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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The
Prefect Of The Capuchins, An Active And Enlightened Man, Has
Introduced Into The Province This New Branch Of Agricultural
Industry.
Indigo was formerly planted at Caripe, but the small
quantity of fecula yielded by this plant, which requires great
heat, caused the culture to be abandoned.
We found in the conuco of
the community many culinary plants, maize, sugar cane, and five
thousand coffee-trees, which promised a fine harvest. The friars
were in hopes of tripling the number in a few years. We cannot help
remarking the uniform efforts for the cultivation of the soil which
are manifested in the policy of the monastic hierarchy. Wherever
convents have not yet acquired wealth in the New Continent, as
formerly in Gaul, in Syria, and in the north of Europe, they
exercise a happy influence on the clearing of the ground and the
introduction of exotic vegetation. At Caripe, the conuco of the
community presents the appearance of an extensive and beautiful
garden. The natives are obliged to work in it every morning from
six to ten, and the alcaldes and alguazils of Indian race overlook
their labours. These men are looked upon as great state
functionaries, and they alone have the right of carrying a cane.
The selection of them depends on the superior of the convent. The
pedantic and silent gravity of the Indian alcaldes, their cold and
mysterious air, their love of appearing in form at church and in
the assemblies of the people, force a smile from Europeans. We were
not yet accustomed to these shades of the Indian character, which
we found the same at the Orinoco, in Mexico, and in Peru, among
people totally different in their manners and their language. The
alcaldes came daily to the convent, less to treat with the monks on
the affairs of the Mission, than under the pretence of inquiring
after the health of the newly-arrived travellers. As we gave them
brandy, their visits became more frequent than the monks desired.
That which confers most celebrity on the valley of Caripe, besides
the extraordinary coolness of its climate, is the great Cueva, or
Cavern of the Guacharo.* (* The province of Guacharucu, which
Delgado visited in 1534, in the expedition of Hieronimo de Ortal,
appears to have been situated south or south-east of Macarapana.
Has its name any connexion with those of the cavern and the bird?
or is this last of Spanish origin? (Laet Nova Orbis page 676).
Guacharo means in Castilian "one who cries and laments;" now the
bird of the cavern of Caripe, and the guacharaca (Phasianus
parraka) are very noisy birds.) In a country where the people love
the marvellous, a cavern which gives birth to a river, and is
inhabited by thousands of nocturnal birds, the fat of which is
employed in the Missions to dress food, is an everlasting object of
conversation and discussion. The cavern, which the natives call "a
mine of fat" is not in the valley of Caripe itself, but three short
leagues distant from the convent, in the direction of
west-south-west. It opens into a lateral valley, which terminates
at the Sierra del Guacharo.
We set out for the Sierra on the 18th of September, accompanied by
the alcaldes, or Indian magistrates, and the greater part of the
monks of the convent. A narrow path led us at first towards the
south, across a fine plain, covered with beautiful turf. We then
turned westward, along the margin of a small river which issues
from the mouth of the cavern. We ascended during three quarters of
an hour, sometimes in the water, which was shallow, sometimes
between the torrent and a wall of rocks, on a soil extremely
slippery and miry. The falling down of the earth, the scattered
trunks of trees, over which the mules could scarcely pass, and the
creeping plants that covered the ground, rendered this part of the
road fatiguing. We were surprised to find here, at scarcely 500
toises above the level of the sea, a cruciferous plant, Raphanus
pinnatus. Plants of this family are very rare in the tropics; they
have in some sort a northern character, and therefore we never
expected to see one on the plain of Caripe at so inconsiderable an
elevation. The northern character also appears in the Galium
caripense, the Valeriana scandens, and a sanicle not unlike the S.
marilandica.
At the foot of the lofty mountain of the Guacharo, we were only
four hundred paces from the cavern, without yet perceiving the
entrance. The torrent runs in a crevice hollowed out by the waters,
and we went on under a cornice, the projection of which prevented
us from seeing the sky. The path winds in the direction of the
river; and at the last turning we came suddenly before the immense
opening of the grotto. The aspect of this spot is majestic, even to
the eye of a traveller accustomed to the picturesque scenery of the
higher Alps. I had before this seen the caverns of the peak of
Derbyshire, where, lying down flat in a boat, we proceeded along a
subterranean river, under an arch two feet high. I had visited the
beautiful grotto of Treshemienshiz, in the Carpathian mountains,
the caverns of the Hartz, and those of Franconia, which are vast
cemeteries,* containing bones of tigers, hyenas, and bears, as
large as our horses. (* The mould, which has covered for thousands
of years the soil of the caverns of Gaylenreuth and Muggendorf in
Franconia, emits even now choke-damps, or gaseous mixtures of
hydrogen and nitrogen, which rise to the roof of the caves. This
fact is known to the persons who show these caverns to travellers;
and when I was director of the mines of the Fichtelberg, I observed
it frequently in the summer-time. M. Laugier found in the mould of
Muggendorf, besides phosphate of lime, 0.10 of animal matter. I was
struck, during my stay at Steeben, with the ammoniacal and fetid
smell produced by it, when thrown on a red-hot iron.) Nature in
every zone follows immutable laws in the distribution of rocks, in
the form of mountains, and even in those changes which the exterior
crust of our planet has undergone.
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