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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His Cunning And Wild Appearance, The
Often-Repeated Question Whether We Were Spaniards, And Certain
Unintelligible Words Which He Addressed To Some Of His Companions Who
Were Concealed Amidst The Trees, Inspired Us With Some Mistrust.
These
blacks were no doubt maroon negroes:
Slaves escaped from prison. This
unfortunate class are much to be feared: they have the courage of
despair, and a desire of vengeance excited by the severity of the
whites. We were without arms; the negroes appeared to be more numerous
than we were and, thinking that possibly they invited us to land with
the desire of taking possession of our canoe, we thought it most
prudent to return on board. The aspect of a naked man wandering on an
uninhabited beach, unable to free himself from the chains fastened
round his neck and the upper part of his arm, was an object calculated
to excite the most painful impressions. Our sailors wished to return
to the shore for the purpose of seizing the fugitives, to sell them
secretly at Carthagena. In countries where slavery exists the mind is
familiarized with suffering and that instinct of pity which
characterizes and enobles our nature is blunted.
Whilst we lay at anchor near the island of Baru in the meridian of
Punta Gigantes I observed the eclipse of the moon of the 29th of
March, 1801. The total immersion took place at 11 hours 30 minutes
12.6 seconds mean time. Some groups of vapours, scattered over the
azure vault of the sky, rendered the observation of the immersion
uncertain.
During the total eclipse the lunar disc displayed, as almost always
happens, a reddish tint, without disappearing; the edges, examined
with a sextant, were strongly undulating, notwithstanding the
considerable altitude of the orb. It appeared to me that the moon was
more luminous than I had ever seen it in the temperate zone. The
vividness of the light, it may be conceived, does not depend solely on
the state of the atmosphere, which reflects, more or less feebly, the
solar rays, by inflecting them in the cone of the shade. The light is
also modified by the variable transparency of that part of the
atmosphere across which we perceived the moon eclipsed. Within the
tropics great serenity of the sky and a perfect dissolution of the
vapours diminish the extinction of the light sent back to us by the
lunar disc. I was singularly struck during the eclipse by the want of
uniformity in the distribution of the refracted light by the
terrestrial atmosphere. In the central region of the disc there was a
shadow like a round cloud, the movement of which was from east to
west. The part where the immersion was to take place was consequently
a few minutes prior to the immersion much more brightly illumined than
the western edges. Is this phenomenon to be attributed to an
inequality of our atmosphere; to a partial accumulation of vapour
which, by absorbing a considerable part of the solar light, inflects
less on one side the cone of the shadow of the earth?
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