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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He Invited Us To Have Our Hammocks Hung Near
His Own, Between Two Trees; And He Assured Us, With An Air Of
Complacency, That, If We Came Up The River In The Rainy Season, We
Should Find Him Beneath A Roof (Baxo Techo).
We soon had reason to
complain of a system of philosophy which is indulgent to indolence,
and renders a man indifferent to the conveniences of life.
A furious
wind arose after midnight, lightnings flashed over the horizon,
thunder rolled, and we were wet to the skin. During this storm a
whimsical incident served to amuse us for a moment. Dona Isabella's
cat had perched upon the tamarind-tree, at the foot of which we lay.
It fell into the hammock of one of our companions, who, being hurt by
the claws of the cat, and suddenly aroused from a profound sleep,
imagined he was attacked by some wild beast of the forest. We ran to
him on hearing his cries, and had some trouble to convince him of his
error. While it rained in torrents on our hammocks and on our
instruments which we had brought ashore, Don Ignacio congratulated us
on our good fortune in not sleeping on the strand, but finding
ourselves in his domain, among whites and persons of respectability
(entre gente blanca y de trato). Wet as we were, we could not easily
persuade ourselves of the advantages of our situation, and we listened
with some impatience to the long narrative our host gave us of his
pretended expedition to the Rio Meta, of the valour he had displayed
in a sanguinary combat with the Guahibo Indians, and "the services
that he had rendered to God and his king, in carrying away Indian
children (los Indiecitos) from their parents, to distribute them in
the Missions." We were struck with the singularity of finding in that
vast solitude a man believing himself to be of European race and
knowing no other shelter than the shade of a tree, and yet having all
the vain pretensions, hereditary prejudices, and errors of
long-standing civilization!
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