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 Aerial Distance Was, According To The Distance Of The Animal,
From 3 To 4 Minutes.
Where tufts of the moriche palm were found
growing in long ranges, the extremities of these green rows were
suspended like the capes which were, for so long a time, the subject
of my observations at Cumana.
A well-informed person assured us, that
he had seen, between Calabozo and Uritucu, the image of an animal
inverted, without there being any direct image. Niebuhr made a similar
observation in Arabia. We several times thought we saw on the horizon
the figures of tumuli and towers, which disappeared at intervals,
without our being able to discern the real shape of the objects. They
were perhaps hillocks, or small eminences, situated beyond the
ordinary visual horizon. I need not mention those tracts destitute of
vegetation, which appear like large lakes with an undulating surface.
This phenomenon, observed in very remote times, has occasioned the
mirage to receive in Sanscrit the expressive name of desire of the
antelope. We admire the frequent allusions in the Indian, Persian, and
Arabic poets, to the magical effects of terrestrial refraction. It was
scarcely known to the Greeks and Romans. Proud of the riches of their
soil, and the mild temperature of the air, they would have felt no
envy of this poetry of the desert. It had its birth in Asia; and the
oriental poets found its source in the nature of the country they
inhabited. They were inspired with the aspect of those vast solitudes,
interposed like arms of the sea or gulfs, between lands which nature
had adorned with her most luxuriant fertility.
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