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 General Aspect Of The
Mountain Points Out This Path; The Rocks Being So Steep On The East
Of The Ravine That It Would Be Extremely Difficult To Reach The
Summit Of The Silla By Ascending Straight To The Eastern Dome,
Instead Of Going By The Way Of The Puerta.
From the foot of the cascade of Chacaito to one thousand toises of
elevation, we found only savannahs.
Two small liliaceous plants,
with yellow flowers,* alone lift up their heads, among the grasses
which cover the rocks. (* Cypura martinicensis, and Sisyrinchium
iridifolium. This last is found also near the Venta of La Guayra,
at 600 toises of elevation.) A few brambles* (* Rubus jamaicensis.)
remind us of the form of our European vegetation. We in vain hoped
to find on the mountains of Caracas, and subsequently on the back
of the Andes, an eglantine near these brambles. We did not find one
indigenous rose-tree in all South America, notwithstanding the
analogy existing between the climates of the high mountains of the
torrid zone and the climate of our temperate zone. It appears that
this charming shrub is wanting in all the southern hemisphere,
within and beyond the tropics. It was only on the Mexican mountains
that we were fortunate enough to discover, in the nineteenth degree
of latitude, American eglantines.* (* M. Redoute, in his superb
work on rose-trees, has given our Mexican eglantine, under the name
of Rosier de Montezuma, Montezuma rose.)
We were sometimes so enveloped in mist, that we could not, without
difficulty, find our way.
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