Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
- Page 124 of 208 - First - Home
It Must Be Observed Further, That In North America, Between
The Ohio, Miami, And The Lakes, An Unknown People, Whom
Systematic
authors would make the descendants of the Toltecs and Aztecs,
constructed walls of earth and sometimes of stone without
Mortar,*
from ten to fifteen feet high, and seven or eight thousand feet long.
(* Of siliceous limestone, at Pique, on the Great Miami; of sandstone
at Creek Point, ten leagues from Chillakothe, where the wall is
fifteen hundred toises long.) These singular circumvallations
sometimes enclosed a hundred and fifty acres of ground. In the plains
of the Orinoco, as in those of Marietta, the Miami, and the Ohio, the
centre of an ancient civilization is found in the west on the back of
the mountains; but the Orinoco, and the countries lying between that
great river and the Amazon, appear never to have been inhabited by
nations whose constructions have resisted the ravages of time. Though
symbolical figures are found engraved on the hardest rocks, yet
further south than eight degrees of latitude, no tumulus, no
circumvallation, no dike of earth similar to those that exist farther
north in the plains of Varinas and Canagua, has been found. Such is
the contrast that may be observed between the eastern parts of North
and South America, those parts which extend from the table-land of
Cundinamarca* (* This is the ancient name of the empire of the Zaques,
founded by Bochica or Idacanzas, the high priest of Iraca, in New
Grenada.) and the mountains of Cayenne towards the Atlantic, and those
which stretch from the Andes of New Spain towards the Alleghenies.
Nations advanced in civilization, of which we discover traces on the
banks of lake Teguyo and in the Casas grandes of the Rio Gila, might
have sent some tribes eastward into the open countries of the Missouri
and the Ohio, where the climate differs little from that of New
Mexico; but in South America, where the great flux of nations has
continued from north to south, those who had long enjoyed the mild
temperature of the back of the equinoctial Cordilleras no doubt
dreaded a descent into burning plains bristled with forests, and
inundated by the periodical swellings of rivers. It is easy to
conceive how much the force of vegetation, and the nature of the soil
and climate, within the torrid zone, embarrassed the natives in regard
to migration in numerous bodies, prevented settlements requiring an
extensive space, and perpetuated the misery and barbarism of solitary
hordes.
The feeble civilization introduced in our days by the Spanish monks
pursues a retrograde course. Father Gili relates that, at the time of
the expedition to the boundaries, agriculture began to make some
progress on the banks of the Orinoco; and that cattle, especially
goats, had multiplied considerably at Maypures. We found no goats,
either in the mission or in any other village of the Orinoco; they had
all been devoured by the tigers. The black and white breeds of pigs
only, the latter of which are called French pigs (puercos franceses),
because they are believed to have come from the Caribbee Islands, have
resisted the pursuit of wild beasts. We saw with much pleasure
guacamayas, or tame macaws, round the huts of the Indians, and flying
to the fields like our pigeons. This bird is the largest and most
majestic species of parrot with naked cheeks that we found in our
travels. It is called in Marativitan, cahuei. Including the tail, it
is two feet three inches long. We had observed it also on the banks of
the Atabapo, the Temi, and the Rio Negro. The flesh of the cahuei,
which is frequently eaten, is black and somewhat tough. These macaws,
whose plumage glows with vivid tints of purple, blue, and yellow, are
a great ornament to the Indian farm-yards; they do not yield in beauty
to the peacock, the golden pheasant, the pauxi, or the alector. The
practice of rearing parrots, birds of a family so different from the
gallinaceous tribes, was remarked by Columbus. When he discovered
America he saw macaws, or large parrots, which served as food to the
natives of the Caribbee Islands, instead of fowls.
A majestic tree, more than sixty feet high, which the planters call
fruta de burro, grows in the vicinity of the little village of
Maypures. It is a new species of the unona, and has the stateliness of
the Uvaria zeylanica of Aublet. Its branches are straight, and rise in
a pyramid, nearly like the poplar of the Mississippi, erroneously
called the Lombardy poplar. The tree is celebrated for its aromatic
fruit, the infusion of which is a powerful febrifuge. The poor
missionaries of the Orinoco, who are afflicted with tertian fevers
during a great part of the year, seldom travel without a little bag
filled with frutas de burro. I have already observed that between the
tropics, the use of aromatics, for instance very strong coffee, the
Croton cascarilla, or the pericarp of the Unona xylopioides, is
generally preferred to that of the astringent bark of cinchona, or of
Bonplandia trifolatia, which is the Angostura bark. The people of
America have the most inveterate prejudice against the employment of
different kinds of cinchona; and in the very countries where this
valuable remedy grows, they try (to use their own phrase) to cut off
the fever, by infusions of Scoparia dulcis, and hot lemonade prepared
with sugar and the small wild lime, the rind of which is equally oily
and aromatic.
The weather was unfavourable for astronomical observations. I
obtained, however, on the 20th of April, a good series of
corresponding altitudes of the sun, according to which the chronometer
gave 70 degrees 37 minutes 33 seconds for the longitude of the mission
of Maypures; the latitude was found, by a star observed towards the
north, to be 5 degrees 13 minutes 57 seconds; and by a star observed
towards the south, 5 degrees 13 minutes 7 seconds. The error of the
most recent maps is half a degree of longitude and half a degree of
latitude.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 124 of 208
Words from 125588 to 126604
of 211397