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 Plain Was Undulating From The Effects Of The
Mirage; And When, After Travelling For An Hour, We Reached The Trunks
Of The Palm-Trees, Which Appeared Like Masts In The Horizon, We
Observed With Astonishment How Many Things Are Connected With The
Existence Of A Single Plant.
The winds, losing their velocity when in
contact with the foliage and the branches, accumulate sand around the
trunk.
The smell of the fruit and the brightness of the verdure
attract from afar the birds of passage, which love to perch on the
slender, arrow-like branches of the palm-tree. A soft murmuring is
heard around; and overpowered by the heat, and accustomed to the
melancholy silence of the plains, the traveller imagines he enjoys
some degree of coolness on hearing the slightest sound of the foliage.
If we examine the soil on the side opposite to the wind, we find it
remains humid long after the rainy season. Insects and worms,
everywhere else so rare in the Llanos, here assemble and multiply.
This one solitary and often stunted tree, which would not claim the
notice of the traveller amid the forests of the Orinoco, spreads life
around it in the desert.
On the 13th of July we arrived at the village of Cari, the first of
the Caribbee missions that are under the Observantin monks of the
college of Piritu. We lodged as usual at the convent, that is, with
the clergyman. Our host could scarcely comprehend how natives of the
north of Europe could arrive at his dwelling from the frontiers of
Brazil by the Rio Negro, and not by way of the coast of Cumana. He
behaved to us in the most affable manner, at the same time manifesting
that somewhat importunate curiosity which the appearance of a
stranger, not a Spaniard, always excites in South America. He
expressed his belief that the minerals we had collected must contain
gold; and that the plants, dried with so much care, must be medicinal.
Here, as in many parts of Europe, the sciences are thought worthy to
occupy the mind only so far as they confer some immediate and
practical benefit on society.
We found more than five hundred Caribs in the village of Cari; and saw
many others in the surrounding missions. It is curious to observe this
nomad people, recently attached to the soil, and differing from all
the other Indians in their physical and intellectual powers. They are
a very tall race of men, their height being from five feet six inches,
to five feet ten inches. According to a practice common in America,
the women are more sparingly clothed than the men. The former wear
only the guajuco, or perizoma, in the form of a band. The men have the
lower part of the body wrapped in a piece of blue cloth, so dark as to
be almost black. This drapery is so ample that, on the lowering of the
temperature towards evening, the Caribs throw it over their shoulders.
Their bodies tinged with onoto,* (* Rocou, obtained from the Bixa
orellana.
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