highest importance, both with regard to the economy of animals that
live habitually at the bottom of fresh and salt waters, and to the
theory of the distribution of heat in lands surrounded by vast and
deep seas.

The lake of Valencia is full of islands, which embellish the scenery
by the picturesque form of their rocks, and the beauty of the
vegetation with which they are covered: an advantage which this
tropical lake possesses over those of the Alps. The islands are
fifteen in number, distributed in three groups;* without reckoning
Morro and Cabrera, which are already joined to the shore. (* The
position of these islands is as follows: northward, near the shore,
the Isla de Cura; on the south-east, Burro, Horno, Otama, Sorro,
Caiguira, Nuevos Penones, or the Aparecidos; on the north-west, Cabo
Blanco, or Isla de Aves, and Chamberg; on the south-west, Brucha and
Culebra. In the centre of the lake rise, like shoals or small detached
rocks, Vagre, Fraile, Penasco, and Pan de Azucar.) They are partly
cultivated, and extremely fertile on account of the vapours that rise
from the lake. Burro, the largest of these islands, is two miles in
length, and is inhabited by some families of mestizos, who rear goats.
These simple people seldom visit the shore of Mocundo. To them the
lake appears of immense extent; they have plantains, cassava, milk,
and a little fish. A hut constructed of reeds; hammocks woven from the
cotton which the neighbouring fields produce; a large stone on which
the fire is made; the ligneous fruit of the tutuma (the calabash) in
which they draw water, constitute their domestic establishment. An old
mestizo who offered us some goat's milk had a beautiful daughter. We
learned from our guide, that solitude had rendered him as mistrustful
as he might perhaps have been made by the society of men. The day
before our arrival, some hunters had visited the island. They were