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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In Entering This Bath, We Had Not To Fear
The Sting Of Insects, But To Guard Against The Little Brown Hairs
Which Cover The Pods Of The Dolichos Pruriens.
When these small
hairs, well characterised by the name of picapica, stick to the
body, they excite a violent irritation on the skin; the dart is
felt, but the cause is unperceived.
Near Cura we found all the people occupied in clearing the ground
covered with mimosa, sterculia, and Coccoloba excoriata, for the
purpose of extending the cultivation of cotton. This product, which
partly supplies the place of indigo, has succeeded so well during
some years, that the cotton-tree now grows wild on the borders of
the lake of Valencia. We have found shrubs of eight or ten feet
high entwined with bignonia and other ligneous creepers. The
exportation of cotton from Caracas, however, is yet of small
importance. It amounted at an average at La Guayra scarcely to
three or four hundred thousand pounds in a year; but including all
the ports of the Capitania-general, it arose, on account of the
flourishing culture of Cariaco, Nueva Barcelona, and Maracaybo, to
more than 22,000 quintals. The cotton of the valleys of Aragua is
of fine quality, being inferior only to that of Brazil; for it is
preferred to that of Carthagena, St. Domingo, and the Caribbee
Islands. The cultivation of cotton extends on one side of the lake
from Maracay to Valencia; and on the other from Guayca to Guigue.
The large plantations yield from sixty to seventy thousand pounds a
year.
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