Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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Internal Dissensions Are Chiefly To Be
Dreaded In Regions Where Civilization Is But Slightly Rooted, And
Where, From The Influence Of Climate, Forests May Soon Regain Their
Empire Over Cleared Lands If Their Culture Be Abandoned.
It may
also be feared that, during a long series of years, no foreign
traveller will be enabled to traverse all the countries which I
have visited.
This circumstance may perhaps add to the interest of
a work which pourtrays the state of the greater part of the Spanish
colonies at the beginning of the 19th century. I even venture to
indulge the hope that this work will be thought worthy of attention
when passions shall be hushed into peace, and when, under the
influence of a new social order, those countries shall have made
rapid progress in public welfare. If then some pages of my book are
snatched from oblivion, the inhabitant of the banks of the Orinoco
and the Atabapo will behold with delight populous cities enriched
by commerce, and fertile fields cultivated by the hands of free
men, on those very spots where, at the time of my travels, I found
only impenetrable forests and inundated lands.
***
PERSONAL NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY TO THE EQUINOCTIAL REGIONS
OF THE NEW CONTINENT.
VOLUME 1.
CHAPTER 1.1.
PREPARATIONS.
INSTRUMENTS.
DEPARTURE FROM SPAIN.
LANDING AT THE CANARY ISLANDS.
From my earliest youth I felt an ardent desire to travel into
distant regions, seldom visited by Europeans. This desire is
characteristic of a period of our existence when appears an
unlimited horizon, and when we find an irresistible attraction in
the impetuous agitations of the mind, and the image of positive
danger.
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