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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We Shall See Hereafter How These Plants, Which Characterize
A Warm And Singularly Dry Climate, Like That Of Egypt And
California, Gradually Disappear In Proportion As We Remove From The
Coasts, And Penetrate Into The Inland Country.
The groups of columnar cactus and opuntia produce the same effect
in the arid lands of equinoctial America as the junceae and the
hydrocharides in the marshes of our northern climes.
Places in
which the larger species of the strong cactus are collected in
groups are considered as almost impenetrable. These places are
called Tunales; and they are impervious not only to the native, who
goes naked to the waist, but are formidable even to those who are
fully clothed. In our solitary rambles we sometimes endeavoured to
penetrate into the Tunal that crowns the summit of the castle hill,
a part of which is crossed by a pathway, where we could have
studied, amidst thousands of specimens, the organization of this
singular plant. Sometimes night suddenly overtook us, for there is
scarcely any twilight in this climate; and we then found ourselves
dangerously situated, as the Cascabel, or rattle-snake, the Coral,
and other vipers armed with poisonous fangs, frequent these
scorched and arid haunts, to deposit their eggs in the sand.
The castle of San Antonio is built at the western extremity of the
hill, but not on the most elevated point, being commanded on the
east by an unfortified summit. The Tunal is considered both here
and everywhere in the Spanish colonies as a very important means of
military defence; and when earthen works are raised, the engineers
are eager to propagate the thorny opuntia, and promote its growth,
as they are careful to keep crocodiles in the ditches of fortified
places. In regions where organized nature is so powerful and
active, man summons as auxiliaries in his defence the carnivorous
reptile, and the plant with its formidable armour of thorns.
The castle is only thirty toises above the level of the water in
the gulf of Cariaco. Standing on a naked and calcareous hill, it
commands the town, and has a very picturesque effect when viewed
from a vessel entering the port. It forms a bright object against
the dark curtains of those mountains which raise their summits to
the clouds, and of which the vaporous and bluish tint blends with
the azure sky. On descending from Fort San Antonio to the
south-west, we find on the slope of the same rock the ruins of the
old castle of Santa Maria. This site is delightful to those who
wish to enjoy at the approach of sunset the freshness of the breeze
and the view of the gulf. The lofty summits of the island of
Margareta are seen above the rocky coast of the isthmus of Araya,
and towards the west the small islands of Caracas, Picuita, and
Boracha, recall to mind the catastrophes that have overwhelmed the
coasts of Terra Firma. These islets resemble fortifications, and
from the effect of the mirage (while the inferior strata of the
air, the ocean, and the soil, are unequally heated by the sun),
their points appear raised like the extremity of the great
promontories of the coast. It is pleasing, during the day, to
observe these inconstant phenomena; we see, as night approaches,
these stony masses which had been suspended in the air, settle down
on their bases; and the luminary, whose presence vivifies organic
nature, seems by the variable inflection of its rays to impress
motion on the stable rock, and give an undulating movement to
plains covered with arid sands.* (* The real cause of the mirage,
or the extraordinary refraction which the rays undergo when strata
of air of different densities lie over each other, was guessed at
by Hooke. - See his Posthumous Works page 472.)
The town of Cumana, properly so called, occupies the ground lying
between the castle of San Antonio and the small rivers of
Manzanares and Santa Catalina. The Delta, formed by the bifurcation
of the first of these rivers, is a fertile plain covered with
Mammees, Sapotas (achras), plantains, and other plants cultivated
in the gardens or charas of the Indians. The town has no remarkable
edifice, and the frequency of earthquakes forbids such
embellishments. It is true, that strong shocks occur less
frequently in a given time at Cumana than at Quito, where we
nevertheless find sumptuous and very lofty churches. But the
earthquakes of Quito are violent only in appearance, and, from the
peculiar nature of the motion and of the ground, no edifice there
is overthrown. At Cumana, as well as at Lima, and in several cities
situated far from the mouths of burning volcanoes, it happens that
the series of slight shocks is interrupted after a long course of
years by great catastrophes, resembling the effects of the
explosion of a mine. We shall have occasion to return to this
phenomenon, for the explanation of which so many vain theories have
been imagined, and which have been classified according to
perpendicular and horizontal movements, shock, and oscillation.* (*
This classification dates from the time of Posidonius. It is the
successio and inclinatio of Seneca; but the ancients had already
judiciously remarked, that the nature of these shocks is too
variable to permit any subjection to these imaginary laws.)
The suburbs of Cumana are almost as populous as the ancient town.
They are three in number: - Serritos, on the road to the Plaga
Chicha, where we meet with some fine tamarind trees; St. Francis,
towards the south-east; and the great suburb of the Guayquerias, or
Guayguerias. The name of this tribe of Indians was quite unknown
before the conquest. The natives who bear that name formerly
belonged to the nation of the Guaraounos, of which we find remains
only in the swampy lands of the branches of the Orinoco. Old men
have assured me that the language of their ancestors was a dialect
of the Guaraouno; but that for a century past no native of that
tribe at Cumana, or in the island of Margareta, has spoken any
other language than Castilian.
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