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"Meanwhile, on the same day, to change the scene of the campaign two hundred and ten leagues, 'a distance, as Humboldt says, 'equal to that between Vesuvius and Paris, the inhabitants, not only of Caracas, but of Calabozo, situate in the midst of the llanos, over a space of four thousand square leagues, were terrified by a subterranean noise, which resembled frequent discharges of the loudest cannon.
It consists usually of three native police, armed with most ferocious-looking revolvers, and preceded by a temporary guest of municipal hospitality from the local calabozo. This citizen, generally ragged and dirty and smoking a big cigar, is provided with a drum which he beats lustily.
From their tops we discerned towards the north the Llanos of Calabozo bounding the horizon. We had been so long accustomed to the aspect of forests, that this view made a powerful impression on us. The steppes after sunset assume a tint of greenish gray.
This effect is more especially perceptible at sunset. During the day the shores of the rivers, covered with white sand, reflect the heat in an insupportable degree, even more than the yellowish brown clayey grounds of Calabozo and Tisnao. On the 28th of March I was on the shore at sunrise to measure the breadth of the Apure, which is two hundred and six toises.
Does there exist in South America another group of rocks, which may be preferably designated by the name of volcanic rocks, and which are as distinct from the chain of the Andes, and advance as far towards the east as the group that bounds the steppes of Calabozo? Of this I doubt, at least in that part of the continent situated north of the Amazon.
The former of these suppositions would approach, according to the analogy of the observations made by M. Roziere in Egypt, the sandstone of Calabozo, or tertiary nagelfluhe. A bluish-grey compact limestone, almost destitute of petrifactions, and frequently intersected by small veins of carburetted lime, forms mountains with very abrupt ridges.
His name was respected in the southwestern part of Venezuela, and he was ready to fight against the army of Morillo when he received the message of Bolivar. Morillo concentrated his army in Calabozo, the center of the plains, intending to attack Paez in Apure, and other patriots who operated to the south under Zaraza.
This intrepidity is so much the more striking, as at eight leagues distance, the crocodiles of the Rio Tisnao are extremely timid, and little dangerous. The manners of animals vary in the same species according to local circumstances difficult to be determined. We were shown a hut, or rather a kind of shed, in which our host of Calabozo, Don Miguel Cousin, had witnessed a very extraordinary scene.
Where tufts of the moriche palm were found growing in long ranges, the extremities of these green rows were suspended like the capes which were, for so long a time, the subject of my observations at Cumana. A well-informed person assured us, that he had seen, between Calabozo and Uritucu, the image of an animal inverted, without there being any direct image.
A gymnotus that has been kept a long time in captivity, accustoms itself to the imprisonment to which it is reduced; it resumes by degrees the same habits in the tub, which it had in the rivers and marshes. An electrical eel was brought to me at Calabozo: it had been taken in a net, and consequently having no wound.
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