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 Tree Of Which The Bark* Furnishes
A Salutary Remedy For Those Fevers (* Cortex Angosturae Of Our
Pharmacopaeias, The Bark Of The Bonplandia Trifoliata.), Grows In
The Same Valleys, And Upon The Edge Of The Same Forests Which Send
Forth The Pernicious Exhalations.
M. Bonpland recognised the
cuspare in the vegetation of the gulf of Santa Fe, situated between
the ports of Cumana and Barcelona.
The sickly traveller may
perchance repose in a cottage, the inhabitants of which are
ignorant of the febrifuge qualities of the trees that shade the
surrounding valleys.
Having proceeded by sea from Cumana to La Guayra, we intended to
take up our abode in the town of Caracas, till the end of the rainy
season. From Caracas we proposed to direct our course across the
great plains or llanos, to the Missions of the Orinoco; to go up
that vast river, to the south of the cataracts, as far as the Rio
Negro and the frontiers of Brazil; and thence to return to Cumana
by the capital of Spanish Guiana, commonly called, on account of
its situation, Angostura, or the Strait. We could not determine the
time we might require to accomplish a tour of seven hundred
leagues, more than two-thirds of that distance having to be
traversed in boats. The only parts of the Orinoco known on the
coasts are those near its mouth. No commercial intercourse is kept
up with the Missions. The whole of the country beyond the llanos is
unknown to the inhabitants of Cumana and Caracas. Some think that
the plains of Calabozo, covered with turf, stretch eight hundred
leagues southward, communicating with the Steppes or Pampas of
Buenos Ayres; others, recalling to mind the great mortality which
prevailed among the troops of Iturriaga and Solano, during their
expedition to the Orinoco, consider the whole country, south of the
cataracts of Atures, as extremely pernicious to health. In a region
where travelling is so uncommon, people seem to feel a pleasure in
exaggerating to strangers the difficulties arising from the
climate, the wild animals, and the Indians. Nevertheless we
persisted in the project we had formed. We could rely upon the
interest and solicitude of the governor of Cumana, Don Vicente
Emparan, as well as on the recommendations of the Franciscan monks,
who are in reality masters of the shores of the Orinoco.
Fortunately for us, one of those monks, Juan Gonzales, was at that
time in Cumana. This young monk, who was only a lay-brother, was
highly intelligent, and full of spirit and courage. He had the
misfortune shortly after his arrival on the coast to displease his
superiors, upon the election of a new director of the Missions of
Piritu, which is a period of great agitation in the convent of New
Barcelona. The triumphant party exercised a general retaliation,
from which the lay-brother could not escape. He was sent to
Esmeralda, the last Mission of the Upper Orinoco, famous for the
vast quantity of noxious insects with which the air is continually
filled.
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