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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Our First Visit To The Peninsula Of Araya Was Soon Succeeded By An
Excursion To The Mountains Of The Missions Of The Chayma Indians,
Where A Variety Of Interesting Objects Claimed Our Attention.
We
entered on a country studded with forests, and visited a convent
surrounded by palm-trees and arborescent ferns.
It was situated in
a narrow valley, where we felt the enjoyment of a cool and
delicious climate, in the centre of the torrid zone. The
surrounding mountains contain caverns haunted by thousands of
nocturnal birds; and, what affects the imagination more than all
the wonders of the physical world, we find beyond these mountains a
people lately nomad, and still nearly in a state of nature, wild
without being barbarous. It was in the promontory of Paria that
Columbus first descried the continent; there terminate these
valleys, laid waste alternately by the warlike anthropophagic Carib
and by the commercial and polished nations of Europe. At the
beginning of the sixteenth century the ill-fated Indians of the
coasts of Carupano, of Macarapan, and of Caracas, were treated in
the same manner as the inhabitants of the coast of Guinea in our
days. The soil of the islands was cultivated, the vegetable produce
of the Old World was transplanted thither, but a regular system of
colonization remained long unknown on the New Continent. If the
Spaniards visited its shores, it was only to procure, either by
violence or exchange, slaves, pearls, grains of gold, and
dye-woods; and endeavours were made to ennoble the motives of this
insatiable avarice by the pretence of enthusiastic zeal in the
cause of religion.
The trade in the copper-coloured Indians was accompanied by the
same acts of inhumanity as that which characterizes the traffic in
African negroes; it was attended also by the same result, that of
rendering both the conquerors and the conquered more ferocious.
Thence wars became more frequent among the natives; prisoners were
dragged from the inland countries to the coast, to be sold to the
whites, who Loaded them with chains in their ships. Yet the
Spaniards were at that period, and long after, one of the most
polished nations of Europe. The light which art and literature then
shed over Italy, was reflected on every nation whose language
emanated from the same source as that of Dante and Petrarch. It
might have been expected that a general improvement of manners
would be the natural consequence of this noble awakening of the
mind, this sublime soaring of the imagination. But in distant
regions, wherever the thirst of wealth has introduced the abuse of
power, the nations of Europe, at every period of their history,
have displayed the same character. The illustrious era of Leo X was
signalized in the New World by acts of cruelty that seemed to
belong to the most barbarous ages. We are less surprised, however,
at the horrible picture presented by the conquest of America when
we think of the acts that are still perpetrated on the western
coast of Africa, notwithstanding the benefits of a more humane
legislation.
The principles adopted by Charles V had abolished the slave trade
on the New Continent. But the Conquistadores, by the continuation
of their incursions, prolonged the system of petty warfare which
diminished the American population, perpetuated national
animosities, and during a long period crushed the seeds of rising
civilization. At length the missionaries, under the protection of
the secular arm, spoke words of peace. It was the privilege of
religion to console humanity for a part of the evils committed in
its name; to plead the cause of the natives before kings, to resist
the violence of the commendatories, and to assemble wandering
tribes into small communities called Missions.
But these institutions, useful at first in stopping the effusion of
blood, and in laying the first basis of society, have become in
their result hostile to its progress. The effects of this insulated
system have been such that the Indians have remained in a state
little different from that in which they existed whilst yet their
scattered dwellings were not collected round the habitation of a
missionary. Their number has considerably augmented, but the sphere
of their ideas is not enlarged. They have progressively lost that
vigour of character and that natural vivacity which in every state
of society are the noble fruits of independence. By subjecting to
invariable rules even the slightest actions of their domestic life,
they have been rendered stupid by the effort to render them
obedient. Their subsistence is in general more certain, and their
habits more pacific, but subject to the constraint and the dull
monotony of the government of the Missions, they show by their
gloomy and reserved looks that they have not sacrificed their
liberty to their repose without regret.
On the 4th of September, at five in the morning, we began our
journey to the Missions of the Chayma Indians and the group of
lofty mountains which traverse New Andalusia. On account of the
extreme difficulties of the road, we had been advised to reduce our
baggage to a very small bulk. Two beasts of burden were sufficient
to carry our provision, our instruments, and the paper necessary to
dry our plants. One chest contained a sextant, a dipping-needle, an
apparatus to determine the magnetic variation, a few thermometers,
and Saussure's hygrometer. The greatest changes in the pressure of
the air in these climates, on the coasts, amount only to 1 to 1.3
of a line; and if at any given hour or place the height of the
mercury be once marked, the variations which that height
experiences throughout the whole year, at every hour of the day or
night, may with some accuracy be determined.
The morning was deliciously cool. The road, or rather path, which
leads to Cumanacoa, runs along the right bank of the Manzanares,
passing by the hospital of the Capuchins, situated in a small wood
of lignum-vitae and arborescent capparis.* (* These caper-trees are
called in the country, by the names pachaca, olivo, and ajito:
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