Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
- Page 476 of 779 - First - Home
He Possesses That
Mildness Of Character Which Belongs To The Love Of Repose; Not That
Which Arises From Sensibility And The Emotions Of The Soul.
The
sphere of his ideas is not enlarged, where, having no intercourse
with the whites, he remains a stranger to those objects with which
European civilization has enriched the New World.
All his actions
seem prompted by the wants of the moment. Taciturn, serious, and
absorbed in himself; he assumes a sedate and mysterious air. When a
person has resided but a short time in the Missions, and is but
little familiarized with the aspect of the natives, he is led to
mistake their indolence, and the torpid state of their faculties,
for the expression of melancholy, and a meditative turn of mind.
I have dwelt on these features of the Indian character, and on the
different modifications which that character exhibits under the
government of the missionaries, with the view of rendering more
intelligible the observations which form the subject of the present
chapter. I shall begin by the nation of the Chaymas, of whom more
than fifteen thousand inhabit the Missions above noticed. The
Chayma nation, which Father Francisco of Pampeluna* began to reduce
to subjection in the middle of the seventeenth century (* The name
of this monk, celebrated for his intrepidity, is still revered in
the province. He sowed the first seeds of civilization among these
mountains. He had long been captain of a ship; and before he became
a monk, was known by the name of Tiburtio Redin.), has the
Cumanagotos on the west, the Guaraunos on the east, and the
Caribbees on the south.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 476 of 779
Words from 128972 to 129245
of 211363
