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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There, A
Highly Cultured And Smiling Plain Presents A Pleasing Contrast To
The Wild Aspect Of The Volcano.
From the groups of palm trees and
bananas which line the coast, to the region of the arbutus, the
laurel, and the pine, the volcanic rock is crowned with luxuriant
vegetation.
We easily conceive how the inhabitants, even of the
beautiful climates of Greece and Italy, might fancy they recognised
one of the Fortunate Isles in the western part of Teneriffe. The
eastern side, that of Santa Cruz, on the contrary, is every where
stamped with sterility. The summit of the peak is not more arid
than the promontory of basaltic lava, which stretches towards the
point of Naga, and on which succulent plants, springing up in the
clefts of the rocks, scarcely indicate a preparation of soil. At
the port of Orotava, the top of the Piton subtends an angle in
height of more than eleven degrees and a half; while at the mole of
Santa Cruz* (* The oblique distances from the top of the volcano to
Orotava and to Santa Cruz are nearly 8600 toises and 22,500 toises.)
the angle scarcely exceeds 4 degrees 36 minutes.
Notwithstanding this difference, and though in the latter place the
volcano rises above the horizon scarcely as much as Vesuvius seen
from the mole of Naples, the aspect of the peak is still very
majestic, when those who anchor in the road discern it for the
first time. The Piton alone was visible to us; its cone projected
itself on a sky of the purest blue, whilst dark thick clouds
enveloped the rest of the mountain to the height of 1800 toises.
The pumice-stone, illumined by the first rays of the sun, reflected
a reddish light, like that which tinges the summits of the higher
Alps. This light by degrees becomes dazzlingly white; and, deceived
like most travellers, we thought that the peak was still covered
with snow, and that we should with difficulty reach the edge of the
crater.
We have remarked, in the Cordillera of the Andes, that the conical
mountains, such as Cotopaxi and Tungurahua, are oftener seen free
from clouds, than those of which the tops are broken into bristly
points, like Antisana and Pichincha; but the peak of Teneriffe,
notwithstanding its pyramidical form, is a great part of the year
enveloped in vapours, and is sometimes, during several weeks,
invisible from the road of Santa Cruz. Its position to the west of
an immense continent, and its insulated situation in the midst of
the sea, are no doubt the causes of this phenomenon. Navigators are
well aware that even the smallest islets, and those which are
without mountains, collect and harbour the clouds. The decrement of
heat is also different above the plains of Africa, and above the
surface of the Atlantic; and the strata of air, brought by the
trade winds, cool in proportion as they advance towards the west.
If the air has been extremely dry above the burning sands of the
desert, it is very quickly saturated when it enters into contact
with the surface of the sea, or with the air that lies on that
surface. It is easy to conceive, therefore, why vapours become
visible in the atmospherical strata, which, at a distance from the
continent, have no longer the same temperature as when they began
to be saturated with water. The considerable mass of a mountain,
rising in the midst of the Atlantic, is also an obstacle to the
clouds, which are driven out to sea by the winds.
On entering the streets of Santa Cruz, we felt a suffocating heat,
though the thermometer was not above twenty-five degrees. Those who
have for a long time inhaled the air of the sea suffer every time
they land; not because this air contains more oxygen than the air
on shore, as has been erroneously supposed, but because it is less
charged with those gaseous combinations, which the animal and
vegetable substances, and the mud resulting from their
decomposition, pour into the atmosphere. Miasms that escape
chemical analysis have a powerful effect on our organs, especially
when they have not for a long while been exposed to the same kind
of irritation.
Santa Cruz, the Anaza of the Guanches, is a neat town, with a
population of 8000 souls. I was not struck with the vast number of
monks and secular ecclesiastics, which travellers have thought
themselves bound to find in every country under the Spanish
government; nor shall I stop to enter into the description of the
churches; the library of the Dominicans, which contains scarcely a
few hundred volumes; the mole, where the inhabitants assemble to
inhale the freshness of the evening breeze; or the famed monument
of Carrara marble, thirty feet high, dedicated to Our Lady of
Candelaria, in memory of the miraculous appearance of the Virgin,
in 1392, at Chimisay, near Guimar. The port of Santa Cruz may be
considered as a great caravanserai, on the road to America and the
Indies. Every traveller who writes the narrative of his adventures,
begins by a description of Madeira and Teneriffe; and if in the
natural history of these islands there yet remains an immense field
untrodden, we must admit that the topography of the little towns of
Funchal, Santa Cruz, Laguna, and Orotava, leaves scarcely anything
untold.
The recommendation of the court of Madrid procured for us, in the
Canaries, as in all the other Spanish possessions, the most
satisfactory reception. The captain-general gave us immediate
permission to examine the island. Colonel Armiaga, who commanded a
regiment of infantry, received us into his house with kind
hospitality. We could not cease admiring the banana, the papaw
tree, the Poinciana pulcherrima, and other plants, which we had
hitherto seen only in hot-houses, cultivated in his garden in the
open air. The climate of the Canaries however is not warm enough to
ripen the real Platano Arton, with triangular fruit from seven to
eight inches long, and which, requiring a temperature of 24
centesimal degrees, does not flourish even in the valley of
Caracas.
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