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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Our Party Consisted Of Eighteen
Persons, And We All Walked One Behind Another, In A Narrow Path,
Traced On A Steep Acclivity, Covered With Turf.
We endeavoured
first to reach a hill, which towards the south-east seems to form a
promontory of the Silla.
It is connected with the body of the
mountain by a narrow dyke, called by the shepherds the Gate, or
Puerta de la Silla. We reached this dyke about seven. The morning
was fine and cool, and the sky till then seemed to favour our
excursion. I saw that the thermometer kept a little below 14
degrees (11.2 degrees Reaum.). The barometer showed that we were
already six hundred and eighty-five toises above the level of the
sea, that is, nearly eighty toises higher than at the Venta, where
we enjoyed so magnificent a view of the coast. Our guides thought
that it would require six hours more to reach the summit of the
Silla.
We crossed a narrow dyke of rocks covered with turf; which led us
from the promontory of the Puerta to the ridge of the great
mountain. Here the eye looks down on two valleys, or rather narrow
defiles, filled with thick vegetation. On the right is perceived
the ravine which descends between the two peaks to the farm of
Munoz; on the left we see the defile of Chacaito, with its waters
flowing out near the farm of Gallegos. The roaring of the cascades
is heard, while the water is unseen, being concealed by thick
groves of erythrina, clusia, and the Indian fig-tree.* (* Ficus
nymphaeifolia, Erythrina mitis. Two fine species of mimosa are
found in the same valley; Inga fastuosa, and I. cinerea.) Nothing
can be more picturesque, in a climate where so many plants have
broad, large, shining, and coriaceous leaves, than the aspect of
trees when the spectator looks down from a great height above them,
and when they are illumined by the almost perpendicular rays of the
sun.
From the Puerta de la Silla the steepness of the ascent increases,
and we were obliged to incline our bodies considerably forwards as
we advanced. The slope is often from 30 to 32 degrees.* (* Since my
experiments on slopes, mentioned above in Chapter 1.2, I have
discovered in the Figure de la Terre of Bouguer, a passage, which
shows that this astronomer, whose opinions are of such weight,
considered also 36 degrees as the inclination of a slope quite
inaccessible, if the nature of the ground did not admit of forming
steps with the foot.) We felt the want of cramp-irons, or sticks
shod with iron. Short grass covered the rocks of gneiss, and it was
equally impossible to hold by the grass, or to form steps as we
might have done in softer ground. This ascent, which was attended
with more fatigue than danger, discouraged those who accompanied us
from the town, and who were unaccustomed to climb mountains. We
lost a great deal of time in waiting for them, and we did not
resolve to proceed alone till we saw them descending the mountain
instead of climbing up it.
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