our readers will pardon us for detaining them so long with the history of this poor countrymen of ours. Those of them who have read his book will, we are quite sure, be happy in this renewal of their acquaintance with him; for our own parts, we hope he will, on his arrival forthwith, publish a full account of all his adventures during this last voyage. He must now be pretty well initiated into the ways of the booksellers, and we do not see why Mr. Campbell should not succeed as well in his transactions with that slippery generation, as many other authors of greater pre

tensions.

ART. XII.-Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent, during the Years 1799-1804. By Alexander de Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland. Vol, IV. London, 1819. 8vo. pp. 573.

Το

[From the Journal of the Belles Lettres.]

O announce a new volume of M. de Humboldt's journey, is to announce a work distinguished for philosophical research, for indefatigable adventure in quest of knowledge, for striking incident as a mere book of travels, and for an infinite store of new facts and discoveries in every branch of moral, political, and natural history. This is so well known to the reading world, that we shall not waste a word upon the subject; but simply take this opportu nity of bearing testimony to the great truth and accuracy of the author's statements, which we are enabled particularly to do in the present instance on the authority of a friend, who, having travelled over much of the same ground, assures us, from his experience, that M. de Humboldt's narrative is remarkable not only for the extent of its information, but for the unvarnished fidelity with which his subjects are described.

We confess, however, that we dislike this tardy mode of bringing out publications. Like the travellers, we should be glad to

know when we set out how far we are going; and as we proceed, where our voyage is to end. But when volume follows volume, with intervals of years between, much of the spirit certainly evapo rates, and we have always a suspicion that the library at home is a great eker out of the memoranda abroad. M. de Humboldt, however, is so instructive and pleasing, that we ought not to complain of this practice when writing about him.

With regard to the new volume, we shall not analyse it, but select such parts as seem most curious, trusting that the well-earned reputation of the author will render further praise unnecessary. Carraccas, with its productions and wonders, the Rio Apure, the Rio Oroonoko, and the circumjacent territory, form entirely the subject of this very interesting portion of M. de Humboldt's work.

When at Calabozo, the travellers endeavoured to obtain and ex amine the gymnotus, or electrical eel, abounding in the stagnant basins in that vicinity, but could not succeed in pursuing the inquiry. The following extraordinary scene is described:

'Impatient of waiting, and having obtained very uncertain results from an electrical eel that had been brought to us alive, but much enfeebled, we repaired to the Cano de Bera, to make our experiments in the open air, on the borders of the water itself. We set off on the 19th of March, at a very early hour, for the village of Rastro de Abaxo; thence we were conducted by the Indians to a stream, which, in the time of drought, forms a basin of muddy water, surrounded by fine trees, the clusia, the amyris, and the mimosa, with fragrant flowers. To catch the gymnoti with nets is very difficult, on account of the extreme agility of the fish, which bury themselves in the mud like serpents. We would not employ the barbasco, that is to say, the roots of piscidea erithryna, jacquinia armillaris, and some species of phyllanthus, which thrown into the pool, intoxicate or benumb these animals. These means would have enfeebled the gymnoti; the Indians, therefore, told us, that they would "fish with horses," embarbascar con cavallos. We found it difficult to form an idea of this extraordinary manner of fishing; but we soon saw our guides return from the savannah, which they had been scouring for wild horses and mules. They brought about thirty with them, which they forced to enter the pool.

'The extraordinary noise caused by the horses' hoofs, makes the fish issue from the mud, and excites them to combat. These yellowish and livid eels, resembling large aquatic serpents, swim on the surface of the water, and crowd under the bellies of the horses and mules. A contest between animals of so different an organization, furnishes a very striking spectacle. The Indians, provided with harpoons, and long slender reeds, surround the pool closely; and some climb upon the trees, the branches of which extend horizontally over the surface of the water, By their wild eries, and the length of their reeds, they prevent the horses from

running away, and reaching the bank of the pool. The eels, stunned by the noise, defend themselves by the repeated discharge of their electric batteries. During a long time they seem to prove victorious. Several horses sink beneath the violence of the invisible strokes, which they receive from all sides, in organs the most essential to life; and stunned by the force and frequency of the shocks, disappear under the water. Others, panting, with mane erect, and haggard eyes, expressing anguish, raise themselves, and endeavour to flee from the storm by which they are overtaken. They are driven back by the Indians into the middle of the water; but a small number succeed in eluding the active vigilance of the fishermen. These regain the shore, stumbling at every step, and stretch themselves on the sand, exhausted with fatigue, and their limbs benumbed by the electric shocks of the gymnoti.

'In less than five minutes two horses were drowned. The eel, being five feet long, and pressing itself against the belly of the horses, makes a discharge along the whole extent of its electrie organ. It attacks at once the heart, the intestines, and the plexus caliacus of the abdominal nerves. It is natural, that the effect felt by the horses should be more powerful, than that produced upon man, by the touch of the same fish, at only one of his extremities. The horses are probably not killed, but only stunned. They are drowned, from the impossibility of rising amid the prolonged struggle between the other horses and the eels.

'We had little doubt, that the fishing would terminate by killing successively all the animals engaged; but by degrees the impetuosity of this unequal combat diminished, and the wearied gymnoti dispersed. They require a long rest, and abundant nourishment, to repair what they have lost of galvanic force. The mules and horses appear less frightened; their manes are no longer bristled, and their eyes express less dread. The gymnoti approach timidly the edge of the marsh, where they are taken by means of small harpoons, fastened to long cords. When the cords are very dry, the Indians feel no shock in raising the fish into the air. In a few minutes we had five large eels, the greater part of which were but slightly wounded. Some were taken by the same means toward evening.

The temperature of the waters, in which the gymnoti habitually live, is from 26° to 27°. Their electric force diminishes, it is said, in colder waters; and it is remarkable, that in general, as a celebrated naturalist has already observed, animals endowed with electromotive organs, the effects of which are sensible to man, are not found in the air, but in a fluid that is a conductor of electricity. The gymnotus is the largest of electrical fishes. I measured some, that were from five feet to five feet three inches long; and the Indians assert, that they have seen still longer. We found, that a fish of three feet ten inches long, weighed twelve pounds. The transverse diameter of the body, without reckoning the anal fin, which is elongated in the form of a keel, was three inches five lines. The gymnoti of Cano de Bera, are of a fine olive green.

The under part of the head is yellow, mingled with red. Two rows of small yellow spots are placed symmetrically along the back, from the head to the end of the tail. Every spot contains an excretory aperture. In consequence, the skin of the animal is constantly covered with a mucous matter, which, as Volta has proved, conducts electricity twenty or thirty times better than pure water. It is in general somewhat remarkable, that no electrical fish, yet discovered (of which there are only seven), in the different parts of the world, is covered with scales.'

The following is an extraordinary picture of the scenery on the river Apure, down which our travellers went in a boat to the Oroonoko.

'Sometimes the river is bordered by forests on each side, and forms a straight canal a hundred and fifty toises broad. The manner in which the trees are disposed is very remarkable. We first find bushes of sauso, forming a kind of hedge four feet high; and appearing as if they had been clipped by the hand of man. A copse of cedars, brazillettos, and lignumvitæ, rises behind this hedge. Palm-trees are rare; we saw only a few scattered trunks of the thorny piritu and corozo. The large quadrupeds of those regions, the tigers, tapirs, and pecaris, have made openings in the hedge of sausos, which we have just described. Through these the wild animals pass, when they come to drink at the river. As they fear but little the approach of a boat, we had the pleasure of viewing them pace slowly along the shore, till they disappeared in the forest, which they entered by one of the narrow passes left here and there between the bushes. I confess that these scenes, which were often repeated, had ever for me a peculiar attraction. The pleasure they excite, is not owing solely to the interest which the naturalist takes in the objects of his study; it is connected with a feeling common to all men, who have been brought up in the habits of civilization. You find yourself in a new world, in the midst of untamed and savage nature. Now it is the jaguar, the beautiful panther of America, that appears upon the shore; and now the hocco, with its black plumage and its tufted head, that moves slowly along the sausoes. Animals of the most different classes succeed each other. "Esse como en el Paraiso," said our pilot, an old Indian of the missions.

'When the shore is of considerable breadth, the hedge of sauso remains at a distance from the river. In this intermediate ground we see crocodiles, sometimes to the number of eight or ten, stretched on the sand. Motionless, the jaws opened at right angles, they repose by each other, without displaying any of those marks of affection observed in other animals that live in society. The troop separates as soon as they quit the shore. It is, however, probably composed of one male only, and many females; for, as Mr. Descourtils, who has so much studied the crocodiles of Saint Domingo, observed before me, the males are rare, because they kill one

another in fighting, during the season of their loves. These monstrous reptiles are so numerous, that throughout the whole course of the river, we had, almost at every instant, five or six in view. Yet at this period, the swelling of the Rio Apure was scarcely perceived; and consequently hundreds of crocodiles were still buried in the mud of the savannahs. About four in the afternoon we stopped to measure a dead crocodile, that the waters had thrown on the shore. It was only sixteen feet eight inches long; some days after, Mr. Bonpland found another, a male, twenty-two feet three inches long. In every zone, in America as in Egypt, this animal attains the same size. The species so abundant in the Apure, the Oroonoko, and the Rio de la Magdalena, is not a cayman, or alligator, but a real crocodile, with feet dentated at the external edges, analogous to that of the Nile. When it is recollected, that the male enters the age of puberty only at ten years, and that its length is then eight feet, we may presume, that the crocodile measured by Mr. Bonpland, was at least twenty-eight years old. The Indians told us, that at San Ferando, scarcely a year passes without two or three grown-up persons, particularly women who fetch water from the river, being drowned by these carnivorous lizards. They related to us the history of a young girl of Uritucu, who by singular intrepidity and presence of mind, saved herself from the jaws of a crocodile. When she felt herself seized, she sought the eyes of the animal, and plunged her fingers into them with such violence, that the pain forced the crocodile to let her loose, after having bitten off the lower part of her left arm. The girl, notwithstanding the enormous quantity of blood she lost, happily reached the shore, swimming with the hand she had still left.

'The movements of the crocodile of the Apure, are abrupt and rapid when it attacks any object; but it moves with the slowness of a salamander, when it is not excited by rage or hunger. The animal in running, makes a rustling noise, that seems to proceed from the rubbing of the scales of its skin against one another. In this movement it bends its back, and appears higher on its legs than when at rest.

'Crocodiles are excellent swimmers; they go with facility against the most rapid current. It appeared to me, however, that in descending the river, they had some difficulty in turning quickly about. A large dog, that had accompanied us in our journey from Caraccas to the Rio Negro, was one day pursued in swimming by an enormous crocodile, which had nearly reached him, when the dog escaped its enemy by turning round suddenly, and swimming against the current. The crocodile performed the same movement, but much more slowly than the dog, which happily gained the

shore.

The crocodiles of the Apure find abundant nourishment in the chiguiries (the thick-nosed tapir of naturalists), which live fifty or sixty together, in troops on the banks of the river. These unfortu nate animals, as large as our pigs, have no weapons of defence;