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 Horse I Had Ridden Suddenly Disappeared
After Struggling For Some Time Under Water:
All our endeavours to
discover the cause of this accident were fruitless.
Our guides
conjectured that the animal's legs had been seized by the caymans
which are very numerous in those parts. My perplexity was extreme:
delicacy and the affluent circumstances of my host forbade me to think
of repairing his loss; and M. Lavie, more considerate of our situation
than sensible of his own misfortune, endeavoured to tranquillize us by
exaggerating the facility with which fine horses were procurable from
the neighbouring savannahs.
The crocodiles of the Rio Neveri are large and numerous, especially
near the mouth of the river; but in general they are less fierce than
the crocodiles of the Orinoco. These animals manifest in America the
same contrasts of ferocity as in Egypt and Nubia: this fact is obvious
when we compare with attention the narratives of Burckhardt and
Belzoni. The state of cultivation in different countries and the
amount of population in the proximity of rivers modify the habits of
these large saurians: they are timid when on dry ground and they flee
from man, even in the water, when they are not in want of food and
when they perceive any danger in attacking. The Indians of Nueva
Barcelona convey wood to market in a singular manner. Large logs of
zygophyllum and caesalpinia* are thrown into the river and carried
down by the stream, while the owners of the wood swim here and there
to float the pieces that are stopped by the windings of the banks. (*
The Lecythis ollaria, in the vicinity of Nueva Barcelona, furnishes
excellent timber. We saw trunks of this tree seventy feet high. Around
the town, beyond that arid zone of cactus which separates Nueva
Barcelona from the steppe, grow the Clerodendrum tenuifolium, the
Ionidium itubu, which resembles the Viola, and the Allionia violacea.)
This could not be done in the greater part of those American rivers in
which crocodiles are found. The town of Barcelona has not, like
Cumana, an Indian suburb; and the only natives who are seen there are
inhabitants of the neighbouring missions or of huts scattered in the
plain. Neither the one nor the other are of Carib race, but a mixture
of the Cumanagotos, Palenkas and Piritus; short, stunted, indolent and
addicted to drinking. Fermented cassava is here the favourite
beverage; the wine of the palm-tree, which is used on the Orinoco,
being almost unknown on the coast. It is curious to observe that men
in different zones, to satisfy the passion of inebriety, employ not
only all the families of monocotyledonous and dicotyledonous plants,
but even the poisonous Agaric (Amanita muscaria) of which, with
disgusting economy, the Coriacs have learnt to drink the same juice
several times during five successive days.* (* Mr. Langsdor
(Wetterauisches Journal part 1 page 254) first made known this very
extraordinary physiological phenomenon, which I prefer describing in
Latin: Coriaecorum gens, in ora Asiae septentrioni opposita, potum
sibi excogitavit ex succo inebriante agarici muscarii.
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