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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From This Port The Indians Were Sent
To The Island Of Haiti Or St. Domingo, After Having Often Changed
Masters, Not By Way Of Sale, But Because The Soldiers Played For
Them At Dice.
The first excursion we made was to the peninsula of Araya, and
those countries formerly celebrated for the slave-trade and the
pearl-fishery.
We embarked on the Rio Manzanares, near the Indian
suburb, on the 19th of August, about two in the morning. The
principal objects of this excursion were, to see the ruins of the
castle of Araya, to examine the salt-works, and to make a few
geological observations on the mountains forming the narrow
peninsula of Maniquarez. The night was delightfully cool; swarms of
phosphorescent insects* glistened in the air (* Elater noctilucus.
), and over a soil covered with sesuvium, and groves of mimosa
which bordered the river. We know how common the glow-worm* (*
Lampyris italica, L. noctiluca.) is in Italy and in all the south
of Europe, but the picturesque effect it produces cannot be
compared to those innumerable, scattered, and moving lights, which
embellish the nights of the torrid zone, and seem to repeat on the
earth, along the vast extent of the savannahs, the brilliancy of
the starry vault of heaven.
When, on descending the river, we drew near plantations, or charas,
we saw bonfires kindled by the negroes. A light and undulating
smoke rose to the tops of the palm-trees, and imparted a reddish
hue to the disk of the moon.
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