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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I Was Much Surprised At Not Perceiving The Smell Of
Musk At The Havannah, Three Days After The Death Of The Animal, In A
Temperature Of 30 Degrees, While At Mompox, On The Banks Of The
Magdalena, Living Crocodiles Infected Our Apartment.
I have since
found that Dampier also remarked an absence of smell in the crocodile
of Cuba where the
Caymans spread a very strong smell of musk.) I have
no doubt that the crocodile with a sharp snout, and the alligator or
cayman with a snout like a pike,* (* Crocodilus acutus of San Domingo.
Alligator lucius of Florida and the Mississippi.) inhabit together,
but in distinct bands, the marshy coast between Xagua, the Surgidero
of Batabano, and the island of Pinos. In that island Dampier was
struck with the great difference between the caymans and the American
crocodiles. After having described, though not always with perfect
correctness, several of the characteristics which distinguish
crocodiles from caymans, he traces the geographical distribution of
those enormous saurians. "In the bay of Campeachy," he says, "I saw
only caymans or alligators; at the island of Great Cayman, there are
crocodiles and no alligators; at the island of Pinos, and in the
innumerable creeks of the coast of Cuba, there are both crocodiles and
caymans."* (* Dampier's Voyages and Descriptions, 1599.) To these
valuable observations of Dampier I may add that the real crocodile
(Crocodilus acutus) is found in the West India Islands nearest the
mainland, for instance, at the island of Trinidad; at Marguerita; and
also, probably, at Curacao, notwithstanding the want of fresh water.
It is observed, further south, in the Neveri, the Rio Magdalena, the
Apure and the Orinoco, as far as the confluence of the Cassiquiare
with the Rio Negro (latitude 2 degrees 2 minutes), consequently more
than four hundred leagues from Batabano. It would be interesting to
verify on the eastern coast of Mexico and Guatimala, between the
Mississippi and the Rio Chagres (in the isthmus of Panama), the limit
of the different species of carnivorous reptiles.
We set sail on the 9th of March, somewhat incommoded by the extreme
smallness of our vessel, which afforded us no sleeping-place but upon
deck. The cabin (camera de pozo) received no air or light but from
above; it was merely a hold for provisions, and it was with difficulty
that we could place our instruments in it. The thermometer kept up
constantly at 32 and 33 degrees (centesimal.) Luckily these
inconveniences lasted only twenty days. Our several voyages in the
canoes of the Orinoco, and a passage in an American vessel laden with
several thousand arrobas of salt meat dried in the sun had rendered us
not very fastidious.
The gulf of Batabano, bounded by a low and marshy coast, looks like a
vast desert. The fishing birds, which are generally at their post
whilst the small land birds, and the indolent vultures (Vultur aura.)
are at roost, are seen only in small numbers. The sea is of a
greenish-brown hue, as in some of the lakes of Switzerland; while the
air, owing to its extreme purity, had, at the moment the sun appeared
above the horizon, a cold tint of pale blue, similar to that which
landscape painters observe at the same hour in the south of Italy, and
which makes distant objects stand out in strong relief.
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