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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He Was The
Sage Of The Plain; He Understood The Formation Of The Salt By The
Influence Of The Sun
And full moon, the symptoms of earthquakes,
the marks by which mines of gold and silver are discovered, and the
Medicinal plants, which, like all the other colonists from Chile to
California, he classified into hot and cold.* (* Exciting or
debilitating, the sthenic and asthenic, of Brown's system.) Having
collected the traditions of the country, he gave us some curious
accounts of the pearls of Cubagua, objects of luxury, which he
treated with the utmost contempt. To show us how familiar to him
were the sacred writings he took a pride in reminding us that Job
preferred wisdom to all the pearls of the Indies. His philosophy
was circumscribed to the narrow circle of the wants of life. The
possession of a very strong ass, able to carry a heavy load of
plantains to the embarcadero, was the consummation of all his
wishes.
After a long discourse on the emptiness of human greatness, he drew
from a leathern pouch a few very small opaque pearls, which he
forced us to accept, enjoining us at the same time to note on our
tablets that a poor shoemaker of Araya, but a white man, and of
noble Castilian race, had been enabled to give us something which,
on the other side of the sea,* was sought for as very precious. (*
'Por alla,' or, 'del otro lado del charco,' (properly 'beyond,' or
'on the other side of the great lake'), a figurative expression, by
which the people in the Spanish colonies denote Europe.) I here
acquit myself of the promise I made to this worthy man, who
disinterestedly refused to accept of the slightest retribution.
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