Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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Such Is The Science Of The Vulgar,
Which Sometimes Resembles That Of The Ancients.
We passed the night at the village of Guigue, the latitude of which I
found by observations of Canopus to be 10 degrees 4 minutes 11
seconds.
The village, surrounded with the richest cultivation, is only
a thousand toises distant from the lake of Tacarigua. We lodged with
an old sergeant, a native of Murcia, a man of a very original
character. To prove to us that he had studied among the Jesuits, he
recited the history of the creation of the world in Latin. He knew the
names of Augustus, Tiberius, and Diocletian; and while enjoying the
agreeable coolness of the nights in an enclosure planted with bananas,
he employed himself in reading all that related to the courts of the
Roman emperors. He inquired of us with earnestness for a remedy for
the gout, from which he suffered severely. "I know," said he, "a Zambo
of Valencia, a famous curioso, who could cure me; but the Zambo would
expect to be treated with attentions which I cannot pay to a man of
his colour, and I prefer remaining as I am."
On leaving Guigue we began to ascend the chain of mountains, extending
on the south of the lake towards Guacimo and La Palma. From the top of
a table-land, at three hundred and twenty toises of elevation, we saw
for the last time the valleys of Aragua. The gneiss appeared
uncovered, presenting the same direction of strata, and the same dip
towards the north-west.
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