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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It Is Easy To
Conceive How Much The Force Of Vegetation, And The Nature Of The Soil
And Climate, Within The Torrid Zone, Embarrassed The Natives In Regard
To Migration In Numerous Bodies, Prevented Settlements Requiring An
Extensive Space, And Perpetuated The Misery And Barbarism Of Solitary
Hordes.
The feeble civilization introduced in our days by the Spanish monks
pursues a retrograde course.
Father Gili relates that, at the time of
the expedition to the boundaries, agriculture began to make some
progress on the banks of the Orinoco; and that cattle, especially
goats, had multiplied considerably at Maypures. We found no goats,
either in the mission or in any other village of the Orinoco; they had
all been devoured by the tigers. The black and white breeds of pigs
only, the latter of which are called French pigs (puercos franceses),
because they are believed to have come from the Caribbee Islands, have
resisted the pursuit of wild beasts. We saw with much pleasure
guacamayas, or tame macaws, round the huts of the Indians, and flying
to the fields like our pigeons. This bird is the largest and most
majestic species of parrot with naked cheeks that we found in our
travels. It is called in Marativitan, cahuei. Including the tail, it
is two feet three inches long. We had observed it also on the banks of
the Atabapo, the Temi, and the Rio Negro. The flesh of the cahuei,
which is frequently eaten, is black and somewhat tough. These macaws,
whose plumage glows with vivid tints of purple, blue, and yellow, are
a great ornament to the Indian farm-yards; they do not yield in beauty
to the peacock, the golden pheasant, the pauxi, or the alector. The
practice of rearing parrots, birds of a family so different from the
gallinaceous tribes, was remarked by Columbus. When he discovered
America he saw macaws, or large parrots, which served as food to the
natives of the Caribbee Islands, instead of fowls.
A majestic tree, more than sixty feet high, which the planters call
fruta de burro, grows in the vicinity of the little village of
Maypures. It is a new species of the unona, and has the stateliness of
the Uvaria zeylanica of Aublet. Its branches are straight, and rise in
a pyramid, nearly like the poplar of the Mississippi, erroneously
called the Lombardy poplar. The tree is celebrated for its aromatic
fruit, the infusion of which is a powerful febrifuge. The poor
missionaries of the Orinoco, who are afflicted with tertian fevers
during a great part of the year, seldom travel without a little bag
filled with frutas de burro. I have already observed that between the
tropics, the use of aromatics, for instance very strong coffee, the
Croton cascarilla, or the pericarp of the Unona xylopioides, is
generally preferred to that of the astringent bark of cinchona, or of
Bonplandia trifolatia, which is the Angostura bark. The people of
America have the most inveterate prejudice against the employment of
different kinds of cinchona; and in the very countries where this
valuable remedy grows, they try (to use their own phrase) to cut off
the fever, by infusions of Scoparia dulcis, and hot lemonade prepared
with sugar and the small wild lime, the rind of which is equally oily
and aromatic.
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