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 Stayed Some Hours With A
Very Intelligent Family, Named Ustariz, At Concesion.
Their house,
which contains a collection of choice books, stands on an eminence,
and is surrounded by plantations of coffee and sugar-cane.
A grove
of balsam-trees (balsamo* (* Amyris elata.)) gives coolness and
shade to this spot. It was gratifying to observe the great number
of scattered houses in the valley inhabited by freedmen. In the
Spanish colonies, the laws, the institutions, and the manners, are
more favourable to the liberty of the negroes than in other
European settlements.
San Mateo, Turmero, and Maracay, are charming villages, where
everything denotes the comfort of the inhabitants. We seemed to be
transported to the most industrious districts of Catalonia. Near
San Mateo we find the last fields of wheat, and the last mills with
horizontal hydraulic wheels. A harvest of twenty for one was
expected; and, as if that produce were but moderate, I was asked
whether corn yielded more in Prussia and in Poland. By an error
generally prevalent under the tropics, the produce of grain is
supposed to degenerate in advancing towards the equator, and
harvests are believed to be more abundant in northern climates.
Since calculations have been made on the progress of agriculture in
the different zones, and on the temperatures under the influence of
which corn will flourish, it has been found that, beyond the
latitude of 45 degrees, the produce of wheat is nowhere so
considerable as on the northern coasts of Africa, and on the
table-lands of New Grenada, Peru, and Mexico.
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