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 Little Before We Reached Mamon,
We Stopped At A Farm Belonging To The Family Of Monteras.
A negress
more than a hundred years old was seated before a small hut built
of earth and reeds.
Her age was known because she was a creole
slave. She seemed still to enjoy very good health. "I keep her in
the sun" (la tengo al sol), said her grandson; "the heat keeps her
alive." This appeared to us not a very agreeable mode of prolonging
life, for the sun was darting his rays almost perpendicularly. The
brown-skinned nations, blacks well seasoned, and Indians,
frequently attain a very advanced age in the torrid zone. A native
of Peru named Hilario Pari died at the extraordinary age of one
hundred and forty-three years, after having been ninety years
married.
Don Francisco Montera and his brother, a well-informed young
priest, accompanied us with the view of conducting us to their
house at La Victoria. Almost all the families with whom we had
lived in friendship at Caracas were assembled in the fine valleys
of Aragua, and they vied with each other in their efforts to render
our stay agreeable. Before we plunged into the forests of the
Orinoco, we enjoyed once more all the advantages which advanced
civilization affords.
The road from Mamon to La Victoria runs south and south-west. We
soon lost sight of the river Tuy, which, turning eastward, forms an
elbow at the foot of the high mountains of Guayraima.
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