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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One Of The Skulls, Which We Took From The Cavern Of Ataruipe, Has
Appeared In The Fine Work Published By My Old Master, Blumenbach, On
The Varieties Of The Human Species.
The skeletons of the Indians were
lost on the coast of Africa, together with a considerable part of our
collections, in a shipwreck, in which perished our friend and
fellow-traveller, Fray Juan Gonzales, the young monk of the order of
Saint Francis.
We withdrew in silence from the cavern of Ataruipe. It was one of
those calm and serene nights which are so common in the torrid zone.
The stars shone with a mild and planetary light. Their scintillation
was scarcely sensible at the horizon, which seemed illumined by the
great nebulae of the southern hemisphere. An innumerable multitude of
insects spread a reddish light upon the ground, loaded with plants,
and resplendent with these living and moving fires, as if the stars of
the firmament had sunk down on the savannah. On quitting the cavern we
stopped several times to admire the beauty of this singular scene. The
odoriferous vanilla and festoons of bignonia decorated the entrance;
and above, on the summit of the hill, the arrowy branches of the
palm-trees waved murmuring in the air. We descended towards the river,
to take the road to the mission, where we arrived late in the night.
Our imagination was struck by all we had just seen. Occupied
continually by the present, in a country where the traveller is
tempted to regard human society as a new institution, he is more
powerfully interested by remembrances of times past.
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Words from 196547 to 196816
of 211397
