Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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Some Altitudes Of The Sun Gave Me 67 Degrees 8
Minutes 12 Seconds For The Longitude, Supposing Angostura To Be 66
Degrees 15 Minutes 21 Seconds.
The astronomical determinations of
Calabozo and Concepcion del Pao are very important to the geography of
this country, where, in the midst of savannahs, fixed points are
altogether wanting.
Some fruit-trees grow in the vicinity of Pao: they
are rarely seen in the Llanos. We even found some cocoa-trees, which
appeared very vigorous, notwithstanding the great distance of the sea.
I was the more struck with this fact because doubts have recently been
started respecting the veracity of travellers, who assert that they
have seen the cocoa-tree, which is a palm of the shore, at Timbuctoo,
in the centre of Africa. We several times saw cocoa-trees amid the
cultivated spots on the banks of the Rio Magdalena, more than a
hundred leagues from the coast.
Five days, which to us appeared very tedious, brought us from Villa
del Pao to the port of Nueva Barcelona. As we advanced the sky became
more serene, the soil more dusty, and the atmosphere more hot. The
heat from which we suffered is not entirely owing to the temperature
of the air, but is produced by the fine sand mingled with it; this
sand strikes against the face of the traveller, as it does against the
ball of the thermometer. I never observed the mercury rise in America,
amid a wind of sand, above 45.8 degrees centigrade.
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