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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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.
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