the basin; mimosas with slender pinnate leaves, clusias, and
fig-trees, have pushed their roots into the bottom of a pool, the
temperature of which is 85 degrees; and the branches of these trees
extended over the surface of the water, at two or three inches
distance. The foliage of the mimosas, though constantly enveloped in
the hot vapours, displayed the most beautiful verdure. An arum, with a
woody stem, and with large sagittate leaves, rose in the very middle
of a pool the temperature of which was 70 degrees. Plants of the same
species vegetate in other parts of those mountains at the brink of
torrents, the temperature of which is not 18 degrees. What is still
more singular, forty feet distant from the point whence the springs
gush out at a temperature of 90 degrees, other springs are found
perfectly cold. They all follow for some time a parallel direction;
and the natives showed us that, by digging a hole between the two
rivulets, they could procure a bath of any given temperature they
pleased. It seems remarkable, that in the hottest as well as the
coldest climates, people display the same predilection for heat. On
the introduction of Christianity into Iceland, the inhabitants would
be baptized only in the hot springs of Hecla: and in the torrid zone,
in the plains, as well as on the Cordilleras, the natives flock from
all parts to the thermal waters. The sick, who come to La Trinchera to
use vapour-baths, form a sort of frame-work over the spring with
branches of trees and very slender reeds. They stretch themselves
naked on this frame, which appeared to me to possess little strength,
and to be dangerous of access. The Rio de Aguas Calientes runs towards
the north-east, and becomes, near the coast, a considerable river,
swarming with great crocodiles, and contributing, by its inundations,
to the insalubrity of the shore.

We descended towards Porto Cabello, having constantly the river of hot