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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This Sight Fills With Admiration
Even Those Who, Uninstructed In The Several Branches Of Physical
Science, Feel The Same Emotion Of Delight In The Contemplation Of
The Heavenly Vault, As In The View Of A Beautiful Landscape, Or A
Majestic Site.
A traveller needs not to be a botanist, to recognize
the torrid zone by the mere aspect of its vegetation.
Without
having acquired any notions of astronomy, without any acquaintance
with the celestial charts of Flamsteed and De La Caille, he feels
he is not in Europe, when he sees the immense constellation of the
Ship, or the phosphorescent Clouds of Magellan, arise on the
horizon. The heavens and the earth, - everything in the equinoctial
regions, presents an exotic character.
The lower regions of the air were loaded with vapours for some
days. We saw distinctly for the first time the Southern Cross only
on the night of the 4th of July, in the sixteenth degree of
latitude. It was strongly inclined, and appeared from time to time
between the clouds, the centre of which, furrowed by uncondensed
lightnings, reflected a silvery light. If a traveller may be
permitted to speak of his personal emotions, I shall add, that on
that night I experienced the realization of one of the dreams of my
early youth.
When we begin to fix our eyes on geographical maps, and to read the
narratives of navigators, we feel for certain countries and
climates a sort of predilection, which we know not how to account
for at a more advanced period of life.
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