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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In Comparing The
Herbaceous And Nourishing Fibres Of The Young Undeveloped Leaves Of
The Palm-Trees With The Sago Of
The Mauritia, of which the Indians
make bread similar to that of the root of the Jatropha manihot, we
involuntarily
Recollect the striking analogy which modern chemistry
has proved to exist between ligneous matter and the amylaceous fecula.
We stopped on the shore to collect lichens, opegraphas and a great
number of mosses (Boletus, Hydnum, Helvela, Thelephora) that were
attached to the mangroves, and there, to my great surprise,
vegetating, although moistened by the sea-water.
Before I quit this coast, so seldom visited by travellers and
described by no modern voyager, I may here offer some information
which I acquired during my stay at Carthagena. The Rio Sinu in its
upper course approaches the tributary streams of the Atrato which, to
the auriferous and platiniferous province of Choco, is of the same
importance as the Magdalena to Cundinamarca, or the Rio Cauca to the
provinces of Antioquia and Popayan. The three great rivers here
mentioned have heretofore been the only commercial routes, I might
almost add, the only channels of communication for the inhabitants.
The Rio Atrato receives, at twelve leagues distance from its mouth,
the Rio Sucio on the east; the Indian village of San Antonio is
situated on its banks. Proceeding upward beyond the Rio Pabarando, you
arrive in the valley of Sinu. After several fruitless attempts on the
part of the Archbishop Gongora to establish colonies in Darien del
Norte and on the eastern coast of the gulf of Uraba, the Viceroy
Espeleta recommended the Spanish Government to fix its whole attention
on the Rio Sinu; to destroy the colony of Cayman; to fix the planters
in the Spanish village of San Bernardo del Viento in the jurisdiction
of Lorica; and from that post, which is the most westerly, to push
forward the peaceful conquests of agriculture and civilization towards
the banks of the Pabarando, the Rio Sucio and the Atrato.* (* I will
here state some facts which I obtained from official documents during
my stay at Carthagena, and which have not yet been published.
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