This low country is, however, generally unhealthy, from the great humidity of the climate, the exten sive woods, and the periodical inundations. From the month of June to December, the rivers Magda lena, Orinoco, Meta, and others, overflow their banks, and compel the inhabitants to take refuge in their canoes, with which they are all abundantly provided. The humid effects of these inundations remain long after the waters have subsided, and the exhalation from the power of a vertical sun generates diseases, whose effects are exhibited in the pale yellow com plexions, and thin bodies of the inhabitants. The females produce but few children, and those of sickly constitutions; and depopulation would ensue with out recruits from the higher lands, who are induced to emigrate to the plains by the ease with which all that life absolutely req,uires can be obtained. It is clear, that not the heat but the humidity of the cli mate creates the numerous debilitating infirmities of these plains ; for in Maracaybo, Santa Marta, Rio de la Ilacha, and other places on the banks of the rivers, equally warm, but not subject to inundations, and their consequent humidity, the inhabitants are as healthy, and live as long, as in the more temperate climates, either of the new or the old world.
In these warm countries there are many tigers, resembling those of Africa and Asia in size, and somewhat in fierceness ; .but in the colour of their skin, and in the spots, are more like the leopards of the ancient continent. They seldom attack human beings, but destroy considerable numbers of horses, cows, and sheep, and especially the wild hogs, which wander in herds of three or four hundred in some districts, and whose flesh and blood the tigers pre fer. Some of these tigers, on the sea coast and banks of the rivers where they are abundant, feed on tor toises, they, turn them on their backs with much dex terity, and then gorge themselves by sucking their blood at their leisure. No other quadrupeds are known in Santa Fe of the ferocious tribes. There are a few bears in the mountainous parts. They are shy and timid animals, avoiding and never attacking either man or the other inhabitants of the forests.
Besides the animals we have noticed, and which are not indigenous, but derived from the races im ported from Europe, there are immense quantities of wild pigs. They are of two species, one of which, contended by some to be of European origin, is gre garious, and resembles ours in shape, but is smaller, is of a Chesnut colour, and finds abundant subsist ence on the fruits and roots in the forests. The other species is certainly indigenous. It forms bur rows in the earth, which are occupied by a single male and female. They never wander far from their dens ; they bring forth fewer young than the others, are rather smaller in size, and their flesh is deemed a preferable food.
There are two species of deer, one which wanders in large herds in the woods ; the other sedentary, living in retired spots in pairs : both are smaller than the domesticated deer of Europe, and the wander ing race the smallest of the two. Another species of deer, without horns, is found on the banks of the Meta and the Orinoco, called Venados Pellones. They are timid and swift, and have not yet been accurate ly described. They live in the thickest of the woods the greater part of the day, and only come to the savannahs to feed in the morning and evening. The
least noise makes them take to flight. They have been classed by some persons as a species of gazelle or antelope ; but the only good naturalist that has traversed these plains could not approach near enough to describe them with any confidence in his observation.
Without entering into a circumstantial detail of the indigenous quadrupeds of New Granada, which are well known, we enumerate only some of those whose imperfect description deserve to be rectified, which we are enabled to do from the manuscripts of Don Pedro Vargas, a natural historian of considerable knowledge.
The Dante, or great beast, is ose of those animals which most abounds in the marshy meadows and low plains of Santa Fe. This animal, which Buffon describes under the pompous title of the Elephant of the New World, is easily domesticated, and lives in the houses with the familiarity of a dog. He knows those who benefit him, and demonstrates his grati tude by numerous unequivocal symptoms. " I have seen one," says the naturalist just mentioned, " which went loose about the house, absented himself for se veral days occasionally in the woods, and returned when he chose it without compulsion. When after a drought, in which he appeared heavy and torpid, there was an appearance of rain, he seemed singular_ ly enlivened and animated, and with evident delight ran about, turning up with his snout the straw and other light substances that lay about the farm-yard, in the same manner as the pigs did in similar circum stances." The sloth, the ant-eater, and many other species of monkeys, as well as the armadillo, and a smaller kind called Cachicamos, are common in New Gra nada, With the exception of the sloth, all these animals are highly esteemed as food, as well -by the whites as the Indians. Tortoises are bred in innu merable crowds in the river Orinoco, and, with their eggs, afford sustenance to the native Indians in that half of the year when the dry season permits their living on the banks of the Meta. On the river Orinoco, a little below its confluence with the Meta between Carichana and Caycara, there are some sandy shores, which the tortoises are fond of resorting to and there depositing their eggs. The inhabitants of the several places between that spot and Angostura regularly appoint a guard in the place to prevent the destruction of the eggs, which are thus protected, that they may make from them the oil which they use both for cookery and for lamps. The season of making this oil is the great jubilee of the inhabitants of these districts. In the months of April and March every year, all ages and both sexes are collected on these sands, where tents or temporary huts are erected to protect them from the rays of the sun. Some are employed in beating the eggs into great jars, others in purifying and boiling the oil ; some seek amusement in the Chace or in fishing ; and each seems occupied with some favourite pursuit. The occupations of the day give place to the song and the dance at night. This kind of festival usually continues about three weeks, and is considered as the general annual fair of the country, where the traders and victuallers resort to exchange their pro visions and goods for the oil, which is by their means diffused through the whole extent of the low country.