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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To
The South Of Lake Duractumuni We Slept In A Forest Of Palm-Trees.
It
rained violently, but the pothoses, arums, and lianas, furnished so
thick a natural trellis, that we were sheltered as under a vault of
foliage.
The Indians whose hammocks were placed on the edge of the
river, interwove the heliconias and other musaceae, so as to form a
kind of roof over them. Our fires lighted up, to the height of fifty
or sixty feet, the palm-trees, the lianas loaded with flowers, and the
columns of white smoke, which ascended in a straight line toward the
sky. The whole exhibited a magnificent spectacle; but to have enjoyed
it fully, we should have breathed an air clear of insects.
The most depressing of all physical sufferings are those which are
uniform in their duration, and can be combated only by long patience.
It is probable, that in the exhalations of the forests of the
Cassiquiare M. Bonpland imbibed the seeds of a severe malady, under
which he nearly sunk on our arrival at Angostura. Happily for him and
for me, nothing led us to presage the danger with which he was
menaced. The view of the river, and the hum of the insects, were a
little monotonous; but some remains of our natural cheerfulness
enabled us to find sources of relief during our wearisome passage. We
discovered, that by eating small portions of dry cacao ground without
sugar, and drinking a large quantity of the river water, we succeeded
in appeasing our appetite for several hours.
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