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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All These Movements Are Executed More Promptly, And With
Readier Success, By Horses Born In The Llanos, And Which Have Long
Enjoyed Their Liberty, Than By Those That Come From The Coast, And
Descend From Domestic Horses.
In animals, for the most part, as in
man, the quickness of the senses is diminished by long subjection, and
by the habits that arise from a fixed abode and the progress of
cultivation.
We followed our mules in search of one of those pools, whence the
muddy water had been drawn, that so ill quenched our thirst. We were
covered with dust, and tanned by the sandy wind, which burns the skin
even more than the rays of the sun. We longed impatiently to take a
bath, but we found only a great pool of feculent water, surrounded
with palm-trees. The water was turbid, though, to our great
astonishment, a little cooler than the air. Accustomed during our long
journey to bathe whenever we had an opportunity, often several times
in one day, we hastened to plunge into the pool. We had scarcely begun
to enjoy the coolness of the bath, when a noise which we heard on the
opposite bank, made us leave the water precipitately. It was an
alligator plunging into the mud.
We were only at the distance of a quarter of a league from the farm,
yet we continued walking more than an hour without reaching it. We
perceived too late that we had taken a wrong direction.
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