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 had given
directions for the construction of a large house of two stories, which
was to be begun by the Indians of the mission.
"You will there find,"
said he gravely, "the same conveniences as in the open air; I have
neither a bench nor a table, but you will not suffer so much from the
flies, which are less troublesome in the mission than on the banks of
the river." We followed the counsel if the missionary, who caused
torches of copal to be lighted. These torches are tubes made of bark,
three inches in diameter, and filled with copal resin. We walked at
first over beds of rock, which were bare and slippery, and then we
entered a thick grove of palm trees. We were twice obliged to pass a
stream on trunks of trees hewn down. The torches had already ceased to
give light. Being formed on a strange principle, the woody substance
which resembles the wick surrounding the resin, they emit more smoke
than light, and are easily extinguished. The Indian pilot, who
expressed himself with some facility in Spanish, told us of snakes,
water-serpents, and tigers, by which we might be attacked. Such
conversations may be expected as matters of course, by persons who
travel at night with the natives. By intimidating the European
traveller, the Indians imagine they render themselves more necessary,
and gain the confidence of the stranger. The rudest inhabitant of the
missions fully understands the deceptions which everywhere arise from
the relations between men of unequal fortune and civilization.
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