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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No Other Family Of Arborescent
Plants Is So Prolific In The Development Of The Organs Of Flowering.
The Almond Of The Corozo Del Sinu Is Peeled In The Water.
The thick
layer of oil that swims in the water is purified by boiling, and
yields the butter of
Corozo (manteca de Corozo) which is thicker than
the oil of the cocoa-tree, and serves to light churches and houses.
The palm-trees of the section of Cocoinies of Mr. Brown are the
olive-trees of the tropical regions. As we advanced in the forest, we
began to find little pathways, looking as though they had been
recently cleared out by the hatchet. Their windings displayed a great
number of new plants: Mougeotia mollis, Nelsonia albicans, Melampodium
paludosum, Jonidium anomalum, Teucrium palustre, Gomphia lucens, and a
new kind of Composees, the Spiracantha cornifolia. A fine Pancratium
embalmed the air in the humid spots, and almost made us forget that
those gloomy and marshy forests are highly dangerous to health.
After an hour's walk we found, in a cleared spot, several inhabitants
employed in collecting palm-tree wine. The dark tint of the zambos
formed a strong contrast with the appearance of a little man with
light hair and a pale complexion who seemed to take no share in the
labour. I thought at first that he was a sailor who had escaped from
some North American vessel; but I was soon undeceived. This
fair-complexioned man was my countryman, born on the coast of the
Baltic; he had served in the Danish navy and had lived for several
years in the upper part of the Rio Sinu, near Santa Cruz de Lorica. He
had come, to use the words of the loungers of the country para ver
tierras, y pasear, no mas (to see other lands, and to roam about,
nothing else.) The sight of a man who could speak to him of his
country seemed to have no attraction for him; and, as he had almost
forgotten German without being able to express himself clearly in
Spanish, our conversation was not very animated. During the five years
of my travels in Spanish America I found only two opportunities of
speaking my native language. The first Prussian I met with was a
sailor from Memel who served on board a ship from Halifax, and who
refused to make himself known till after he had fired some musket-shot
at our boat. The second, the man we met at the Rio Sinu, was very
amicably disposed. Without answering my questions he continued
repeating, with a smile, that the country was hot and humid; that the
houses in the town of Pomerania were finer than those of Santa Cruz de
Lorica; and that, if we remained in the forest, we should have the
tertian fever (calentura) from which he had long suffered. We had some
difficulty in testifying our gratitude to this good man for his kind
advice; for according to his somewhat aristocratic principles, a white
man, were he bare-footed, should never accept money "in the presence
of those vile coloured people!" (gente parda). Less disdainful than
our European countryman, we saluted politely the group of men of
colour who were employed in drawing off into large calabashes, or
fruits of the Crescentia cujete, the palm-tree wine from the trunks of
felled trees.
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