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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These
Situations Are Analogous To That Of Caracas.
The phenomena of
geognosy, particularly those which are connected with the
stratification of rocks, and their grouping, are never solitary;
but are found the same in both hemispheres.
I was the more struck
with these relations, and this identity of formations, as, at the
time of my journey in these countries, mineralogists were
unacquainted with the name of a single rock of Venezuela, New
Grenada, and the Cordilleras of Quito.
CHAPTER 1.12.
GENERAL VIEW OF THE PROVINCES OF VENEZUELA.
DIVERSITY OF THEIR INTERESTS.
CITY AND VALLEY OF CARACAS.
CLIMATE.
In all those parts of Spanish America in which civilization did not
exist to a certain degree before the Conquest (as it did in Mexico,
Guatimala, Quito, and Peru), it has advanced from the coasts to the
interior of the country, following sometimes the valley of a great
river, sometimes a chain of mountains, affording a temperate
climate. Concentrated at once in different points, it has spread as
if by diverging rays. The union into provinces and kingdoms was
effected on the first immediate contact between civilized parts, or
at least those subject to permanent and regular government. Lands
deserted, or inhabited by savage tribes, now surround the countries
which European civilization has subdued. They divide its conquests
like arms of the sea difficult to be passed, and neighbouring
states are often connected with each other only by slips of
cultivated land. It is less difficult to acquire a knowledge of the
configuration of coasts washed by the ocean, than of the
sinuosities of that interior shore, on which barbarism and
civilization, impenetrable forests and cultivated land, touch and
bound each other. From not having reflected on the early state of
society in the New World, geographers have often made their maps
incorrect, by marking the different parts of the Spanish and
Portuguese colonies, as though they were contiguous at every point
in the interior. The local knowledge which I obtained respecting
these boundaries, enables me to fix the extent of the great
territorial divisions with some certainty, to compare the wild and
inhabited parts, and to appreciate the degree of political
influence exercised by certain towns of America, as centres of
power and of commerce.
Caracas is the capital of a country nearly twice as large as Peru,
and now little inferior in extent to the kingdom of New Grenada.*
(* The Capitania-General of Caracas contains near 48,000 square
leagues (twenty-five to a degree). Peru, since La Paz, Potosi,
Charcas and Santa Cruz de la Sierra, have been separated from it,
contains only 30,000. New Grenada, including the province of Quito,
contains 65,000. Reinos, Capitanias-Generales, Presidencies,
Goviernos, and Provincias, are the names by which Spain formerly
distinguished her transmarine possessions, or, as they were called,
Dominios de Ultramar (Dominions beyond Sea.)) This country which
the Spanish government designates by the name of Capitania-General
de Caracas,* (* The captain-general of Caracas has the title of
"Capitan-General de las Provincias de Venezuela y Ciudad do
Caracas.") or of the united provinces of Venezuela, has nearly a
million of inhabitants, among whom are sixty thousand slaves.
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