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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It Is Not So In The Fields Covered With Indigo, Or Other
Herbaceous Plants; Where The Rays Of The Sun
Penetrate freely into the
earth, and by the accelerated combustion of the hydrurets of carbon
and other acidifiable principles, destroy
The germs of fecundity.
These effects strike the imagination of the planters the more
forcibly, as in lands newly inhabited they compare the fertility of a
soil which has been abandoned to itself during thousands of years,
with the produce of ploughed fields. The Spanish colonies on the
continent, and the great islands of Porto-Rico and Cuba, possess
remarkable advantages with respect to the produce of agriculture over
the lesser West India islands. The former, from their extent, the
variety of their scenery, and their small relative population, still
bear all the characters of a new soil; while at Barbadoes, Tobago, St.
Lucia, the Virgin Islands, and the French part of St. Domingo, it may
be perceived that long cultivation has begun to exhaust the soil. If
in the valleys of Aragua, instead of abandoning the indigo grounds,
and leaving them fallow, they were covered during several years, not
with corn, but with other alimentary plants and forage; if among these
plants such as belong to different families were preferred, and which
shade the soil by their large leaves, the amelioration of the fields
would be gradually accomplished, and they would be restored to a part
of their former fertility.
The city of Nueva Valencia occupies a considerable extent of ground,
but its population scarcely amounts to six or seven thousand souls.
The streets are very broad, the market place, (plaza mayor,) is of
vast dimensions; and, the houses being low, the disproportion between
the population of the town, and the space that it occupies, is still
greater than at Caracas. Many of the whites, (especially the poorest,)
forsake their houses, and live the greater part of the year in their
little plantations of indigo and cotton, where they can venture to
work with their own hands; which, according to the inveterate
prejudices of that country, would be a disgrace to them in the town.
Nueva Valencia, founded in 1555 under the government of Villacinda, by
Alonzo Diaz Moreno, is twelve years older than Caracas. Valencia was
at first only a dependency of Burburata; but this latter town is
nothing now but a place of embarkation for mules. It is regretted, and
perhaps justly, that Valencia has not become the capital of the
country. Its situation in a plain, on the banks of a lake, recalls to
mind the position of Mexico. When we reflect on the easy communication
afforded by the valleys of Aragua with the Llanos and the rivers that
flow into the Orinoco; when we recognize the possibility of opening an
inland navigation, by the Rio Pao and the Portuguesa, as far as the
mouths of the Orinoco, the Cassiquiare, and the Amazon, it may be
conceived that the capital of the vast provinces of Venezuela would
have been better placed near the fine harbour of Porto Cabello,
beneath a pure and serene sky, than near the unsheltered road of La
Guayra, in a temperate but constantly foggy valley. Near the kingdom
of New Grenada, and situate between the fertile corn-lands of La
Victoria and Barquesimeto, the city of Valencia ought to have
prospered; but, notwithstanding these advantages, it has been unable
to maintain the contest with Caracas.
Only those who have seen the myriads of ants, that infest the
countries within the torrid zone, can form an idea of the destruction
and the sinking of the ground occasioned by these insects. They abound
to such a degree on the site of Valencia, that their excavations
resemble subterranean canals, which are filled with water in the time
of the rains, and become very dangerous to the buildings. Here
recourse has not been had to the extraordinary means employed at the
beginning of the sixteenth century in the island of St. Domingo, when
troops of ants ravaged the fine plains of La Vega, and the rich
possessions of the order of St. Francis. The monks, after having in
vain burnt the larvae of the ants, and had recourse to fumigations,
advised the inhabitants to choose by lot a saint, who would act as a
mediator against the plague of the ants.* (* Un abogado contra los
harmigos.) The honour of the choice fell on St. Saturnin; and the ants
disappeared as soon as the first festival of this saint was
celebrated. Incredulity has made great progress since the time of the
conquest; and it was only on the back of the Cordilleras that I found
a small chapel, destined, according to its inscription, for prayers to
be addressed to Heaven for the destruction of the termites.
Valencia affords some historical remembrances; but these, like
everything connected with the colonies, have no remote date, and
recall to mind either civil discords or sanguinary conflicts with the
savages. Lopez de Aguirre, whose crimes and adventures form some of
the most dramatic episodes of the history of the conquest, proceeded
in 1561, from Peru, by the river Amazon to the island of Margareta;
and thence, by the port of Burburata, into the valleys of Aragua. On
his entrance into Valencia, which proudly entitles itself the City of
the King, he proclaimed the independence of country, and the
deposition of Philip II. The inhabitants withdrew to the islands of
the lake of Tacarigua, taking with them all the boats from the shore,
to be more secure in their retreat. In consequence of this stratagem,
Aguirre could exercise his cruelties only on his own people. From
Valencia he addressed to the king of Spain, a remarkable letter, in
which he boasts alternately of his crimes and his piety; at the same
time giving advice to the king on the government of the colonies, and
the system of missions. Surrounded by savage Indians, navigating on a
great sea of fresh water, as he calls the Amazon, he is alarmed at the
heresies of Martin Luther, and the increasing influence of schismatics
in Europe.*
(* The following are some remarkable passages in the letter from
Aguirre to the king of Spain.
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