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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A Fierce Battle Was Kept Up During A Whole
Night, And Both The Vessels Were Sunk Almost Simultaneously.
A very
small part of the crew was saved, and the two brothers had the
misfortune to recognize each other a little before they expired.
The governor of Cumana expressed his great satisfaction at the
resolution we had taken to remain for some time in New Andalusia, a
province which at that period was but little known even by name in
Europe, and which in its mountains, and on the banks of its
numerous rivers, contains a great number of objects worthy of
fixing the attention of naturalists. Senor Emperan showed us
cottons dyed with native plants, and fine furniture made
exclusively of the wood of the country. He was much interested in
everything that related to natural philosophy; and asked, to our
great astonishment, whether we thought, that, under the beautiful
sky of the tropics, the atmosphere contained less azote (azotico)
than in Spain; or whether the rapidity with which iron oxidates in
those climates, were only the effect of greater humidity as
indicated by the air hygrometer. The name of his native country
pronounced on a distant shore would not have been more agreeable to
the ear of a traveller, than those words azote, oxide of iron, and
hygrometer, were to ours. Senor Emparan was a lover of science, and
the public marks of consideration which he gave us during a long
abode in his government, contributed greatly to procure us a
favourable welcome in every part of South America.
We hired a spacious house, the situation of which was favourable
for astronomical observations. We enjoyed an agreeable coolness
when the breeze arose; the windows were without glass, and even
without those paper panes which are often substituted for glass at
Cumana. The whole of the passengers of the Pizarro left the vessel,
but the recovery of those who had been attacked by the fever was
very slow. We saw some who, a month after, notwithstanding the care
bestowed on them by their countrymen, were still extremely weak and
reduced. Hospitality, in the Spanish colonies, is such, that a
European who arrives, without recommendation or pecuniary means, is
almost sure of finding assistance, if he land in any port on
account of sickness. The Catalonians, the Galicians, and the
Biscayans, have the most frequent intercourse with America. They
there form as it were three distinct corporations, which exercise a
remarkable influence over the morals, the industry, and commerce of
the colonies. The poorest inhabitant of Siges or Vigo is sure of
being received into the house of a Catalonian or Galician pulpero,*
(* A retail dealer.) whether he land in Chile or the Philippine
Islands.
Among the sick who landed at Cumana was a negro, who fell into a
state of insanity a few days after our arrival; he died in that
deplorable condition, though his master, almost seventy years old,
who had left Europe to settle at San Blas, at the entrance of the
gulf of California, had attended him with the greatest care. I
relate this fact as affording evidence that men born under the
torrid zone, after having dwelt in temperate climates, sometimes
feel the pernicious effects of the heat of the tropics. The negro
was a young man, eighteen years of age, very robust, and born on
the coast of Guinea; an abode of some years on the high plain of
Castile, had imparted to his organization that kind of irritability
which renders the miasma of the torrid zone so dangerous to the
inhabitants of the countries of the north.
The site on which Cumana is built is part of a tract of ground,
very remarkable in a geological point of view. The chain of the
calcareous Alps of the Brigantine and the Tataraqual stretches east
and west from the summit of the Imposible to the port of Mochima
and to Campanario. The sea, in times far remote, appears to have
divided this chain from the rocky coasts of Araya and Maniquarez.
The vast gulf of Cariaco has been caused by an irruption of the
sea; and no doubt can be entertained but that the waters once
covered, on the southern bank, the whole tract of land impregnated
with muriate of soda, through which flows the Manzanares. The slow
retreat of the waters has turned into dry ground this extensive
plain, in which rises a group of small hills, composed of gypsum
and calcareous breccias of very recent formation. The city of
Cumana is backed by this group, which was formerly an island of the
gulf of Cariaco. That part of the plain which is north of the city,
is called Plaga Chica, or the Little Plain, and extends eastwards
as far as Punta Delgada, where a narrow valley, covered with yellow
gomphrena, still marks the point of the ancient outlet of the
waters.
The hill of calcareous breccias, which we have just mentioned as
having once been an island in the ancient gulf, is covered with a
thick forest of cylindric cactus and opuntia. Some of these trees,
thirty or forty feet high, are covered with lichens, and are
divided into several branches in the form of candelabra. Near
Maniquarez, at Punta Araya, we measured a cactus,* the trunk of
which was four feet nine inches in circumference (* Tuna macho. We
distinguish in the wood of the cactus the medullary prolongations,
as M. Desfontaines has already observed.). A European acquainted
only with the opuntia in our hot-houses is surprised to see the
wood of this plant become so hard from age, that it resists for
centuries both air and moisture: the Indians of Cumana therefore
employ it in preference to any other for oars and door-posts.
Cumana, Coro, the island of Margareta, and Curassao, are the parts
of South America that abound most in plants of the nopal family.
There only, a botanist, after a long residence, could compose a
monography of the genus cactus, the species of which vary not only
in their flowers and fruits, but also in the form of their
articulated stems, the number of costae, and the disposition of the
thorns.
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