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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Habitual Evils Are Those
Which Are Least Felt; And Men Born In America Do Not Suffer The Same
Intensity Of Pain As Europeans Recently Arrived.
Perhaps, also, the
destruction of forests round the inhabited places, although slow, will
somewhat tend to diminish the torment of the tipulary insects.
San
Fernando de Atabapo, Javita, San Carlos, and Esmeralda, appear (from
their situation at the mouth of the Guaviare, the portage between
Tuamini and the Rio Negro, the confluence of the Cassiquiare, and the
point of bifurcation of the Upper Orinoco) to promise a considerable
increase of population and prosperity. The same improvement will take
place in the fertile but uncultivated countries through which flow the
Guallaga, the Amazon, and the Orinoco; as well as at the isthmus of
Panama, the lake of Nicaragua, and the Rio Huasacualco, which furnish
a communication between the two oceans. The imperfection of political
institutions may for ages have converted into deserts places where the
commerce of the world should be found concentred; but the time
approaches when these obstacles shall exist no longer. A vicious
administration cannot always struggle against the united interest of
men; and civilization will be carried insensibly into those countries,
the great destinies of which nature itself proclaims, by the physical
configuration of the soil, the immense windings of the rivers, and the
proximity of two seas, that bathe the shores of Europe and of India.
Esmeralda is the most celebrated spot on the Orinoco for the
preparation of that active poison, which is employed in war, in the
chase, and, singularly enough, as a remedy for gastric derangements.
The poison of the ticunas of the Amazon, the upas-tieute of Java, and
the curare of Guiana, are the most deleterious substances that are
known.
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