Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
- Page 316 of 635 - First - Home
The Fermentation Appears
To Commence As Soon As The Trunk Falls, But The Vessels Preserve Their
Vitality; For We Saw That The Sap Flowed Even When The Summit Of The
Palm-Tree (That Part Whence The Leaves Sprout Out) Is A Foot Higher
Than The Lower End, Near The Roots.
The sap continues to mount as in
the arborescent Euphorbia recently cut.
During eighteen to twenty
days, the palm-tree wine is daily collected; the last is less sweet
but more alcoholic and more highly esteemed. One tree yields as much
as eighteen bottles of sap, each bottle containing forty-two cubic
inches. The natives affirm that the flowing is more abundant when the
petioles of the leaves, which remain fixed to the trunk, are burnt.
The great humidity and thickness of the forest forced us to retrace
our steps and to gain the shore before sunset. In several places the
compact limestone rock, probably of tertiary formation, is visible. A
thick layer of clay and mould rendered observation difficult; but a
shelf of carburetted and shining slate seemed to me to indicate the
presence of more ancient formations. It has been affirmed that coal is
to be found on the banks of the Sinu. We met with Zambos carrying on
their shoulders the cylinders of palmetto, improperly called the
cabbage palm, three feet long and five to six feet thick. The stem of
the palm-tree has been for ages an esteemed article of food in those
countries. I believe it to be wholesome although historians relate
that, when Alonso Lopez de Ayala was governor of Uraba, several
Spaniards died after having eaten immoderately of the palmetto, and at
the same time drinking a great quantity of water.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 316 of 635
Words from 86226 to 86514
of 174507
