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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The Small Extent Of The Valley, And The Proximity Of The High
Mountains Of Avila And The Silla, Give A Gloomy And Stern Character
To The Scenery Of Caracas; Particularly In That Part Of The Year
When The Coolest Temperature Prevails, Namely, In The Months Of
November And December.
The mornings are then very fine; and on a
clear and serene sky we could perceive the two domes
Or rounded
pyramids of the Silla, and the craggy ridge of the Cerro de Avila.
But towards evening the atmosphere thickens; the mountains are
overhung with clouds; streams of vapour cling to their evergreen
slopes, and seem to divide them into zones one above another. These
zones are gradually blended together; the cold air which descends
from the Silla, accumulates in the valley, and condenses the light
vapours into large fleecy clouds. These often descend below the
Cross of La Guayra, and advance, gliding on the soil, in the
direction of the Pastora of Caracas, and the adjacent quarter of
Trinidad. Beneath this misty sky, I could scarcely imagine myself
to be in one of the temperate valleys of the torrid zone; but
rather in the north of Germany, among the pines and the larches
that cover the mountains of the Hartz.
But this gloomy aspect, this contrast between the clearness of
morning and the cloudy sky of evening, is not observable in the
midst of summer. The nights of June and July are clear and
delicious. The atmosphere then preserves, almost without
interruption, the purity and transparency peculiar to the
table-lands and elevated valleys of these regions in calm weather,
as long as the winds do not mingle together strata of air of
unequal temperature.
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