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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Leaving The Ravine Which Descends From The Imposible, We Entered A
Thick Forest Traversed By Many Small Rivers, Which Are Easily
Forded.
We observed that the cecropia, which in the disposition of
its branches and its slender trunk, resembles the palm-tree, is
covered with leaves more or less silvery, in proportion as the soil
is dry or moist.
We saw some small plants of the cecropia, the
leaves of which were on both sides entirely green.* (* Is not the
Cecropia concolor of Willdenouw a variety of the Cecropia peltata?)
The roots of these trees are hid under tufts of dorstenia, which
flourishes only in humid and shady places. In the midst of the
forest, on the banks of the Rio Cedeno, as well as on the southern
declivity of the Cocollar, we find, in their wild state, papaw and
orange-trees, bearing large and sweet fruit. These are probably the
remains of some conucos, or Indian plantations; for in those
countries the orange-tree cannot be counted among the indigenous
plants, any more than the banana-tree, the papaw-tree, maize,
cassava, and many other useful plants, with the true country of
which we are unacquainted, though they have accompanied man in his
migrations from the remotest times.
When a traveller newly arrived from Europe penetrates for the first
time into the forests of South America, he beholds nature under an
unexpected aspect. He feels at every step, that he is not on the
confines but in the centre of the torrid zone; not in one of the
West India Islands, but on a vast continent where everything is
gigantic, - mountains, rivers, and the mass of vegetation. If he
feel strongly the beauty of picturesque scenery he can scarcely
define the various emotions which crowd upon his mind; he can
scarcely distinguish what most excites his admiration, the deep
silence of those solitudes, the individual beauty and contrast of
forms, or that vigour and freshness of vegetable life which
characterize the climate of the tropics. It might be said that the
earth, overloaded with plants, does not allow them space enough to
unfold themselves. The trunks of the trees are everywhere concealed
under a thick carpet of verdure; and if we carefully transplanted
the orchideae, the pipers, and the pothoses, nourished by a single
courbaril, or American fig-tree,* (* Ficus nymphaeifolia.) we
should cover a vast extent of ground. By this singular assemblage,
the forests, as well as the flanks of the rocks and mountains,
enlarge the domains of organic nature. The same lianas which creep
on the ground, reach the tops of the trees, and pass from one to
another at the height of more than a hundred feet. Thus, by the
continual interlacing of parasite plants, the botanist is often led
to confound one with another, the flowers, the fruits, and leaves,
which belong to different species.
We walked for some hours under the shade of these arcades, which
scarcely admit a glimpse of the sky; the latter appeared to me of
an indigo blue, the deeper in shade because the green of the
equinoctial plants is generally of a stronger hue, with somewhat of
a brownish tint. A great fern tree,* (* Possibly our Aspidium
caducum.) very different from the Polypodium arboreum of the West
Indies, rose above masses of scattered rocks. In this place we were
struck for the first time with the sight of those nests in the
shape of bottles, or small bags, which are suspended from the
branches of the lowest trees, and which attest the wonderful
industry of the orioles, which mingle their warbling with the
hoarse cries of the parrots and the macaws. These last, so well
known for their vivid colours, fly only in pairs, while the real
parrots wander about in flocks of several hundreds. A man must have
lived in those regions, particularly in the hot valleys of the
Andes, to conceive how these birds sometimes drown with their
voices the noise of the torrents, which dash down from rock to
rock.
We left the forests, at the distance of somewhat more than a league
from the village of San Fernando. A narrow path led, after many
windings, into an open but extremely humid country. In such a site
in the temperate zone, the cyperaceous and gramineous plants would
have formed vast meadows; here the soil abounded in aquatic plants,
with sagittate leaves, and especially in basil plants, among which
we noticed the fine flowers of the costus, the thalia, and the
heliconia. These succulent plants are from eight to ten feet high,
and in Europe one of their groups would be considered as a little
wood.
Near San Fernando the evaporation caused by the action of the sun
was so great that, being very lightly clothed, we felt ourselves as
wet as in a vapour bath. The road was bordered with a kind of
bamboo,* (* Bambusa guadua.) which the Indians call iagua, or
guadua, and which is more than forty feet in height. Nothing can
exceed the elegance of this arborescent gramen. The form and
disposition of its leaves give it a character of lightness which
contrasts agreeably with its height. The smooth and glossy trunk of
the iagua generally bends towards the banks of rivulets, and it
waves with the slightest breath of air. The highest reeds* in the
south of Europe (* Arundo donax.), can give no idea of the aspect
of the arborescent gramina. The bamboo and fern-tree are, of all
the vegetable forms between the tropics, those which make the most
powerful impression on the imagination of the traveller. Bamboos
are less common in South America than is usually believed. They are
almost wanting in the marshes and in the vast inundated plains of
the Lower Orinoco, the Apure, and the Atabapo, while they form
thick woods, several leagues in length, in the north-west, in New
Grenada, and in the kingdom of Quito. It might be said that the
western declivity of the Andes is their true country; and, what is
remarkable enough, we found them not only in the low regions at the
level of the ocean, but also in the lofty valleys of the
Cordilleras, at the height of 860 toises.
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