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 Trade In African Slaves, Which The Laws Of The
Spaniards Have Never Favoured, Is Almost As Nothing On These Coasts
Where The Trade In American Slaves Was Carried On In The Sixteenth
Century With Desolating Activity.
Macarapan, anciently called
Amaracapana, Cumana, Araya, and particularly New Cadiz, built on
the islet of Cubagua, might then be considered as commercial
establishments for facilitating the slave trade.
Girolamo Benzoni
of Milan, who at the age of twenty-two visited Terra Firma, took
part in some expeditions in 1542 to the coasts of Bordones,
Cariaco, and Paria, to carry off the unfortunate natives, he
relates with simplicity, and often with a sensibility not common in
the historians of that time, the examples of cruelty of which he
was a witness. He saw the slaves dragged to New Cadiz, to be marked
on the forehead and on the arms, and for the payment of the quint
to the officers of the crown. From this port the Indians were sent
to the island of Haiti or St. Domingo, after having often changed
masters, not by way of sale, but because the soldiers played for
them at dice.
The first excursion we made was to the peninsula of Araya, and
those countries formerly celebrated for the slave-trade and the
pearl-fishery. We embarked on the Rio Manzanares, near the Indian
suburb, on the 19th of August, about two in the morning. The
principal objects of this excursion were, to see the ruins of the
castle of Araya, to examine the salt-works, and to make a few
geological observations on the mountains forming the narrow
peninsula of Maniquarez. The night was delightfully cool; swarms of
phosphorescent insects* glistened in the air (* Elater noctilucus.
), and over a soil covered with sesuvium, and groves of mimosa
which bordered the river. We know how common the glow-worm* (*
Lampyris italica, L. noctiluca.) is in Italy and in all the south
of Europe, but the picturesque effect it produces cannot be
compared to those innumerable, scattered, and moving lights, which
embellish the nights of the torrid zone, and seem to repeat on the
earth, along the vast extent of the savannahs, the brilliancy of
the starry vault of heaven.
When, on descending the river, we drew near plantations, or charas,
we saw bonfires kindled by the negroes. A light and undulating
smoke rose to the tops of the palm-trees, and imparted a reddish
hue to the disk of the moon. It was on a Sunday night, and the
slaves were dancing to the music of the guitar. The people of
Africa, of negro race, are endowed with an inexhaustible store of
activity and gaiety. After having ended the labours of the week,
the slaves, on festival days, prefer to listless sleep the
recreations of music and dancing.
The bark in which we passed the gulf of Cariaco was very spacious.
Large skins of the jaguar, or American tiger, were spread for our
repose during the night. Though we had yet scarcely been two months
in the torrid zone, we had already become so sensible to the
smallest variation of temperature that the cold prevented us from
sleeping; while, to our surprise, we saw that the centigrade
thermometer was as high as 21.8 degrees.
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