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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Whatever
Relates To Milk Or To Corn, Inspires An Interest Which Is Not Merely
That Of The Physical Knowledge Of Things, But Is Connected With
Another Order Of Ideas And Sentiments.
We can scarcely conceive how
the human race could exist without farinaceous substances, and without
that nourishing juice which the breast of the mother contains, and
which is appropriated to the long feebleness of the infant.
The
amylaceous matter of corn, the object of religious veneration among so
many nations, ancient and modern, is diffused in the seeds, and
deposited in the roots of vegetables; milk, which serves as an
aliment, appears to us exclusively the produce of animal organization.
Such are the impressions we have received in our earliest infancy:
such is also the source of that astonishment created by the aspect of
the tree just described. It is not here the solemn shades of forests,
the majestic course of rivers, the mountains wrapped in eternal snow,
that excite our emotion. A few drops of vegetable juice recall to our
minds all the powerfulness and the fecundity of nature. On the barren
flank of a rock grows a tree with coriaceous and dry leaves. Its large
woody roots can scarcely penetrate into the stone. For several months
of the year not a single shower moistens its foliage. Its branches
appear dead and dried; but when the trunk is pierced there flows from
it a sweet and nourishing milk. It is at the rising of the sun that
this vegetable fountain is most abundant.
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