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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Missionary
Monks And Some Few Soldiers Occupy Here, As Throughout All Spanish
America, Advanced Posts Along The Frontiers Of Brazil.
In this
first zone are felt the preponderance of force, and the abuse of
power, which is its necessary consequence.
The natives carry on
civil war, and sometimes devour one another. The monks endeavour to
augment the number of little villages of their Missions, by taking
advantage of the dissensions of the natives. The military live in a
state of hostility to the monks, whom they were intended to
protect. Everything presents a melancholy picture of misery and
privation. We shall soon have occasion to examine more closely that
state of man, which is vaunted as a state of nature, by those who
inhabit towns. In the second region, in the plains and
pasture-grounds, food is extremely abundant, but has little
variety. Although more advanced in civilization, the people beyond
the circle of some scattered towns are not less isolated from one
another. At sight of their dwellings, partly covered with skins and
leather, it might be supposed that, far from being fixed, they are
scarcely encamped in those vast plains which extend to the horizon.
Agriculture, which alone consolidates the bases, and strengthens
the bonds of society, occupies the third zone, the shore, and
especially the hot and temperate valleys among the mountains near
the sea.
It may be objected, that in other parts of Spanish and Portuguese
America, wherever we can trace the progressive development of
civilization, we find the three ages of society combined.
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