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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I Had Besides Obtained Some Good
Observations Of The Stars; And Discovered With Surprise, That The
Errors Of Maps Amounted Here Also To A Quarter Of A Degree Of
Latitude.
No person had taken an observation before me on this spot;
and geographers, magnifying as usual the distance from the coast to
the islands, have carried back beyond measure all the localities
towards the south.
As we advanced into the southern part of the Llanos, we found the
ground more dusty, more destitute of herbage, and more cracked by the
effect of long drought. The palm-trees disappeared by degrees. The
thermometer kept, from eleven in the morning till sunset, at 34 or 35
degrees. The calmer the air appeared at eight or ten feet high, the
more we were enveloped in those whirlwinds of dust, caused by the
little currents of air that sweep the ground. About four o'clock in
the afternoon, we found a young Indian girl stretched upon the
savannah. She was almost in a state of nudity, and appeared to be
about twelve or thirteen years of age. Exhausted with fatigue and
thirst, her eyes, nostrils, and mouth filled with dust, she breathed
with a rattling in her throat, and was unable to answer our questions.
A pitcher, overturned, and half filled with sand, was lying at her
side. Happily one of our mules was laden with water; and we roused the
girl from her lethargic state by bathing her face, and forcing her to
drink a few drops of wine.
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