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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The
Fruits Of This Tree Are Very Extraordinary; Every Cluster Contains
From Fifty To Eighty; They Are Yellow Like Apples, Grow Purple In
Proportion As They Ripen, Two Or Three Inches Thick, And Generally,
From Abortion, Without A Kernel.
Among the eighty or ninety species of
palm-trees peculiar to the New Continent, which I have enumerated in
the Nova Genera Plantarum Aequinoctialum, there are none in which the
sarcocarp is developed in a manner so extraordinary.
The fruit of the
pirijao furnishes a farinaceous substance, as yellow as the yolk of an
egg, slightly saccharine, and extremely nutritious. It is eaten like
plantains or potatoes, boiled or roasted in the ashes, and affords a
wholesome and agreeable aliment. The Indians and the missionaries are
unwearied in their praises of this noble palm-tree, which might be
called the peach-palm. We found it cultivated in abundance at San
Fernando, San Balthasar, Santa Barbara, and wherever we advanced
towards the south or the east along the banks of the Atabapo and the
Upper Orinoco. In those wild regions we are involuntarily reminded of
the assertion of Linnaeus, that the country of palm-trees was the
first abode of our species, and that man is essentially palmivorous.*
(* Homo HABITAT intra tropicos, vescitur palmis, lotophagus;
HOSPITATUR extra tropicos sub novercante Cerere, carnivorus. Man
DWELLS NATURALLY within the tropics, and lives on the fruits of the
palm-tree; he EXISTS in other parts of the world, and there makes
shift to feed on corn and flesh. Syst. Nat. volume 1 page 24.) On
examining the provision accumulated in the huts of the Indians, we
perceive that their subsistence during several months of the year
depends as much on the farinaceous fruit of the pirijao, as on the
cassava and plantain. The tree bears fruit but once a year, but to the
amount of three clusters, consequently from one hundred and fifty to
two hundred fruits.
San Fernando de Atabapo, San Carlos, and San Francisco Solano, are the
most considerable settlements among the missions of the Upper Orinoco.
At San Fernando, as well as in the neighbouring villages of San
Balthasar and Javita, the abodes of the priests are neatly-built
houses, covered by lianas, and surrounded by gardens. The tall trunks
of the pirijao palms were the most beautiful ornaments of these
plantations. In our walks, the president of the mission gave us an
animated account of his incursions on the Rio Guaviare. He related to
us how much these journeys, undertaken "for the conquest of souls;"
are desired by the Indians of the missions. All, even women and old
men, take part in them. Under the pretext of recovering neophytes who
have deserted the village, children above eight or ten years of age
are carried off, and distributed among the Indians of the missions as
serfs, or poitos. According to the astronomical observations I took on
the banks of the Atabapo, and on the western declivity of the
Cordillera of the Andes, near the Paramo de la suma Paz, the distance
is one hundred and seven leagues only from San Fernando to the first
villages of the provinces of Caguan and San Juan de los Llanos. I was
assured also by some Indians, who dwelt formerly to the west of the
island of Amanaveni, beyond the confluence of the Rio Supavi, that
going in a boat on the Guaviare (in the manner of the savages) beyond
the strait (angostura) and the principal cataract, they met, at three
days' distance, bearded and clothed men, who came in search of the
eggs of the terekay turtle. This meeting alarmed the Indians so much,
that they fled precipitately, redescending the Guaviare. It is
probable, that these bearded white men came from the villages of Aroma
and San Martin, the Rio Guaviare being formed by the union of the
rivers Ariari and Guayavero. We must not be surprised that the
missionaries of the Orinoco and the Atabapo little suspect how near
they live to the missionaries of Mocoa, Rio Fragua, and Caguan. In
these desert countries, the real distances can be known only by
observations of the longitude. It was in consequence of astronomical
data, and the information I gathered in the convents of Popayan and of
Pasto, to the west of the Cordillera of the Andes, that I formed an
accurate idea of the respective situations of the christian
settlements on the Atabapo, the Guayavero, and the Caqueta.* (* The
Caqueta bears, lower down, the name of the Yupura.)
Everything changes on entering the Rio Atabapo; the constitution of
the atmosphere, the colour of the waters, and the form of the trees
that cover the shore. You no longer suffer during the day the torment
of mosquitos; and the long-legged gnats (zancudos) become rare during
the night. Beyond the mission of San Fernando these nocturnal insects
disappear altogether. The water of the Orinoco is turbid, and loaded
with earthy matter; and in the coves, from the accumulation of dead
crocodiles and other putrescent substances, it diffuses a musky and
faint smell. We were sometimes obliged to strain this water through a
linen cloth before we drank it. The water of the Atabapo, on the
contrary, is pure, agreeable to the taste, without any trace of smell,
brownish by reflected, and of a pale yellow by transmitted light. The
people call it light, in opposition to the heavy and turbid waters of
the Orinoco. Its temperature is generally two degrees, and when you
approach the mouth of the Rio Temi, three degrees, cooler than the
temperature of the Upper Orinoco. After having been compelled during a
whole year to drink water at 27 or 28 degrees, a lowering of a few
degrees in the temperature produces a very agreeable sensation. I
think this lowering of the temperature may be attributed to the river
being less broad, and without the sandy beach, the heat of which, at
the Orinoco, is by day more than 50 degrees, and also to the thick
shade of the forests which are traversed by the Atabapo, the Temi, the
Tuamini, and the Guainia, or Rio Negro.
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