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 169 of 208 - First - Home
The Rocky Masses Rise Above
This Wooded Zone In The Form Of Domes.
Being destitute of
vegetation, they increase by the nakedness of their surface the
apparent height of a mountain which, in the temperate parts of
Europe, would scarcely rise to the limit of perpetual snow.
The
cultivated region of the valley, and the gay plains of Chacao,
Petare, and La Vega, form an agreeable contrast to the imposing
aspect of the Silla, and the great irregularities of the ground on
the north of the town.
The climate of Caracas has often been called a perpetual spring.
The same sort of climate exists everywhere, halfway up the
Cordilleras of equinoctial America, between four hundred and nine
hundred toises of elevation, except in places where the great
breadth of the valleys, combined with an arid soil, causes an
extraordinary intensity* of radiant caloric. (* As at Carthago and
Ibague in New Grenada.) What can we conceive to be more delightful
than a temperature which in the day keeps between 20 and 26 degrees
(Between 16 and 20.8 degrees Reaum.); and at night between 16 and
18 degrees (Between 12.8 and 14.4 degrees Reaum.), which is equally
favourable to the plantain, the orange-tree, the coffee-tree, the
apple, the apricot, and corn? Jose de Oviedo y Banos, the
historiographer of Venezuela, calls the situation of Caracas that
of a terrestrial paradise, and compares the Anauco and the
neighbouring torrents to the four rivers of the Garden of Eden.
It is to be regretted that this delightful climate is generally
inconstant and variable. The inhabitants of Caracas complain of
having several seasons in one and the same day; and of the rapid
change from one season to another. In the month of January, for
instance, a night, of which the mean temperature is 16 degrees, is
sometimes followed by a day when the thermometer during eight
successive hours keeps above 22 degrees in the shade. In the same
day, we may find the temperature of 24 and 18 degrees. These
variations are extremely common in our temperate climates of
Europe, but in the torrid zone, Europeans themselves are so
accustomed to the uniform action of exterior stimulus, that they
suffer from a change of temperature of 6 degrees. At Cumana, and
everywhere in the plains, the temperature from eleven in the
morning to eleven at night changes only 2 or 3 degrees. Moreover,
these variations act on the human frame at Caracas more violently
than might be supposed from the mere indications of the
thermometer. In this narrow valley the atmosphere is in some sort
balanced between two winds, one blowing from the west, or the
seaside, the other from the east, or the inland country. The first
is known by the name of the wind of Catia, because it blows from
Catia westward of Cabo Blanco through the ravine of Tipe. It is,
however, only a westerly wind in appearance, and it is oftener the
breeze of the east and north-east, which, rushing with extreme
impetuosity, engulfs itself in the Quebrada de Tipe. Rebounding
from the high mountains of Aguas Negras, this wind finds its way
back to Caracas, in the direction of the hospital of the Capuchins
and the Rio Caraguata. It is loaded with vapours, which it deposits
as its temperature decreases, and consequently the summit of the
Silla is enveloped in clouds, when the catia blows in the valley.
This wind is dreaded by the inhabitants of Caracas; it causes
headache in persons whose nervous system is irritable. In order to
shun its effects, people sometimes shut themselves up in their
houses, as they do in Italy when the sirocco is blowing. I thought
I perceived, during my stay at Caracas, that the wind of Catia was
purer (a little richer in oxygen) than the wind of Petare. I even
imagined that its purity might explain its exciting property. The
wind of Petare coming from the east and south-east, by the eastern
extremity of the valley of the Guayra, brings from the mountains
and the interior of the country, a drier air, which dissipates the
clouds, and the summit of the Silla rises in all its beauty.
We know that the modifications produced by winds in the composition
of the air in various places, entirely escape our eudiometrical
experiments, the most precise of which can estimate only as far
as .0003 degrees of oxygen. Chemistry does not yet possess any
means of distinguishing two jars of air, the one filled during the
prevalence of the sirocco or the catia, and the other before these
winds have commenced. It appears to me probable, that the singular
effects of the catia, and of all those currents of air, to the
influence of which popular opinion attaches so much importance,
must be looked for rather in the changes of humidity and of
temperature, than in chemical modifications. We need not trace
miasms to Caracas from the unhealthy shore on the coast: it may be
easily conceived that men accustomed to the drier air of the
mountains and the interior, must be disagreeably affected when the
very humid air of the sea, pressed through the gap of Tipe, reaches
in an ascending current the high valley of Caracas, and, getting
cooler by dilatation, and by contact with the adjacent strata,
deposits a great portion of the water it contains. This inconstancy
of climate, these somewhat rapid transitions from dry and
transparent to humid and misty air, are inconveniences which
Caracas shares in common with the whole temperate region of the
tropics - with all places situated between four and eight hundred
toises of elevation, either on table-lands of small extent, or on
the slope of the Cordilleras, as at Xalapa in Mexico, and Guaduas
in New Granada. A serenity, uninterrupted during a great part of
the year, prevails only in the low regions at the level of the sea,
and at considerable heights on those vast table-lands, where the
uniform radiation of the soil seems to contribute to the perfect
dissolution of vesicular vapours.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 169 of 208
Words from 171411 to 172428
of 211363