Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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The Sight Of Two White Men, Who Said They Had Lost
Their Way, Led Him At First To Suspect Some Trick.
We found it
difficult to inspire him with confidence; he at last consented to
guide us to the farm of the Cayman, but without slackening the gentle
trot of his horse.
Our guides assured us that "they had already begun
to be uneasy about us;" and, to justify this inquietude, they gave a
long enumeration of persons who, having lost themselves in the Llanos,
had been found nearly exhausted. It may be supposed that the danger is
imminent only to those who lose themselves far from any habitation, or
who, having been stripped by robbers, as has happened of late years,
have been fastened by the body and hands to the trunk of a palm-tree.
In order to escape as much as possible from the heat of the day, we
set off at two in the morning, with the hope of reaching Calabozo
before noon, a small but busy trading-town, situated in the midst of
the Llanos. The aspect of the country was still the same. There was no
moonlight; but the great masses of nebulae that spot the southern sky
enlighten, as they set, a part of the terrestrial horizon. The solemn
spectacle of the starry vault, seen in its immense expanse - the cool
breeze which blows over the plain during the night - the waving motion
of the grass, wherever it has attained any height; everything recalled
to our minds the surface of the ocean.
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