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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Instead Of Going Up The Orinoco
We Might Have Sojourned Some Months In The Temperate And Salubrious
Climate Of The Sierra Nevada De Merida.
It was I who had chosen the
path of the rivers; and the danger of my fellow-traveller presented
itself to my mind as the fatal consequence of this imprudent choice.
After having attained in a few days an extraordinary degree of
exacerbation the fever assumed a less alarming character. The
inflammation of the intestines yielded to the use of emollients
obtained from malvaceous plants. The sidas and the melochias have
singularly active properties in the torrid zone. The recovery of the
patient however was extremely slow, as it always happens with
Europeans who are not thoroughly seasoned to the climate. The period
of the rains drew near; and in order to return to the coast of Cumana,
it was necessary again to cross the Llanos, where, amidst
half-inundated lands, it is rare to find shelter, or any other food
than meat dried in the sun. To avoid exposing M. Bonpland to a
dangerous relapse, we resolved to stay at Angostura till the 10th of
July. We spent part of this time at a neighbouring plantation, where
mango-trees and bread-fruit trees* were cultivated. (* Artocarpus
incisa. Father Andujar, Capuchin missionary of the province of
Caracas, zealous in the pursuit of natural history, has introduced the
bread-fruit tree from Spanish Guiana at Varinas, and thence into the
kingdom of New Grenada. Thus the western Coasts of America, washed by
the Pacific, receive from the English Settlements in the West Indies a
production of the Friendly Islands.) The latter had attained in the
tenth year a height of more than forty feet.
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