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
Building Has An Inner Court, Surrounded By An Arcade, Like The
Convents In Spain.
This enclosed place was highly convenient for
setting up our instruments and making observations.
We found a
numerous society in the convent. Young monks, recently arrived from
Spain, were just about to settle in the Missions, while old infirm
missionaries sought for health in the fresh and salubrious air of
the mountains of Caripe. I was lodged in the cell of the superior,
which contained a pretty good collection of books. I found there,
to my surprise, the Teatro Critico of Feijoo, the Lettres
Edifiantes, and the Traite d'Electricite by abbe Nollet. It seemed
as if the progress of knowledge advanced even in the forests of
America. The youngest of the capuchin monks of the last Mission had
brought with him a Spanish translation of Chaptal's Treatise on
Chemistry, and he intended to study this work in the solitude where
he was destined to pass the remainder of his days. During our long
abode in the Missions of South America we never perceived any sign
of intolerance. The monks of Caripe were not ignorant that I was
born in the protestant part of Germany. Furnished as I was with
orders from the court of Spain, I had no motives to conceal from
them this fact; nevertheless, no mark of distrust, no indiscreet
question, no attempt at controversy, ever diminished the value of
the hospitality they exercised with so much liberality and
frankness.
The convent is founded on a spot which was anciently called
Areocuar.
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