Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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Till Now He Had Enjoyed Only The
Astonishment And Admiration Produced By His Experiments On Persons
Destitute Of All Information, And Who Had Never Quitted The Solitude
Of The Llanos; Our Abode At Calabozo Gave Him A Satisfaction
Altogether New.
It may be supposed that he set some value on the
opinions of two travellers who could compare his apparatus with those
constructed in Europe.
I had brought with me electrometers mounted
with straw, pith-balls, and gold-leaf; also a small Leyden jar which
could be charged by friction according to the method of Ingenhousz,
and which served for my physiological experiments. Senor del Pozo
could not contain his joy on seeing for the first time instruments
which he had not made, yet which appeared to be copied from his own.
We also showed him the effect of the contact of heterogeneous metals
on the nerves of frogs. The name of Galvani and Volta had not
previously been heard in those vast solitudes.
Next to his electrical apparatus, the work of the industry and
intelligence of an inhabitant of the Llanos, nothing at Calabozo
excited in us so great an interest as the gymnoti, which are animated
electrical apparatuses. I was impatient, from the time of my arrival
at Cumana, to procure electrical eels. We had been promised them
often, but our hopes had always been disappointed. Money loses its
value as you withdraw from the coast; and how is the imperturbable
apathy of the ignorant people to be vanquished, when they are not
excited by the desire of gain?
The Spaniards confound all electric fishes under the name of
tembladores.* (* Literally "tremblers," or "producers of trembling.")
There are some of these in the Caribbean Sea, on the coast of Cumana.
The Guayquerie Indians, who are the most skilful and active fishermen
in those parts, brought us a fish, which, they said, benumbed their
hands. This fish ascends the little river Manzanares. It is a new
species of ray, the lateral spots of which are scarcely visible, and
which much resembles the torpedo. The torpedos, which are furnished
with an electric organ externally visible, on account of the
transparency of the skin, form a genus or subgenus different from the
rays properly so called.* (* Cuvier, Regne Animal volume 2. The
Mediterranean contains, according to M. Risso, four species of
electrical torpedos, all formerly confounded under the name of Raia
torpedo; these are Torpedo narke, T. unimaculata, T. galvanii, and T.
marmorata. The torpedo of the Cape of Good Hope, the subject of the
recent experiments of Mr. Todd, is, no doubt, a nondescript species.)
The torpedo of Cumana was very lively, very energetic in its muscular
movements, and yet the electric shocks it gave us were extremely
feeble. They became stronger on galvanizing the animal by the contact
of zinc and gold. Other tembladores, real gymnoti or electric eels,
inhabit the Rio Colorado, the Guarapiche, and several little streams
which traverse the Missions of the Chayma Indians. They abound also in
the large rivers of America, the Orinoco, the Amazon, and the Meta;
but the force of the currents and the depth of the water, prevent them
from being caught by the Indians. They see these fish less frequently
than they feel shocks from them when swimming or bathing in the river.
In the Llanos, particularly in the environs of Calabozo, between the
farms of Morichal and the Upper and Lower Missions, the basins of
stagnant water and the confluents of the Orinoco (the Rio Guarico and
the canos Rastro, Berito, and Paloma) are filled with electric eels.
We at first wished to make our experiments in the house we inhabited
at Calabozo; but the dread of the shocks caused by the gymnoti is so
great, and so exaggerated among the common people, that during three
days we could not obtain one, though they are easily caught, and we
had promised the Indians two piastres for every strong and vigorous
fish. This fear of the Indians is the more extraordinary, as they do
not attempt to adopt precautions in which they profess to have great
confidence. When interrogated on the effect of the tembladores, they
never fail to tell the Whites, that they may be touched with impunity
while you are chewing tobacco. This supposed influence of tobacco on
animal electricity is as general on the continent of South America, as
the belief among mariners of the effect of garlic and tallow on the
magnetic needle.
Impatient of waiting, and having obtained very uncertain results from
an electric eel which had been brought to us alive, but much
enfeebled, we repaired to the Cano de Bera, to make our experiments in
the open air, and at the edge of the water. We set off on the 19th of
March, at a very early hour, for the village of Rastro; 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,* (* Amyris
lateriflora, A. coriacea, Laurus pichurin. Myroxylon secundum,
Malpighia reticulata.) 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. We would not employ the barbasco, that is to say, the roots
of the Piscidea erithyrna, the Jacquinia armillaris, and some species
of phyllanthus, which thrown into the pool, intoxicate or benumb the
eels. These methods have the effect of enfeebling the gymnoti. The
Indians therefore told us that they would "fish with horses,"
(embarbascar con caballos.* (* Meaning to excite the fish by horses.))
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 the attack.
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