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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His Counsels And Offers Of
Hospitality Were Not Altogether Disinterested.
He styled himself the
inspector of the waters, and the pulpero* (* Proprietor of a pulperia,
or little shop where refreshments are sold.) of the place.
Accordingly
all his obliging attentions to us ceased as soon as he heard that we
had come merely to satisfy our curiosity; or as they express it in the
Spanish colonies, those lands of idleness, para ver, no mas, to see,
and nothing more. The waters of Mariara are used with success in
rheumatic swellings, and affections of the skin. As the waters are but
very feebly impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen, it is necessary to
bathe at the spot where the springs issue. Farther on, these same
waters are employed for the irrigation of fields of indigo. A wealthy
landed proprietor of Mariara, Don Domingo Tovar, had formed the
project of erecting a bathing-house, and an establishment which would
furnish visitors with better resources than lizard's flesh for food,
and leather stretched on a bench for their repose.
On the 21st of February, in the evening, we set out from the beautiful
Hacienda de Cura for Guacara and Nueva Valencia. We preferred
travelling by night, on account of the excessive heat of the day. We
passed by the hamlet of Punta Zamuro, at the foot of the high
mountains of Las Viruelas. The road is bordered with large
zamang-trees, or mimosas, the trunks of which rise to sixty feet high.
Their branches, nearly horizontal, meet at more than one hundred and
fifty feet distance.
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