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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When We
Spoke Of The Indifference With Which The Portuguese Government
Doubtless Regarded The Four Little Villages Founded By The Monks Of
Saint Francisco, On The Upper Guainia, The Inhabitants Were Hurt By
The Motives Which We Alleged With The View To Give Them Confidence.
A
people who have preserved in vigour, through the revolutions of ages,
a national hatred, like occasions of giving it vent.
The mind delights
in everything impassioned, in the consciousness of an energetic
feeling, in the affections, and in rival hatreds that are founded on
antiquated prejudices. Whatever constitutes the individuality of
nations flows from the mother-country to the most remote colonies; and
national antipathies are not effaced where the influence of the same
languages ceases. We know, from the interesting narrative of
Krusenstern's voyage, that the hatred of two fugitive sailors, one a
Frenchman and the other an Englishman, was the cause of a long war
between the inhabitants of the Marquesas Islands. On the banks of the
Amazon and the Rio Negro, the Indians of the neighbouring Portuguese
and Spanish villages detest each other. These poor people speak only
the native tongues; they are ignorant of what passes on the other bank
of the ocean, beyond the great salt-pool; but the gowns of their
missionaries are of a different colour, and this displeases them
extremely.
I have stopped to paint the effects of national animosities, which
wise statesmen have endeavoured to calm, but have been unable entirely
to set at rest.
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