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 Remarked On This Point
Fractured Strata, Which Lie From North-West To South-East, And The
Dip Of Which Is Almost Perpendicular.
The Llaneros, or inhabitants of the plains, send their produce,
especially maize, leather, and cattle, to the port of Cumana by the
road over the Imposible.
We continually saw mules arrive, driven by
Indians or mulattoes. Several parts of the vast forests which
surround the mountain, had taken fire. Reddish flames, half
enveloped in clouds of smoke, presented a very grand spectacle. The
inhabitants set fire to the forests, to improve the pasturage, and
to destroy the shrubs that choke the grass. Enormous
conflagrations, too, are often caused by the carelessness of the
Indians, who neglect, when they travel, to extinguish the fires by
which they have dressed their food. These accidents contribute to
diminish the number of old trees in the road from Cumana to
Cumanacoa; and the inhabitants observe justly, that, in several
parts of their province, the dryness has increased, not only
because every year the frequency of earthquakes causes more
crevices in the soil; but also because it is now less thickly
wooded than it was at the time of the conquest.
I arose during the night to determine the latitude of the place by
the passage of Fomalhaut over the meridian; but the observation was
lost, owing to the time I employed in taking the level of the
artificial horizon. It was midnight, and I was benumbed with cold,
as were also our guides: yet the thermometer kept at 19.7 degrees.
At Cumana I have never seen it sink below 21 degrees; but then the
house in which we dwelt on the Imposible was 258 toises above the
level of the sea. At the Casa de la Polvora I determined the dip of
the magnetic needle, which was 42.5 degrees.* (* The magnetic dip
is always measured in this work, according to the centesimal
division, if the contrary be not expressly mentioned.) The number
of oscillations correspondent to 10 minutes of time was 233. The
intensity of the magnetic forces had consequently augmented from
the coast to the mountain, perhaps from the influence of some
ferruginous matter, hidden in the strata of sandstone which cover
the Alpine limestone.
We left the Imposible on the 5th of September before sunrise. The
descent is very dangerous for beasts of burden; the path being in
general but fifteen inches broad, and bordered by precipices. In
descending the mountain, we observed the rock of Alpine limestone
reappearing under the sandstone. The strata being generally
inclined to the south and south-east, a great number of springs
gush out on the southern side of the mountain. In the rainy season
of the year, these springs form torrents, which descend in
cascades, shaded by the hura, the cuspa, and the silver-leaved
cecropia or trumpet-tree.
The cuspa, a very common tree in the environs of Cumana and of
Bordones, is yet unknown to the botanists of Europe. It was long
used only for the building of houses, and has become celebrated
since 1797, under the name of the cascarilla or bark-tree
(cinchona) of New Andalusia. Its trunk rises scarcely above fifteen
or twenty feet. Its alternate leaves are smooth, entire, and oval.*
(* At the summit of the boughs, the leaves are sometimes opposite
to each other, but invariably without stipules.) Its bark very
thin, and of a pale yellow, is a powerful febrifuge. It is even
more bitter than the bark of the real cinchona, but is less
disagreeable. The cuspa is administered with the greatest success,
in a spirituous tincture, and in aqueous infusion, both in
intermittent and in malignant fevers.
On the coasts of New Andalusia, the cuspa is considered as a kind
of cinchona; and we were assured, that some Aragonese monks, who
had long resided in the kingdom of New Grenada, recognised this
tree from the resemblance of its leaves to those of the real
Peruvian bark-tree. This, however, is unfounded; since it is
precisely by the disposition of the leaves, and the absence of
stipules, that the cuspa differs totally from the trees of the
rubiaceous family. It may be said to resemble the family of the
honeysuckle, or caprifoliaceous plants, one section of which has
alternate leaves, and among which we find several cornel-trees,
remarkable for their febrifuge properties.* (* Cornus florida, and
C. sericea of the United States. - Walker on the Virtues of the
Cornus and the Cinchona compared. Philadelphia 1803.)
The taste, at once bitter and astringent, and the yellow colour of
the bark led to the discovery of the febrifugal virtue of the
cuspa. As it blossoms at the end of November, we did not see it in
flower, and we know not to what genus it belongs; and I have in
vain for several years past applied to our friends at Cumana for
specimens of the flower and fruit. I hope that the botanical
determination of the bark-tree of New Andalusia will one day fix
the attention of travellers, who visit this region after us; and
that they will not confound, notwithstanding the analogy of the
names, the cuspa with the cuspare. The latter not only vegetates in
the missions of the Rio Carony, but also to the west of Cumana, in
the gulf of Santa Fe. It furnishes the druggists of Europe with the
famous Cortex Angosturae, and forms the genus Bonplandia, described
by M. Willdenouw in the Memoirs of the Academy of Berlin, from
notes communicated to him by us.
It is singular that, during our long abode on the coast of Cumana
and the Caracas, on the banks of the Apure, the Orinoco, and the
Rio Negro, in an extent of country comprising forty thousand square
leagues, we never met with one of those numerous species of
cinchona, or exostema, which are peculiar to the low and warm
regions of the tropics, especially to the archipelago of the West
India Islands.
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