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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We Have Just Seen That Winged Insects, Collected In Society,
And Concealing In Their Sucker A Liquid That Irritates The Skin, Are
Capable Of Rendering Vast Countries Almost Uninhabitable.
Other
insects equally small, the termites (comejen),* (* Literally, the
eaters or the devourers.) create obstacles to the progress of
civilization, in several hot and temperate parts of the equinoctial
zone, that are difficult to be surmounted.
They devour paper,
pasteboard, and parchment with frightful rapidity, utterly destroying
records and libraries. Whole provinces of Spanish America do not
possess one written document that dates a hundred years back. What
improvement can the civilization of nations acquire if nothing link
the present with the past; if the depositories of human knowledge must
be repeatedly renewed; if the records of genius and reason cannot be
transmitted to posterity?
In proportion as you ascend the table-land of the Andes these evils
disappear. Man breathes a fresh and pure air. Insects no more disturb
the labours of the day or the slumbers of the night. Documents can be
collected in archives without our having to complain of the voracity
of the termites. Mosquitos are no longer feared at a height of two
hundred toises; and the termites, still very frequent at three hundred
toises of elevation,* (* There are some at Popayan (height 910 toises;
mean temperature 18.7 degrees), but they are species that gnaw wood
only.) become very rare at Mexico, Santa Fe de Bogota, and Quito. In
these great capitals, situated on the back of the Cordilleras, we find
libraries and archives, augmented from day to day by the enlightened
zeal of the inhabitants.
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