Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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The Value Of Their Largest Freight
Amounts To About 2000 Piastres.
These boats are flat-bottomed, and
cannot keep at sea when it is very rough.
The breezes from the
north-east had, during ten days, blown with violence on the coast,
while, in the open sea, as far as 10 degrees latitude, we had only had
slight gales, and a constantly calm sea. In the aerial, as in the
pelagic currents, some layers of fluids move with extreme swiftness,
while others near them remain almost motionless. The zambos of the Rio
Sinu wearied us with idle questions respecting the purpose of our
voyage, our books, and the use of our instruments: they regarded us
with mistrust; and to escape from their importunate curiosity we went
to herborize in the forest, although it rained. They had endeavoured,
as usual, to alarm us by stories of boas (traga-venado), vipers and
the attacks of jaguars; but during a long residence among the Chayma
Indians of the Orinoco we were habituated to these exaggerations,
which arise less from the credulity of the natives, than from the
pleasure they take in tormenting the whites. Quitting the coast of
Zapote, covered with mangroves,* (* Rhizophora mangle.) we entered a
forest remarkable for a great variety of palm-trees. We saw the trunks
of the Corozo del Sinu* pressed against each other, which formed
heretofore our species Alfonsia, yielding oil in abundance (* In
Spanish America palm-trees with leaves the most different in kind and
species are called Corozo:
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