Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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We Met With The Same Shrub At
The Cuchilla De Guanaguana.
It is a subalpine plant, which forms at
the Silla de Caracas a zone much higher than in the province of
Cumana.
The leaves of the pejoa have even a more agreeable smell
than those of the Myrtus pimenta, but they yield no perfume when
rubbed a few hours after their separation from the tree.) But the
great charms of this solitary place were the beauty and serenity of
the nights. The proprietor of the farm, who spent his evenings with
us, seemed to enjoy the astonishment produced on Europeans newly
transplanted to the tropics, by that vernal freshness of the air
which is felt on the mountains after sunset. In those distant
regions, where men yet feel the full value of the gifts of nature,
a land-holder boasts of the water of his spring, the absence of
noxious insects, the salutary breeze that blows round his hill, as
we in Europe descant on the conveniences of our dwellings, and the
picturesque effect of our plantations.
Our host had visited the new world with an expedition which was to
form establishments for felling wood for the Spanish navy on the
shores of the gulf of Paria. In the vast forests of mahogany,
cedar, and brazil-wood, which border the Caribbean Sea, it was
proposed to select the trunks of the largest trees, giving them in
a rough way the shape adapted to the building of ships, and sending
them every year to the dockyard near Cadiz. White men, unaccustomed
to the climate, could not support the fatigue of labour, the heat,
and the effect of the noxious air exhaled by the forests. The same
winds which are loaded with the perfume of flowers, leaves, and
woods, infuse also, as we may say, the germs of dissolution into
the vital organs. Destructive fevers carried off not only the
ship-carpenters, but the persons who had the management of the
establishment; and this bay, which the early Spaniards named Golfo
Triste (Melancholy Bay), on account of the gloomy and wild aspect
of its coasts, became the grave of European seamen. Our host had
the rare good fortune to escape these dangers. After having
witnessed the death of a great number of his friends, he withdrew
from the coast to the mountains of Cocollar.
Nothing can be compared to the majestic tranquillity which the
aspect of the firmament presents in this solitary region. When
tracing with the eye, at night-fall, the meadows which bounded the
horizon, - the plain covered with verdure and gently undulated, we
thought we beheld from afar, as in the deserts of the Orinoco, the
surface of the ocean supporting the starry vault of Heaven. The
tree under which we were seated, the luminous insects flying in the
air, the constellations which shone in the south; every object
seemed to tell us how far we were from our native land. If amidst
this exotic nature we heard from the depth of the valley the
tinkling of a bell, or the lowing of herds, the remembrance of our
country was awakened suddenly. The sounds were like distant voices
resounding from beyond the ocean, and with magical power
transporting us from one hemisphere to the other. Strange mobility
of the imagination of man, eternal source of our enjoyments and our
pains!
We began in the cool of the morning to climb the Turimiquiri. This
is the name given to the summit of the Cocollar, which, with the
Brigantine, forms one single mass of mountain, formerly called by
the natives the Sierra de los Tageres. We travelled along a part of
the road on horses, which roam about these savannahs; but some of
them are used to the saddle. Though their appearance is very heavy,
they pass lightly over the most slippery turf. We first stopped at
a spring issuing, not from the calcareous rock, but from a layer of
quartzose sandstone. The temperature was 21 degrees, consequently
1.5 degrees less than the spring of Quetepe; and the difference of
the level is nearly 220 toises. Wherever the sandstone appears
above ground the soil is level, and constitutes as it were small
platforms, succeeding each other like steps. To the height of 700
toises, and even beyond, this mountain, like those in its vicinity,
is covered only with gramineous plants.* (* The most abundant
species are the paspalus; the Andropogon fastigiatum, which forms
the genus Diectomis of M. Palissot de Beauvais; and the Panicum
olyroides.) The absence of trees is attributed at Cumana to the
great elevation of the ground; but a slight reflection on the
distribution of plants in the Cordilleras of the torrid zone will
lead us to conceive that the summits of New Andalusia are very far
from reaching the superior limit of the trees, which in this
latitude is at least 1800 toises of absolute height. The smooth
turf of the Cocollar begins to appear at 350 toises above the level
of the sea, and the traveller may contrive to walk upon this turf
till he reaches a thousand toises in height. Farther on, beyond
this band covered with gramineous plants, we found, amidst peaks
almost inaccessible to man, a small forest of cedrela, javillo,* (*
Huras crepitans, of the family of the euphorbias. The growth of its
trunk is so enormous, that M. Bonpland measured vats of javillo
wood, 14 feet long and 8 wide. These vats, made from one log of
wood, are employed to keep the guarapo, or juice of the sugar-cane,
and the molasses. The seeds of javillo are a very active poison,
and the milk that issues from the petioles, when broken, frequently
produced inflammation in our eyes, if by chance the least quantity
penetrated under the eyelids.) and mahogany. These local
circumstances induce me to think that the mountainous savannahs of
the Cocollar and Turimiquiri owe their existence only to the
destructive custom practised by the natives of setting fire to the
woods when they want to convert the soil into pasturage.
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