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
May Guess What Quiet A Passenger Enjoys, Who Has The Courage To Embark
For Jamaica In A Schooner Laden With Mules.
We left Porto Cabello on the first of March, at sunrise.
We saw with
surprise the great number of boats that were laden with fruit to be
sold at the market. It reminded me of a fine morning at Venice. The
town presents in general, on the side towards the sea, a cheerful and
agreeable aspect. Mountains covered with vegetation, and crowned with
peaks called Las Tetas de Ilaria, which, from their outline would be
taken for rocks of a trap-formation, form the background of the
landscape. Near the coast all is bare, white, and strongly illumined,
while the screen of mountains is clothed with trees of thick foliage
that project their vast shadows upon the brown and rocky ground. On
going out of the town we visited an aqueduct that had been just
finished. It is five thousand varas long, and conveys the waters of
the Rio Estevan by a trench to the town. This work has cost more than
thirty thousand piastres; but its waters gush out in every street.
We returned from Porto Cabello to the valleys of Aragua, and stopped
at the Farm of Barbula, near which, a new road to Valencia is in the
course of construction. We had heard, several weeks before, of a tree,
the sap of which is a nourishing milk. It is called the cow-tree; and
we were assured that the negroes of the farm, who drink plentifully of
this vegetable milk, consider it a wholesome aliment.
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