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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After The Sufferings To Which We Had Been Exposed During
Several Months, Whilst Sailing In Small Boats On Rivers Infested By
Mosquitos, The Idea Of A Sea Voyage Was Not Without Its Charms.
We had
no idea of ever again returning to South America.
Sacrificing the
Andes of Peru to the Archipelago of the Philippines (of which so
little is known), we adhered to our old plan of remaining a year in
New Spain, then proceeding in a galleon from Acapulco to Manila, and
returning to Europe by way of Bassora and Aleppo. We imagined that,
when we had once left the Spanish possessions in America, the fall of
that ministry which had procured for us so many advantages, could not
be prejudicial to the execution of our enterprise.
Our mules were in waiting for us on the left bank of the Orinoco. The
collection of plants, and the different geological series which we had
brought from the Esmeralda and Rio Negro, had greatly augmented our
baggage; and, as it would have been dangerous to lose sight of our
herbals, we expected to make a very slow journey across the Llanos.
The heat was excessive, owing to the reverberation of the soil, which
was almost everywhere destitute of vegetation; yet the centigrade
thermometer during the day (in the shade) was only from thirty to
thirty-four degrees, and during the night, from twenty-seven to
twenty-eight degrees. Here, therefore, as almost everywhere within the
tropics, it was less the absolute degree of heat than its duration
that affected our sensations. We spent thirteen days in crossing the
plains, resting a little in the Caribbee (Caraibes) missions and in
the little town of Pao. The eastern part of the Llanos through which
we passed, between Angostura and Nueva Barcelona, presents the same
wild aspect as the western part, through which we had passed from the
valleys of Aragua to San Fernando de Apure. In the season of drought,
(which is here called summer,) though the sun is in the southern
hemisphere, the breeze is felt with greater force in the Llanos of
Cumana, than in those of Caracas; because those vast plains, like the
cultivated fields of Lombardy, form an inland basin, open to the east,
and closed on the north, south and west by high chains of primitive
mountains. Unfortunately, we could not avail ourselves of this
refreshing breeze, of which the Llaneros, or the inhabitants of the
plains, speak with rapture. It was now the rainy season north of the
equator; and though it did not rain in the plains, the change in the
declination of the sun had for some time caused the action of the
polar currents to cease. In the equatorial regions, where the
traveller may direct his course by observing the direction of the
clouds, and where the oscillations of the mercury in the barometer
indicate the hour almost as well as a clock, everything is subject to
a regular and uniform rule. The cessation of the breezes, the
setting-in of the rainy season, and the frequency of electric
explosions, are phenomena which are found to be connected together by
immutable laws.
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