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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M. Bonpland Remained In
A Very Alarming State Which During Several Weeks Caused Us The Most
Serious Inquietude.
Fortunately he preserved sufficient
self-possession to prescribe for himself; and he preferred gentler
remedies better adapted to his constitution.
The fever was continual
and, as almost always happens within the tropics, it was accompanied
by dysentery. M. Bonpland displayed that courage and mildness of
character which never forsook him in the most trying situations. I was
agitated by sad presages for I remembered that the botanist Loefling,
a pupil of Linnaeus, died not far from Angostura, near the banks of
the Carony, a victim of his zeal for the progress of natural history.
We had not yet passed a year in the torrid zone and my too faithful
memory conjured up everything I had read in Europe on the dangers of
the atmosphere inhaled in the forests. Instead of going up the Orinoco
we might have sojourned some months in the temperate and salubrious
climate of the Sierra Nevada de Merida. It was I who had chosen the
path of the rivers; and the danger of my fellow-traveller presented
itself to my mind as the fatal consequence of this imprudent choice.
After having attained in a few days an extraordinary degree of
exacerbation the fever assumed a less alarming character. The
inflammation of the intestines yielded to the use of emollients
obtained from malvaceous plants. The sidas and the melochias have
singularly active properties in the torrid zone. The recovery of the
patient however was extremely slow, as it always happens with
Europeans who are not thoroughly seasoned to the climate. The period
of the rains drew near; and in order to return to the coast of Cumana,
it was necessary again to cross the Llanos, where, amidst
half-inundated lands, it is rare to find shelter, or any other food
than meat dried in the sun. To avoid exposing M. Bonpland to a
dangerous relapse, we resolved to stay at Angostura till the 10th of
July. We spent part of this time at a neighbouring plantation, where
mango-trees and bread-fruit trees* were cultivated. (* Artocarpus
incisa. Father Andujar, Capuchin missionary of the province of
Caracas, zealous in the pursuit of natural history, has introduced the
bread-fruit tree from Spanish Guiana at Varinas, and thence into the
kingdom of New Grenada. Thus the western Coasts of America, washed by
the Pacific, receive from the English Settlements in the West Indies a
production of the Friendly Islands.) The latter had attained in the
tenth year a height of more than forty feet. We measured several
leaves of the Artocarpus that were three feet long and eighteen inches
broad, remarkable dimensions in a plant of the family of the
dicotyledons.
END OF VOLUME 2.
End of 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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