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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Often, Amidst Dry Discussions On
Meteorology, It Contains Many Charming Descriptions; Such As Those
Of The Modes Of Life Of The Inhabitants Of The Mountains, The
Dangers Of Hunting The Chamois, And The Sensations Felt On The
Summit Of The Higher Alps.
There are details of ordinary life which it may be useful to note
in an itinerary, because they serve for the guidance of those who
afterwards journey through the same countries.
I have preserved a
few, but have suppressed the greater part of those personal
incidents which present no particular interest, and which can be
rendered amusing only by the perfection of style.
With respect to the country which has been the object of my
investigations, I am fully sensible of the great advantages enjoyed
by persons who travel in Greece, Egypt, the banks of the Euphrates,
and the islands of the Pacific, in comparison with those who
traverse the continent of America. In the Old World, nations and
the distinctions of their civilization form the principal points in
the picture; in the New World, man and his productions almost
disappear amidst the stupendous display of wild and gigantic
nature. The human race in the New World presents only a few
remnants of indigenous hordes, slightly advanced in civilization;
or it exhibits merely the uniformity of manners and institutions
transplanted by European colonists to foreign shores. Information
which relates to the history of our species, to the various forms
of government, to monuments of art, to places full of great
remembrances, affect us far more than descriptions of those vast
solitudes which seem destined only for the development of vegetable
life, and to be the domain of wild animals. The savages of America,
who have been the objects of so many systematic reveries, and on
whom M. Volney has lately published some accurate and intelligent
observations, inspire less interest since celebrated navigators
have made known to us the inhabitants of the South Sea islands, in
whose character we find a striking mixture of perversity and
meekness. The state of half-civilization existing among those
islanders gives a peculiar charm to the description of their
manners. A king, followed by a numerous suite, presents the fruits
of his orchard; or a funeral is performed amidst the shade of the
lofty forest. Such pictures, no doubt, have more attraction than
those which pourtray the solemn gravity of the inhabitant of the
banks of the Missouri or the Maranon.
America offers an ample field for the labours of the naturalist. On
no other part of the globe is he called upon more powerfully by
nature to raise himself to general ideas on the cause of phenomena
and their mutual connection. To say nothing of that luxuriance of
vegetation, that eternal spring of organic life, those climates
varying by stages as we climb the flanks of the Cordilleras, and
those majestic rivers which a celebrated writer (M. Chateaubriand.)
has described with such graceful accuracy, the resources which the
New World affords for the study of geology and natural philosophy
in general have been long since acknowledged.
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