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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My Fellow Travellers Were Unanimously Of Opinion That
Esmeralda Was More Tormented By Mosquitos Than The Banks Of The
Cassiquiare,
And even more than the two missions of the Great
Cataracts; whilst I, less sensible than they of the high
Temperature
of the air, thought that the irritation produced by the insects was
somewhat less at Esmeralda than at the entrance of the Upper Orinoco.
On hearing the complaints that are made of these tormenting insects in
hot countries it is difficult to believe that their absence, or rather
their sudden disappearance, could become a subject of inquietude; yet
such is the fact. The inhabitants of Esmeralda related to us, that in
the year 1795, an hour before sunset, when the mosquitos usually form
a very thick cloud, the air was observed to be suddenly free from
them. During the space of twenty minutes, not one insect was
perceived, although the sky was cloudless, and no wind announced rain.
It is necessary to have lived in those countries to comprehend the
degree of surprise which the sudden disappearance of the insects must
have produced. The inhabitants congratulated each other, and inquired
whether this state of happiness, this relief from pain (feicidad y
alivio), could be of any duration. But soon, instead of enjoying the
present, they yielded to chimerical fears, and imagined that the order
of nature was perverted. Some old Indians, the sages of the place,
asserted that the disappearance of the insects must be the precursor
of a great earthquake.
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