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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Violent Rains, And The Prodigious
Quantity Of Mosquitos With Which The Air Is Filled On The Banks Of The
Orinoco And The Cassiquiare, Necessarily Occasioned Some
Interruptions; But I Supplied The Omission By Notes Taken A Few Days
After.
I here subjoin some extracts from my journal.
Whatever is
written while the objects we describe are before our eyes bears a
character of truth and individuality which gives attraction to things
the least important.
On the 31st March a contrary wind obliged us to remain on shore till
noon. We saw a part of some cane-fields laid waste by the effect of a
conflagration which had spread from a neighbouring forest. The
wandering Indians everywhere set fire to the forest where they have
encamped at night; and during the season of drought, vast provinces
would be the prey of these conflagrations if the extreme hardness of
the wood did not prevent the trees from being entirely consumed. We
found trunks of desmanthus and mahogany which were scarcely charred
two inches deep.
Having passed the Diamante we entered a land inhabited only by tigers,
crocodiles, and chiguires; the latter are a large species of the genus
Cavia of Linnaeus. We saw flocks of birds, crowded so closely together
as to appear against the sky like a dark cloud which every instant
changed its form. The river widens by degrees. One of its banks is
generally barren and sandy from the effect of inundations; the other
is higher, and covered with lofty trees. In some parts the river is
bordered by forests on each side, and forms a straight canal a hundred
and fifty toises broad. The manner in which the trees are disposed is
very remarkable. We first find bushes of sauso,* (* Hermesia
castaneifolia. This is a new genus, approaching the alchornea of
Swartz.) forming a kind of hedge four feet high, and appearing as if
they had been clipped by the hand of man. A copse of cedar,
brazilletto, and lignum-vitae, rises behind this hedge. Palm-trees are
rare; we saw only a few scattered trunks of the thorny piritu and
corozo. The large quadrupeds of those regions, the jaguars, tapirs,
and peccaries, have made openings in the hedge of sauso which we have
just described. Through these the wild animals pass when they come to
drink at the river. As they fear but little the approach of a boat, we
had the pleasure of viewing them as they paced slowly along the shore
till they disappeared in the forest, which they entered by one of the
narrow passes left at intervals between the bushes. These scenes,
which were often repeated, had ever for me a peculiar attraction. The
pleasure they excite is not owing solely to the interest which the
naturalist takes in the objects of his study, it is connected with a
feeling common to all men who have been brought up in the habits of
civilization. You find yourself in a new world, in the midst of
untamed and savage nature.
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