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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This Peculiarity Characterises The
Valley Of The Upper Orinoco; On The Coast Of Caracas, And In The
Llanos, The Trees In Winter (In The Season Called Summer In South
America, North Of The Equator) Are Stripped Of Their Leaves, And The
Ground Is Covered Only With Yellow And Withered Grass.
Between the
solitary rocks just described arise some high plants of columnar
cactus (Cactus septemangularis), a very rare appearance south of the
cataracts of Atures and Maypures.
Amid this picturesque scene M. Bonpland was fortunate enough to find
several specimens of Laurus cinnamomoides, a very aromatic species of
cinnamon, known at the Orinoco by the names of varimacu and of
canelilla.* (* The diminutive of the Spanish word canela, which
signifies cinnamon.) This valuable production is found also in the
valley of the Rio Caura, as well as near Esmeralda, and eastward of
the Great Cataracts. The Jesuit Francisco de Olmo appears to have been
the first who discovered the canelilla, which he did in the country of
the Piaroas, near the sources of the Cataniapo. The missionary Gili,
who did not advance so far as the regions I am now describing, seems
to confound the varimacu, or guarimacu, with the myristica, or
nutmeg-tree of America. These barks and aromatic fruits, the cinnamon,
the nutmeg, the Myrtus pimenta, and the Laurus pucheri, would have
become important objects of trade, if Europe, at the period of the
discovery of the New World, had not already been accustomed to the
spices and aromatics of India.
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