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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They
Are Perceived To Augment Enormously At Nueva Barcelona, And More To
The West, On The Coast That Extends Towards Cape Codera.
Between the
little harbour of Higuerote and the mouth of the Rio Unare, the
wretched inhabitants are accustomed to
Stretch themselves on the
ground, and pass the night buried in the sand three or four inches
deep, leaving out the head only, which they cover with a handkerchief.
You suffer from the sting of insects, but in a manner easy to bear, in
descending the Orinoco from Cabruta towards Angostura, and in going up
from Cabruta towards Uruana, between the latitudes of 7 and 8 degrees.
But beyond the mouth of the Rio Arauca, after having passed the strait
of Baraguan, the scene suddenly changes. From this spot the traveller
may bid farewell to repose. If he have any poetical remembrance of
Dante, he may easily imagine he has entered the citta dolente, and he
will seem to read on the granite rocks of Baraguan these lines of the
Inferno:
Noi sem venuti al luogo, ov' i' t'ho detto
Che tu vedrai le genti dolorose.
The lower strata of air, from the surface of the ground to the height
of fifteen or twenty feet, are absolutely filled with venomous
insects. If in an obscure spot, for instance in the grottos of the
cataracts formed by superincumbent blocks of granite, you direct your
eyes toward the opening enlightened by the sun, you see clouds of
mosquitos more or less thick. At the mission of San Borja, the
suffering from mosquitos is greater than at Carichana; but in the
Raudales, at Atures, and above all at Maypures, this suffering may be
said to attain its maximum. I doubt whether there be a country upon
earth where man is exposed to more cruel torments in the rainy season.
Having passed the fifth degree of latitude, you are somewhat less
stung; but on the Upper Orinoco the stings are more painful, because
the heat and the absolute want of wind render the air more burning and
more irritating in its contact with the skin.
"How comfortable must people be in the moon!" said a Salive Indian to
Father Gumilla; "she looks so beautiful and so clear, that she must be
free from mosquitos." These words, which denote the infancy of a
people, are very remarkable. The satellite of the earth appears to all
savage nations the abode of the blessed, the country of abundance. The
Esquimaux, who counts among his riches a plank or trunk of a tree,
thrown by the currents on a coast destitute of vegetation, sees in the
moon plains covered with forests; the Indian of the forests of Orinoco
there beholds open savannahs, where the inhabitants are never stung by
mosquitos.
After proceeding further to the south, where the system of
yellowish-brown waters commences,* (* Generally called black waters,
aguas negras.) on the banks of the Atabapo, the Tuni, the Tuamini, and
the Rio Negro, we enjoyed an unexpected repose.
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