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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The
Bisons Taken Very Young Accustom Themselves, On The West Of The
Alleghenies, To Graze With Herds Of European Cows.
The females in some
districts of India yield a little milk, but the natives have never
thought of milking them.
What is the origin of that fabulous story
related by Gomara (chapter 43 page 36) according to which the first
Spanish navigators saw, on the coast of South Carolina, stags led to
the savannahs by herdsmen? The female bisons, according to Mr.
Buchanan and the philosophical historian of the Indian Archipelago,
Mr. Crawford, yield more milk than common cows.) but how can we avoid
being astonished at this indifference in the immense Chinese
population, living in great part beyond the tropics, and in the same
latitude with the nomad and pastoral tribes of central Asia? If the
Chinese have ever been a pastoral people, how have they lost the
tastes and habits so intimately connected with that state, which
precedes agricultural institutions? These questions are interesting
with respect both to the history of the nations of oriental Asia, and
to the ancient communications that are supposed to have existed
between that part of the world and the north of Mexico.
We went down the Orinoco in two days, from Carichana to the mission of
Uruana, after having again passed the celebrated strait of Baraguan.
We stopped several times to determine the velocity of the river, and
its temperature at the surface, which was 27.4 degrees. The velocity
was found to be two feet in a second (sixty-two toises in 3 minutes 6
seconds) in places where the bed of the Orinoco was more than twelve
thousand feet broad, and from ten to twelve fathoms deep.
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