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
Machines, However Imperfect, Are Very Useful, And They Begin To Be
Imitated In Other Missions.
The soil of Guanaguana is not less
fertile than that of Aricagua, a small neighbouring village, which
has also preserved its ancient Indian name.
An almuda of land, 1850
square toises, produces in abundant years from 25 to 30 fanegas of
maize, each fanega weighing 100 pounds. But here, as in other
places, where the bounty of nature retards industry, a very small
number of acres are cleared, and the culture of alimentary plants
is neglected. Scarcity of subsistence is felt, whenever the harvest
is lost by a protracted drought. The Indians of Guanaguana related
to us as a fact not uncommon, that in the preceding year they,
their wives, and their children, had been for three months al
monte; by which they meant, wandering in the neighbouring forests,
to live on succulent plants, palm-cabbages, fern roots, and fruits
of wild trees. They did not speak of this nomad life as of a state
of privation.
The beautiful valley of Guanaguana stretches towards the east,
opening into the plains of Punzera and Terecen. We wished to visit
those plains, and examine the springs of petroleum, lying between
the river Guarapiche and the Rio Areo; but the rainy season had
already arrived, and we were in daily perplexity how to dry and
preserve the plants we had collected. The road from Guanaguana to
the village of Punzera runs either by San Felix or by Caycara and
Guayuta, which is a farm for cattle (hato) of the missionaries.
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