Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
- Page 122 of 407 - First - Home
A Gallician surgeon, ignorant and
phlegmatic, ordered bleedings, because he attributed the fever to
what he called heat and corruption of the blood.
There was not an
ounce of bark on board; for we had emitted to take any with us,
under the impression that this salutary production of Peru could
not fail to be found on board a Spanish vessel.
On the 8th of July, a sailor, who was near expiring, recovered his
health from a circumstance worthy of being mentioned. His hammock
was so hung, that there was not ten inches between his face and the
deck. It was impossible to administer the sacrament in this
situation; for, agreeably to the custom on board Spanish vessels,
the viaticum must be carried by the light of tapers, and followed
by the whole crew. The patient was removed into an airy place near
the hatchway, where a small square berth had been formed with
sailcloth. Here he was to remain till he died, which was an event
expected every moment; but passing from an atmosphere heated,
stagnant, and filled with miasma, into fresher and purer air, which
was renewed every instant, he gradually revived from his lethargic
state. His recovery dated from the day when he quitted the middle
deck; and as it often happens in medicine that the same facts are
cited in support of systems diametrically opposite, this recovery
confirmed our doctor in his idea of the inflammation of the blood,
and the necessity of bleeding, evacuating, and all the asthenic
remedies. We soon felt the fatal effects of this treatment.
For several days the pilot's reckoning differed 1 degree 12 minutes
in longitude from that of my time. This difference was owing less
to the general current, which I have called the current of
rotation, than to that particular movement, which, drawing the
waters toward the north-west, from the coast of Brazil to the
Antilles, shortens the passage from Cayenne to Guadaloupe.* (* In
the Atlantic Ocean there is a space where the water is constantly
milky, though the sea is very deep. This curious phenomenon exists
in the parallel of the island of Dominica, very near the 57th
degree of longitude. May there not be in this place some sunken
volcanic islet, more easterly still than Barbadoes?) On the 12th of
July, I thought I might foretell our seeing land next day before
sunrise. We were then, according to my observations, in latitude 10
degrees 46 minutes, and west longitude 60 degrees 54 minutes. A few
series of lunar distances confirmed the chronometrical result; but
we were surer of the position of the vessel, than of that of the
land to which we were directing our course, and which was so
differently marked in the French, Spanish, and English charts. The
longitudes deduced from the accurate observations of Messrs.
Churruca, Fidalgo, and Noguera, were not then published.
The pilots trusted more to the log than the timekeeper; they smiled
at the prediction of so speedily making land, and thought
themselves two or three days' sail from the coast.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 122 of 407
Words from 63034 to 63549
of 211363