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 Whole Authority Of 'los Padres' Was
Necessary To Induce Them To Advance As Far As The Spot Where The
Soil rises abruptly at an inclination of sixty degrees, and where
the torrent forms a small subterranean cascade.* (* We find
The
phenomenon of a subterranean cascade, but on a much larger scale,
in England, at Yordas Cave, near Kingsdale in Yorkshire.) The
natives connect mystic ideas with this cave, inhabited by nocturnal
birds; they believe that the souls of their ancestors sojourn in
the deep recesses of the cavern. "Man," say they, "should avoid
places which are enlightened neither by the sun (zis), nor by the
moon (nuna)." 'To go and join the guacharos,' is with them a phrase
signifying to rejoin their fathers, to die. The magicians (piaches)
and the poisoners (imorons) perform their nocturnal tricks at the
entrance of the cavern, to conjure the chief of the evil spirits
(ivorokiamo). Thus in every region of the earth a resemblance may
be traced in the early fictions of nations, those especially which
relate to two principles governing the world, the abode of souls
after death, the happiness of the virtuous and the punishment of
the guilty. The most different and most barbarous languages present
a certain number of images, which are the same, because they have
their source in the nature of our intelligence and our sensations.
Darkness is everywhere connected with the idea of death. The Grotto
of Caripe is the Tartarus of the Greeks; and the guacharos, which
hover over the rivulet, uttering plaintive cries, remind us of the
Stygian birds.
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