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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We Shall Here Again Remind The Reader That The Group
Of The Mountains Of Los Teques, Eight Hundred And Fifty Toises
High, Separates Two Longitudinal Valleys, Formed In Gneiss,
Granite, And Mica-Slate.
The most eastern of these valleys,
containing the capital of Caracas, is 200 toises higher than the
western valley, which may be considered as the centre of
agricultural industry.
Having been for a long time accustomed to a moderate temperature,
we found the plains of the Tuy extremely hot, although the
thermometer kept, in the day-time, between eleven in the morning
and five in the afternoon, at only 23 or 24 degrees. The nights
were delightfully cool, the temperature falling as low as 17.5
degrees. As the heat gradually abated, the air became more and more
fragrant with the odour of flowers. We remarked above all the
delicious perfume of the Lirio hermoso,* (* Pancratium undulatum.)
a new species of pancratium, of which the flower, eight or nine
inches long, adorns the banks of the Rio Tuy. We spent two very
agreeable days at the plantation of Don Jose de Manterola, who in
his youth had accompanied the Spanish embassy to Russia. The farm
is a fine plantation of sugar-canes; and the ground is as smooth as
the bottom of a drained lake. The Rio Tuy winds through districts
covered with plantains, and a little wood of Hura crepitans,
Erythrina corallodendron, and fig-trees with nymphaea leaves. The
bed of the river is formed of pebbles of quartz.
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