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 Azure Of The Sky Is Paler, And The
Elevated Regions Are Loaded With Light Vapours, Uniformly Diffused.
This Season
May be considered as the awakening of nature; it is a
spring which, according to the received language of the
Spanish
colonies, proclaims the beginning of winter, and succeeds to the
heats of summer.* (* That part of the year most abundant in rain is
called winter; so that in Terra Firma, the season which begins by
the winter solstice, is designated by the name of summer; and it is
usual to hear, that it is winter on the mountains, at the time when
summer prevails in the neighbouring plains.)
Indigo was formerly cultivated in the Quebrada Seca; but as the
soil covered with vegetation cannot there concentrate so much heat
as the plains and the bottom of the Tuy valley receive and radiate,
the cultivation of coffee has been substituted in its stead. As we
advanced in the ravine we found the moisture increase. Near the
Hato, at the northern extremity of the Quebrada, a torrent rolls
down over sloping beds of gneiss. An aqueduct was being formed
there to convey the water to the plain. Without irrigation,
agriculture makes no progress in these climates. A tree of
monstrous size fixed our attention.* (* Hura crepitans.) It lay on
the slope of the mountain, above the house of the Hato. On the
least dislodgment of the earth, its fall would have crushed the
habitation which it shaded: it had therefore been burnt near its
foot, and cut down in such a manner, that it fell between some
enormous fig-trees, which prevented it from rolling into the
ravine.
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