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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Naturalists, Who Wish To Collect And Bring Living
Animals To Europe, Might Cause Boats To Be Constructed Expressly For
This
Purpose at Angostura, or at Grand Para, the two capitals situated
on the banks of the Orinoco and the Amazon,
The fore-deck of which
boats might be fitted up with two rows of cages sheltered from the
rays of the sun. Every night, when we established our watch, our
collection of animals and our instruments occupied the centre; around
these were placed first our hammocks, then the hammocks of the
Indians; and on the outside were the fires which are thought
indispensable against the attacks of the jaguar. About sunrise the
monkeys in our cages answered the cries of the monkeys of the forest.
These communications between animals of the same species sympathizing
with one another, though unseen, one party enjoying that liberty which
the other regrets, have something melancholy and affecting.
In a canoe not three feet wide, and so incumbered, there remained no
other place for the dried plants, trunks, a sextant, a dipping-needle,
and the meteorological instruments, than the space below the
lattice-work of branches, on which we were compelled to remain
stretched the greater part of the day. If we wished to take the least
object out of a trunk, or to use an instrument, it was necessary to
row ashore and land. To these inconveniences were joined the torment
of the mosquitos which swarmed under the toldo, and the heat radiated
from the leaves of the palm-trees, the upper surface of which was
continually exposed to the solar rays.
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