Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
- Page 669 of 777 - First - Home
We Found In The Hut Allotted For The Festival, Several Vegetable
Productions Which The Indians Had Brought From The Mountains Of
Guanaya, And Which Engaged Our Attention.
I shall only here mention
the fruit of the juvia, reeds of a prodigious length, and shirts made
of the bark of marima.
The almendron, or juvia, one of the most
majestic trees of the forests of the New World, was almost unknown
before our visit to the Rio Negro. It begins to be found after a
journey of four days east of Esmeralda, between the Padamo and Ocamo,
at the foot of the Cerro Mapaya, on the right bank of the Orinoco. It
is still more abundant on the left bank, at the Cerro Guanaja, between
the Rio Amaguaca and the Gehette. The inhabitants of Esmeralda assured
us, that in advancing above the Gehette and the Chiguire, the juvia
and cacao-trees become so common that the wild Indians (the Guaicas
and Guaharibos) do not disturb the Indians of the missions when
gathering in their harvests. They do not envy them the productions
with which nature has enriched their own soil. Scarcely any attempt
has been made to propagate the almendrones in the settlements of the
Upper Orinoco. To this the indolence of the inhabitants is a greater
obstacle than the rapidity with which the oil becomes rancid in the
amygdaliform seeds. We found only three trees of the kind at the
mission of San Carlos, and two at Esmeralda. These majestic trees were
eight or ten years old, and had not yet borne flowers.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 669 of 777
Words from 181975 to 182237
of 211397