Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
- Page 316 of 407 - First - Home
He Was A Physician, Who From His
Window, Had Observed Me Bareheaded, And Exposed To The Rays Of The
Sun.
He assured me, that, being a native of a very northern
climate, I should infallibly, after the imprudence I had committed,
be attacked with the yellow fever that very evening, if I refused
to take the remedy against it.
I was not alarmed by this
prediction, however serious, believing myself to have been long
acclimated; but I could not resist yielding to entreaties, prompted
by such benevolent feelings. I swallowed the dose; and the
physician doubtless counted me among the number of those he had
saved.
The road leading from the port to Caracas (the capital of a
government of near 900,000 inhabitants) resembles, as I have
already observed, the passage over the Alps, the road of St.
Gothard, and of the Great St. Bernard. Taking the level of the road
had never been attempted before my arrival in the province of
Venezuela. No precise idea had even been formed of the elevation of
the valley of Caracas. It had indeed been long observed, that the
descent was much less from La Cumbre and Las Vueltas (the latter is
the culminating point of the road towards the Pastora at the
entrance of the valley of Caracas), than towards the port of La
Guayra; but the mountain of Avila having a very considerable bulk,
the eye cannot discern simultaneously the points to be compared. It
is even impossible to form a precise idea of the elevation of
Caracas, from the climate of the valley, where the atmosphere is
cooled by the descending currents of air, and by the mists, which
envelope the lofty summit of the Silla during a great part of the
year.
When in the season of the great heats we breathe the burning
atmosphere of La Guayra, and turn our eyes towards the mountains,
it seems scarcely possible that, at the distance of five or six
thousand toises, a population of forty thousand individuals
assembled in a narrow valley, enjoys the coolness of spring, a
temperature which at night descends to 12 degrees of the centesimal
thermometer. This near approach of different climates is common in
the Cordillera of the Andes; but everywhere, at Mexico, at Quito,
in Peru, and in New Granada, it is only after a long journey into
the interior, either across plains or along rivers, that we reach
the great cities, which are the central points of civilization. The
height of Caracas is but a third of that of Mexico, Quito, and
Santa Fe de Bogota; yet of all the capitals of Spanish America
which enjoy a cool and delicious climate in the midst of the torrid
zone, Caracas is nearest to the coast. What a privilege for a city
to possess a seaport at three leagues distance, and to be situated
among mountains, on a table-land, which would produce wheat, if the
cultivation of the coffee-tree were not preferred!
The road from La Guayra to the valley of Caracas is infinitely
finer than the road from Honda to Santa Fe, or that from Guayaquil
to Quito.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 316 of 407
Words from 163915 to 164440
of 211363