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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I Stopped At The Mission Of San Antonio Only To Open The Barometer,
And To Take A Few Altitudes Of The Sun.
The elevation of the great
square above Cumana is 216 toises.
After having crossed the
village, we forded the rivers Colorado and Guarapiche, both of
which rise in the mountains of the Cocollar, and blend their waters
lower down towards the east. The Colorado has a very rapid current,
and becomes at its mouth broader than the Rhine. The Guarapiche, at
its junction with the Rio Areo, is more than twenty-five fathoms
deep. Its banks are ornamented by a superb gramen, of which I made
a drawing two years afterward on ascending the river Magdalena. The
distich-leaved stalk of this gramen often reaches the height of
fifteen or twenty feet.* (* Lata, or cana brava. It is a new genus,
between aira and arundo. This colossal gramen looks like the donax
of Italy. This, the arundinaria of the Mississippi, (ludolfia,
Willd., miegia of Persoon,) and the bamboos, are the highest
gramens of the New Continent. Its seed has been carried to St.
Domingo, where its stalk is employed to thatch the negroes' huts.)
Towards evening we reached the Mission of Guanaguana, the site of
which is almost on a level with the village of San Antonio. The
missionary received us cordially; he was an old man, and he seemed
to govern his Indians with great intelligence. The village has
existed only thirty years on the spot it now occupies. Before that
time it was more to the south, and was backed by a hill. It is
astonishing with what facility the Indians are induced to remove
their dwellings. There are villages in South America which in less
than half a century have thrice changed their situation. The native
finds himself attached by ties so feeble to the soil he inhabits,
that he receives with indifference the order to take down his house
and to rebuild it elsewhere. A village changes its situation like a
camp. Wherever clay, reeds, and the leaves of the palm or heliconia
are found, a house is built in a few days. These compulsory changes
have often no other motive than the caprice of a missionary, who,
having recently arrived from Spain, fancies that the situation of
the Mission is feverish, or that it is not sufficiently exposed to
the winds. Whole villages have been transported several leagues,
merely because the monk did not find the prospect from his house
sufficiently beautiful or extensive.
Guanaguana has as yet no church. The old monk, who during thirty
years had lived in the forests of America, observed to us that the
money of the community, or the produce of the labour of the
Indians, was employed first in the construction of the missionary's
house, next in that of the church, and lastly in the clothing of
the Indians. He gravely assured us that this order of things could
not be changed on any pretence, and that the Indians, who prefer a
state of nudity to the slightest clothing, are in no hurry for
their turn in the destination of the funds. The spacious abode of
the padre had just been finished, and we had remarked with
surprise, that the house, the roof of which formed a terrace, was
furnished with a great number of chimneys that looked like turrets.
This, our host told us, was done to remind him of a country dear to
his recollection, and to picture to his mind the winters of Aragon
amid the heat of the torrid zone. The Indians of Guanaguana
cultivate cotton for their own benefit as well as for that of the
church and the missionary. The natives have machines of a very
simple construction to separate the cotton from the seeds. These
are wooden cylinders of extremely small diameter, within which the
cotton passes, and which are made to turn by a treadle. These
machines, however imperfect, are very useful, and they begin to be
imitated in other Missions. The soil of Guanaguana is not less
fertile than that of Aricagua, a small neighbouring village, which
has also preserved its ancient Indian name. An almuda of land, 1850
square toises, produces in abundant years from 25 to 30 fanegas of
maize, each fanega weighing 100 pounds. But here, as in other
places, where the bounty of nature retards industry, a very small
number of acres are cleared, and the culture of alimentary plants
is neglected. Scarcity of subsistence is felt, whenever the harvest
is lost by a protracted drought. The Indians of Guanaguana related
to us as a fact not uncommon, that in the preceding year they,
their wives, and their children, had been for three months al
monte; by which they meant, wandering in the neighbouring forests,
to live on succulent plants, palm-cabbages, fern roots, and fruits
of wild trees. They did not speak of this nomad life as of a state
of privation.
The beautiful valley of Guanaguana stretches towards the east,
opening into the plains of Punzera and Terecen. We wished to visit
those plains, and examine the springs of petroleum, lying between
the river Guarapiche and the Rio Areo; but the rainy season had
already arrived, and we were in daily perplexity how to dry and
preserve the plants we had collected. The road from Guanaguana to
the village of Punzera runs either by San Felix or by Caycara and
Guayuta, which is a farm for cattle (hato) of the missionaries. In
this last place, according to the report of the Indians, great
masses of sulphur are found, not in a gypseous or calcareous rock,
but at a small depth below the soil, in a bed of clay. This
singular phenomenon appears to me peculiar to America; we found it
also in the kingdom of Quito, and in New Spain. On approaching
Punzera, we saw in the savannahs small bags, formed of a silky
tissue suspended from the branches of the lowest trees.
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