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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Though The Words Bava, Cachicamo, And
Temblador, Were Entirely Unknown To Us, We Easily Guessed, From The
Pilot's Simple Description Of Their Manners And Forms, The Species
Which The Creoles Distinguished By These Denominations.
CHAPTER 1.4.
FIRST ABODE AT CUMANA.
BANKS OF THE MANZANARES.
On the 16th of July, 1799, at break of day, we beheld a verdant
coast, of picturesque aspect. The mountains of New Andalusia,
half-veiled by mists, bounded the horizon to the south. The city of
Cumana and its castle appeared between groups of cocoa-trees. We
anchored in the port about nine in the morning, forty-one days
after our departure from Corunna; the sick dragged themselves on
deck to enjoy the sight of a land which was to put an end to their
sufferings. Our eyes were fixed on the groups of cocoa-trees which
border the river: their trunks, more than sixty feet high, towered
over every object in the landscape. The plain was covered with the
tufts of Cassia, Caper, and those arborescent mimosas, which, like
the pine of Italy, spread their branches in the form of an
umbrella. The pinnated leaves of the palms were conspicuous on the
azure sky, the clearness of which was unsullied by any trace of
vapour. The sun was ascending rapidly toward the zenith. A dazzling
light was spread through the air, along the whitish hills strewed
with cylindric cactuses, and over a sea ever calm, the shores of
which were peopled with alcatras,* (* A brown pelican, of the size
of a swan. (Pelicanus fuscus, Linn.)) egrets, and flamingoes. The
splendour of the day, the vivid colouring of the vegetable world,
the forms of the plants, the varied plumage of the birds,
everything was stamped with the grand character of nature in the
equinoctial regions.
The city of Cumana, the capital of New Andalusia, is a mile distant
from the embarcadero, or the battery of the Boca, where we landed,
after having passed the bar of the Manzanares. We had to cross a
vast plain, called el Salado, which divides the suburb of the
Guayquerias from the sea-coast. The excessive heat of the
atmosphere was augmented by the reverberation of the soil, partly
destitute of vegetation. The centigrade thermometer, plunged into
the white sand, rose to 37.7 degrees. In the small pools of salt
water it kept at 30.5 degrees, while the heat of the ocean, at its
surface, is generally, in the port of Cumana, from 25.2 to 26.3
degrees. The first plant we gathered on the continent of America
was the Avicennia tomentosa,8 (* Mangle prieto.) which in this
place scarcely reaches two feet in height. This shrub, together
with the sesuvium, the yellow gomphrena, and the cactus, cover soil
impregnated with muriate of soda; they belong to that small number
of plants which live in society like the heath of Europe, and which
in the torrid zone are found only on the seashore, and on the
elevated plains of the Andes.* (* On the extreme rarity of the
social plants in the tropics, see my Essay on the Geog.
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