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
Gaseous Emanations, Which Are The Vehicles Of This Aroma, Seem To
Be Evolved In Proportion Only As The Mould, Containing The Spoils
Of An Innumerable Quantity Of Reptiles, Worms, And Insects, Begins
To Be Impregnated With Water.
I have seen Indian children, of the
tribe of the Chaymas, draw out from the earth and eat millipedes or
scolopendras* eighteen inches long, and seven lines broad.
(*
Scolopendras are very common behind the castle of San Antonio, on
the summit of the hill.) Whenever the soil is turned up, we are
struck with the mass of organic substances, which by turns are
developed, transformed, and decomposed. Nature in these climates
appears more active, more fruitful, we may even say more prodigal,
of life.
On this shore, and near the dairies just mentioned, we enjoy,
especially at sunrise, a very beautiful prospect over an elevated
group of calcareous mountains. As this group subtends an angle of
three degrees only at the house where we dwelt, it long served me
to compare the variations of the terrestrial refraction with the
meteorological phenomena. Storms are formed in the centre of this
Cordillera; and we see from afar thick clouds resolve into abundant
rains, while during seven or eight months not a drop of water falls
at Cumana. The Brigantine, which is the highest part of this chain,
raises itself in a very picturesque manner behind Brito and
Tataraqual. It takes its name from the form of a very deep valley
on the northern declivity, which resembles the interior of a ship.
The summit of this mountain is almost bare of vegetation, and is
flat like that of Mowna Roa, in the Sandwich Islands.
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