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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After Two Hours' Navigation From The Mouth Of The Tomo We Arrived At
The Little Mission Of San Miguel De Davipe, Founded In 1775, Not By
Monks, But By A Lieutenant Of Militia, Don Francisco Bobadilla.
The
missionary of the place, Father Morillo, with whom we spent some
hours, received us with great hospitality.
He even offered us Madeira
wine, but, as an object of luxury, we should have preferred wheaten
bread. The want of bread becomes more sensibly felt in length of time
than that of a strong liquor. The Portuguese of the Amazon carry small
quantities of Madeira wine, from time to time, to the Rio Negro; and
the word madera, signifying wood in the Castilian language, the monks,
who are not much versed in the study of geography, had a scruple of
celebrating mass with Madeira wine, which they took for a fermented
liquor extracted from the trunk of some tree, like palm-wine; and
requested the guardian of the missions to decide, whether the vino de
madera were wine from grapes, or the juice of a tree. At the beginning
of the conquest, the question was agitated, whether it were allowable
for the priests, in celebrating mass, to use any fermented liquor
analogous to grape-wine. The question, as might have been foreseen,
was decided in the negative.
At Davipe we bought some provisions, among which were fowls and a pig.
This purchase greatly interested our Indians, who had been a long
while deprived of meat.
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