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 Father Zea
Arrived, He Was Received With Great Demonstrations Of Joy.
The
military are in greater numbers on the banks of the Rio Negro than on
those of the Orinoco, owing to the necessity of guarding the
frontiers; and wherever soldiers and monks dispute for power over the
Indians, the latter are most attached to the monks.
Two young women
came down from their hammocks, to prepare for us cakes of cassava. In
answer to some enquiries which we put to them through an interpreter,
they answered that cassava grew poorly on the island, but that it was
a good land for ants, and food was not wanting. In fact, these
vachacos furnish subsistence to the Indians of the Rio Negro and the
Guainia. They do not eat the ants as a luxury, but because, according
to the expression of the missionaries, the fat of ants (the white part
of the abdomen) is a very substantial food. When the cakes of cassava
were prepared, Father Zea, whose fever seemed rather to sharpen than
to enfeeble his appetite, ordered a little bag to be brought to him
filled with smoked vachacos. He mixed these bruised insects with flour
of cassava, which he pressed us to taste. It somewhat resembled rancid
butter mixed with crumb of bread. The cassava had not an acid taste,
but some remains of European prejudices prevented our joining in the
praises bestowed by the good missionary on what he called an excellent
ant paste.
The violence of the rain obliged us to sleep in this crowded hut.
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