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 Little River, Together With The Sulphureous Hot
Springs, Fall Into The Laguna De Campoma.
This is a name given to a
great lagoon, which is divided in dry weather into three basins
situated north-west of the town of Cariaco, near the extremity of
the gulf.
Fetid exhalations arise continually from the stagnant
water of this lagoon. The smell of sulphuretted hydrogen is mingled
with that of putrid fishes and rotting plants.
Miasms are formed in the valley of Cariaco, as in the Campagna of
Rome; but the hot climate of the tropics increases their
deleterious energy. These miasms are probably ternary or quaternary
combinations of azote, phosphorus, hydrogen, carbon, and sulphur.
The situation of the lagoon of Campoma renders the north-west wind,
which blows frequently after sunset, very pernicious to the
inhabitants of the little town of Cariaco. Its influence can be the
less doubted, as intermitting fevers are observed to degenerate
into typhoid fevers, in proportion as we approach the lagoon, which
is the principal focus of putrid miasms. Whole families of free
negroes, who have small plantations on the northern coast of the
gulf of Cariaco, languish in their hammocks from the beginning of
the rainy season. These intermittent fevers assume a dangerous
character, when persons, debilitated by long labour and copious
perspiration, expose themselves to the fine rains, which frequently
fall as evening advances. Nevertheless, the men of colour, and
particularly the Creole negroes, resist much better than any other
race, the influence of the climate. Lemonade and infusions of
Scoparia dulcis are given to the sick; but the cuspare, which is
the cinchona of Angostura, is seldom used.
It is generally observed, that in these epidemics of the town of
Cariaco the mortality is less considerable than might be supposed.
Intermitting fevers, when they attack the same individual during
several successive years, enfeeble the constitution; but this state
of debility, so common on the unhealthy coasts, does not cause
death. What is remarkable enough, is the belief which prevails here
as in the Campagna of Rome, that the air has become progressively
more vitiated in proportion as a greater number of acres have been
cultivated. The miasms exhaled from these plains have, however,
nothing in common with those which arise from a forest when the
trees are cut down, and the sun heats a thick layer of dead leaves.
Near Cariaco the country is but thinly wooded. Can it be supposed
that the mould, fresh stirred and moistened by rains, alters and
vitiates the atmosphere more than the thick wood of plants which
covers an uncultivated soil? To local causes are joined other
causes less problematic. The neighbouring shores of the sea are
covered with mangroves, avicennias, and other shrubs with
astringent bark. All the inhabitants of the tropics are aware of
the noxious exhalations of these plants; and they dread them the
more, as their roots and stocks are not always under water, but
alternately wetted and exposed to the heat of the sun.* The
mangroves produce miasms, because they contain vegeto-animal matter
combined with tannin. (* The following is a list of the social
plants that cover those sandy plains on the sea-side, and
characterize the vegetation of Cumana and the gulf of Cariaco.
Rhizophora mangle, Avicennia nitida, Gomphrena flava, G. brachiata,
Sesuvium portulacastrum (vidrio), Talinum cuspidatum (vicho), T.
cumanense, Portulacca pilosa (zargasso), P. lanuginosa, Illecebrum
maritimum, Atriplex cristata, Heliotropium viride, H. latifolium,
Verbena cuneata, Mollugo verticillata, Euphorbia maritima,
Convolvulus cumanensis.)
The town of Cariaco has been repeatedly sacked in former times by
the Caribs. Its population has augmented rapidly since the
provincial authorities, in spite of prohibitory orders from the
court of Madrid have often favoured the trade with foreign
colonies. The population amounted, in 1800, to more than 6000
souls. The inhabitants are active in the cultivation of cotton,
which is of a very fine quality. The capsules of the cotton-tree,
when separated from the woolly substance, are carefully burnt; as
those husks if thrown into the river, and exposed to putrefaction,
yield noxious exhalations. The culture of the cacao-tree has of
late considerably diminished. This valuable tree bears only after
eight or ten years. Its fruit keeps very badly in the warehouses,
and becomes mouldy at the expiration of a year, notwithstanding all
the precautions employed for drying it.
It is only in the interior of the province, to the east of the
Sierra de Meapire, that new plantations of the cacao-tree are seen.
They become there the more productive, as the lands, newly cleared
and surrounded by forests, are in contact with an atmosphere damp,
stagnant, and loaded with mephitic exhalations. We there see
fathers of families, attached to the old habits of the colonists,
slowly amass a little fortune for themselves and their children.
Thirty thousand cacao-trees will secure competence to a family for
a generation and a half. If the culture of cotton and coffee have
led to the diminution of cacao in the province of Caracas and in
the small valley of Cariaco, it must be admitted that this last
branch of colonial industry has in general increased in the
interior of the provinces of New Barcelona and Cumana. The causes
of the progressive movement of the cacao-tree from west to east may
be easily conceived. The province of Caracas has been from a remote
period cultivated: and, in the torrid zone, in proportion as a
country has been cleared, it becomes drier and more exposed to the
winds. These physical changes have been adverse to the propagation
of cacao-trees, the plantations of which, diminishing in the
province of Caracas, have accumulated eastward on a newly-cleared
and virgin soil. The cacao of Cumana is infinitely superior to that
of Guayaquil. The best is produced in the valley of San Bonifacio;
as the best cacao of New Barcelona, Caracas, and Guatimala, is that
of Capiriqual, Uritucu, and Soconusco. Since the island of Trinidad
has become an English colony, the whole of the eastern extremity of
the province of Cumana, especially the coast of Paria, and the gulf
of the same name, have changed their appearance.
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