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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M. Bonpland Recognised The
Cuspare In The Vegetation Of The Gulf Of Santa Fe, Situated Between
The Ports Of Cumana And Barcelona.
The sickly traveller may
perchance repose in a cottage, the inhabitants of which are
ignorant of the febrifuge qualities of the trees that shade the
surrounding valleys.
Having proceeded by sea from Cumana to La Guayra, we intended to
take up our abode in the town of Caracas, till the end of the rainy
season. From Caracas we proposed to direct our course across the
great plains or llanos, to the Missions of the Orinoco; to go up
that vast river, to the south of the cataracts, as far as the Rio
Negro and the frontiers of Brazil; and thence to return to Cumana
by the capital of Spanish Guiana, commonly called, on account of
its situation, Angostura, or the Strait. We could not determine the
time we might require to accomplish a tour of seven hundred
leagues, more than two-thirds of that distance having to be
traversed in boats. The only parts of the Orinoco known on the
coasts are those near its mouth. No commercial intercourse is kept
up with the Missions. The whole of the country beyond the llanos is
unknown to the inhabitants of Cumana and Caracas. Some think that
the plains of Calabozo, covered with turf, stretch eight hundred
leagues southward, communicating with the Steppes or Pampas of
Buenos Ayres; others, recalling to mind the great mortality which
prevailed among the troops of Iturriaga and Solano, during their
expedition to the Orinoco, consider the whole country, south of the
cataracts of Atures, as extremely pernicious to health.
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