[Sidenote: 1799.]
From my earliest youth I felt an ardent desire to travel into distant
regions seldom visited by Europeans. This desire is characteristic of
a period of our existence when life appears an unlimited horizon, and
when we find an irresistible attraction in the impetuous agitations
of the mind and the image of positive danger. Though educated in a
country which has no direct communication with either the East or
the West Indies; living amidst mountains remote from coasts, and
celebrated for their numerous mines, I felt an increasing passion
for the sea and distant expeditions. Objects with which we are
acquainted only by the animated narrations of travellers have a
peculiar charm; imagination wanders with delight over that which is
vague and undefined, and the pleasures we are deprived of seem to
possess a fascinating power, compared with which all we daily feel in
the narrow circle of sedentary life appears insipid. The taste for
herborization, the study of geology, rapid excursions to Holland,
England, and France, with the celebrated Mr. George Forster, who had
the happiness to accompany Captain Cook in his second voyage round
the globe, contributed to give a determined direction to the plan
of travels which I had formed at eighteen years of age. No longer
deluded by the agitations of a wandering life, I was anxious to
contemplate Nature in all her variety of wild and stupendous scenery;
and the hope of collecting some facts useful to the advancement of
science incessantly impelled my wishes towards the luxuriant regions
of the torrid zone. As personal circumstances then prevented me from
executing the projects by which I was so powerfully influenced, I had
leisure to prepare myself during six years for the observations I
proposed to make on the New Continent, as well as to visit different
parts of Europe, and to explore the lofty chain of the Alps, the
structure of which I might afterwards compare with that of the Andes
of Quito and of Peru....
From the time of leaving Graciosa the horizon continued so hazy
that, notwithstanding the considerable height of the mountains of
Canary,[18] we did not discover that island till the 18th of June. On
the morning of the 19th we discovered the point of Naga, but the peak
of Teneriffe was still invisible. The land, obscured by a thick mist,
presented forms that were vague and confused. As we approached the
road of Santa Cruz we observed that the mist, driven by the winds,
drew nearer to us. The sea was strongly agitated, as it most commonly
is in these latitudes. We anchored after several soundings, for the
mist was so thick that we could scarcely distinguish objects at a few
cables’ distance, but at the moment we began to salute the place the
fog was instantly dispelled. The peak of Teyde appeared in a break
above the clouds, and the first rays of the sun, which had not yet
risen on us, illumined the summit of the volcano. We hastened to the
prow of the vessel to behold the magnificent spectacle, and at the
same instant we saw four English vessels lying to and very near our
stern. We had passed without being perceived, and the same mist which
had concealed the peak from our view had saved us from the risk of
being carried back to Europe.[19]
The Pizarro stood in as close as possible to the fort, to be under
its protection. It was on this shore that in the landing attempted
by the English two years before our arrival, in July, 1797, Admiral
Nelson had his arm carried off by a cannon-ball....
Though the captain had orders to stop at Teneriffe to give us time
to scale the summit of the peak, if the snows did not prevent our
ascent, we received notice, on account of the blockade of the English
ships, not to expect a longer delay than four or five days. We
consequently hastened our departure for the port of Orotavo, which is
situated on the western declivity of the volcano, where we were sure
of finding guides. I could find no one at Santa Cruz who had mounted
the peak, and I was not surprised at this. The most curious objects
become less interesting in proportion as they are near to us; and I
have known inhabitants of Schaffhausen, in Switzerland, who had never
seen the fall of the Rhine but at a distance....
About three in the morning, by the sombrous light of a few
pine-torches, we started on our journey to the summit of the Piton.
We scaled the volcano on the northeast side, where the declivities
are extremely steep; and after two hours’ toil we reached a small
plain, which, on account of its elevated position, bears the name
of Alta Vista. This is the station of the _neveros_, those natives
whose occupation is to collect ice and snow, which they sell in
the neighboring towns. Their mules, better practised in climbing
mountains than those hired by travellers, reach Alta Vista, and the
_neveros_ are obliged to transport the snow to that place on their
backs. We turned to the right to examine the cavern of ice, which is
at the elevation of 1,728 toises, consequently below the limit of
perpetual snows in this zone. Probably the cold which prevails in
this cavern is owing to the same causes which perpetuate the ice in
the crevices of Mount Jura and the Apennines.... Day was beginning to
dawn when we left the ice-cavern. We observed, during the twilight,
a phenomenon which is not unusual on high mountains, but which the
position of the volcano we were scaling rendered very striking. A
layer of white and fleecy clouds concealed from us the sight of
the ocean and the lower region of the island. This layer did not
appear above eight hundred toises high; the clouds were so uniformly
spread, and kept so perfect a level, that they wore the appearance
of a vast plain covered with snow. The colossal pyramid of the peak,
the volcanic summits of Lancerota, of Forteventura, and the isle of
Palma, were like rocks amidst the sea of vapors, and their black
tints were in fine contrast with the whiteness of the clouds.
While we were climbing over the broken lavas of the Malpays, we
perceived a very curious optical phenomenon, which lasted eight
minutes. We thought we saw on the east side small rockets thrown
into the air. Luminous points, about seven or eight degrees above
the horizon, appeared first to move in a vertical direction; but
the motion was gradually changed into a horizontal oscillation.
Our fellow-travellers, our guides even, were astonished at this
phenomenon, without our having made any remark on it to them. We
thought, at first sight, that these points which floated in the air
indicated some new eruption of the great volcano of Lancerota, for
we recollected that Bouguer and La Condamine, in scaling the volcano
of Pichincha, were witnesses of the eruption of Cotopaxi. But the
illusion soon ceased, and we found that the luminous points were the
images of stars magnified by the vapors....
The road, which we were obliged to clear for ourselves, across the
Malpays, was extremely fatiguing. The ascent is steep, and the blocks
of lava rolled beneath our feet. Unfortunately the listlessness of
our guides contributed to increase the difficulty of the ascent.
Unlike the guides of the valley of Chamouni, or the nimble-footed
Guanches, who could, it is asserted, seize the rabbit or the
wild goat in its course, our Canarian guides were models of the
phlegmatic. They had wished to persuade us on the preceding evening
not to go beyond the station of the rocks. Every ten minutes they
sat down to rest themselves, and when unobserved they threw away the
specimens we had collected. We discovered at length that none of them
had ever visited the summit of the volcano....
We had yet to scale the steepest part of the mountain, the Piton,
which forms the summit. The slope of this small cone, covered with
volcanic ashes and fragments of pumice-stone, is so steep that
it would have been almost impossible to reach the top had we not
ascended by the old current of lava, the _débris_ of which have
resisted the ravages of time. We ascended the Piton by grasping these
half-decomposed scoriæ, which often broke in our hands.
Vesuvius, three times lower than the peak of Teneriffe, is
terminated by a cone of ashes almost three times higher, but with
a more accessible and easy slope. Of all the volcanos which I have
visited, that of Jorullo, in Mexico, is the only one that is more
difficult to climb than the peak, because the whole mountain is
covered with loose ashes.
When we gained the summit of the Piton, we were surprised to find
scarcely room to seat ourselves conveniently. We were stopped by
a small circular wall of lava, with a base of pitchstone, which
concealed from us the view of the crater. The west wind blew
with such violence that we could scarcely stand. It was eight in
the morning, and we suffered severely from the cold, though the
thermometer kept a little above freezing point. For a long time we
had been accustomed to a very high temperature, and the dry wind
increased the feeling of cold....
Notwithstanding the heat we felt in our feet on the edge of the
crater, the cone of ashes remains covered with snow during several
months in winter. The cold and violent wind, which blew from the time
of sunrise, induced us to seek shelter at the foot of the Piton. Our
hands and faces were nearly frozen, while our boots were burnt by the
soil on which we walked. We descended in the space of a few minutes
the Sugar-Loaf which we had scaled with so much toil, and this
rapidity was in some respects involuntary, for we often rolled down
on the ashes....
As we approached the town of Orotava, we met great flocks of
canaries. These birds, well known in Europe, were in general
uniformly green; some, however, had a yellow tinge on their backs;
their note was the same as the tame canary. The yellow canaries are a
variety, which has taken birth in Europe, and those we saw in cages
at Orotava and Santa Cruz had been bought at Cadiz, and in other
parts of Spain. But of all the birds of the Canary Islands, that
which has the most heart-soothing song is unknown in Europe. It is
the capirote, which no effort has succeeded in taming, so sacred is
its soul to liberty. I have stood listening in admiration of his soft
and melodious warbling in a garden at Orotava, but I have never seen
him sufficiently near to ascertain to what family he belongs....
* * * * *
On the 3d and 4th of July, we crossed that part of the Atlantic where
the charts indicate the bank of the maalstrom, and towards night we
altered our course to avoid the danger, the existence of which is
however doubted. It would have been, perhaps, as prudent to have
continued our course. The old charts are filled with rocks, some of
which really exist, though most of them are merely the offspring of
those optical illusions which are more frequent at sea than in inland
places.
From the time we entered the torrid zone we were never weary of
admiring at night the beauty of the southern sky, which as we
advanced to the south opened new constellations to our view. The
pleasure we felt in discovering the Southern Cross was warmly shared
by those of our crew who had visited the colonies. In the solitude
of the seas we hail a star as a friend, from whom we have been
long separated. The Portuguese and the Spaniards are peculiarly
susceptible of this feeling; a religious sentiment attaches them to
a constellation, the form of which recalls the sign of the faith
planted by their ancestors in the deserts of the New World. The
two stars which mark the summit and the foot of the cross having
nearly the same right ascension, it follows that the constellation is
almost perpendicular at the moment when it passes the meridian. This
circumstance is known to the people of every nation situated beyond
the tropics or in the Southern Hemisphere. It has been observed at
what hour of the night, in different seasons, the cross is erect
or inclined. It is a time-piece which advances very regularly four
minutes a day, and no other group of stars affords to the naked eye
an observation of time so easily made. How often have we heard our
guides exclaim in the savannahs of Venezuela, or in the deserts
extending from Lima to Truxillo, “Midnight is past, the cross
begins to bend.” How often these words remind us of that affecting
scene, where Paul and Virginia, seated near the source of the river
Lataniers, conversed together for the last time, and when the old
man, at the sight of the Southern Cross, warns them that it is time
to separate....
* * * * *
The banks of the Manzanares are very pleasant, and are shaded
by mimosas and other trees of a gigantic growth. A river, the
temperature of which in the season of the floods, descends as low as
twenty-two degrees,[20] while the air is at thirty and thirty-three
degrees, is an inestimable benefit in a country where the heat is
excessive during the whole year, and where it is so agreeable to
bathe several times in a day. The children pass a considerable part
of their lives in the water; all the inhabitants, even the women of
the most opulent families, know how to swim; and in a country where
man is so near the state of nature, one of the first questions asked
on meeting in the morning is, whether the water is cooler than on the
preceding evening. One of the modes of bathing is curious. We every
evening visited a family in the suburb of the Guayquerias. In a fine
moonlight night, chairs were placed in the water; the men and women
were lightly dressed, and the family and strangers assembled in the
river, passed some hours in smoking cigars and talking, according to
the custom of the country, of the extreme dryness of the season, of
the abundant rains in the neighboring districts, and particularly
of extravagances of which the ladies of Cumana accuse those of the
Caracas and the Havannah. The company were under no apprehension of
the crocodiles, which are now extremely scarce, and which approach
men without attacking them. We never met with them in the Manzanares,
but with a great number of dolphins, which sometimes ascend the river
in the night, and frighten the bathers by spouting water.
The pearl-breeding oyster abounds on the shoals which extend from
Cape Paria to Cape la Vela. It is warmly alleged by some historians
that the natives of America were unacquainted with the luxury of
pearls. The first Spaniards who landed in Terra Firma found the
savages decked with pearl necklaces and bracelets; and among the
civilized people of Mexico and Peru pearls of a beautiful form
were extremely sought after. Benzoni relates the adventure of one
Luigi Lampagnano, to whom Charles the Fifth granted the privilege
of proceeding with five carvels to the coast of Cumana to fish for
pearls. The colonists sent him back with this bold message,--“that
the emperor was too liberal of what was not his own, and he had no
right to dispose of the oysters which live at the bottom of the sea.”
Among the mulattoes whose huts surround the salt lake we found a
shoemaker of Castilian descent. He received us with an air of gravity
and self-sufficiency which in those countries characterize almost
all persons who are conscious of possessing some particular talent.
He was employed in stretching the string of his bow and sharpening
his arrows, to shoot birds. His trade of shoemaker could not be very
lucrative in a country where the greater part of the inhabitants go
barefooted, and he only complained that, on account of the dearness
of European gunpowder, a man of his quality was reduced to use
the same weapons as the Indians. He was the sage of the plain; he
understood the formation of the salt by the influence of the sun and
full moon; the symptoms of earthquakes; the marks by means of which
mines of gold and silver are discovered, and the medicinal plants,
which, like all the other colonists from Chili to California, he
classified into hot and cold. Having collected the traditions of his
country he gave us some curious accounts of the pearls of Cubagua,
objects of luxury which he treated with the utmost contempt. To show
us how familiar to him were the sacred writings, he took a pride in
reminding us that Job preferred wisdom to the pearls of the Indies.
After a long discourse on the emptiness of human grandeur, he drew
from a leathern pouch a few very small opaque pearls, which he forced
us to accept, enjoining upon us at the same time to notice on our
tablets that a poor shoemaker of Araya, but a white man, and of noble
Castilian race, had been enabled to give us something which, on the
other side of the sea, was sought for as very precious. I here
acquit myself of the promise I made to this worthy man, who refused
to accept of the slightest recompense.
When a traveller, newly arrived from Europe, penetrates for the
first time into the forests of South America, he beholds nature
under an unexpected aspect. He feels at every step that he is not
on the confines, but in the centre of the torrid zone; not in one
of the West India Islands, but on a vast continent where everything
is gigantic,--mountains, rivers, and the mass of vegetation. If he
feels deeply the beauty of picturesque scenery, he can scarcely
distinguish what most excites his admiration, the deep silence of
these solitudes, the individual beauty and contrast of forms, or that
vigor and freshness of vegetable life which characterize the climate
of the tropics. We walked for some hours under the shade of arcades
which scarcely admit a glimpse of the sky; the latter appeared to
me of an indigo-blue, the deeper in shade because the green of the
equinoctial plants is generally of a stronger hue, with somewhat of a
brownish tint. In this place we were struck, for the first time, with
the sight of those nests in the shape of bottles or small bags which
are suspended from the branches of the lowest trees, and which attest
the wonderful industry of the orioles, which mingle their warblings
with the hoarse cries of the parrots and the maccaws. These last, so
well known for their vivid colors, fly only in pairs, while the real
parrots wander about in flocks of several hundreds. A man must have
lived in those regions, particularly in the hot valleys of the Andes,
to conceive how these birds sometimes drown with their voices the
noise of the torrents which dash down from rock to rock....
The road skirted with bamboos led us to the small village of San
Fernando, situated in a warm place, surrounded by very steep rocks.
This was the first mission we saw in America. The missionary was
a Capuchin, a native of Aragon, far advanced in years, but strong
and healthy. His extreme corpulency, his hilarity, the interest he
took in battles and sieges, ill accorded with the ideas we form in
northern countries of the melancholy reveries and the contemplative
life of the missionaries. Though extremely busy about a cow which
was to be killed next day, the old monk received us with kindness
and permitted us to hang up our hammocks in a gallery of his house.
Seated, without doing anything the greater part of the day, in an
arm-chair of redwood, he complained bitterly of what he called the
indolence and ignorance of his countrymen. Our missionary, however,
seemed well satisfied with his situation; he treated the Indians
with mildness, he beheld his mission prosper, and he praised with
enthusiasm the waters, the bananas, and the dairy produce of the
district. The sight of our instruments, our books, and our dried
plants drew from him a sarcastic smile, and he acknowledged, with a
_naïveté_ peculiar to the inhabitants of those countries that, of all
the enjoyments of life, not excepting sleep, none were comparable
to the pleasure of eating good beef; thus does sensuality obtain an
ascendency where there is no occupation for the mind.
[Illustration: BARON HUMBOLDT]
The days we passed at the Capuchin convent in the mountains of
Caripe glided swiftly away, though our manner of living was simple
and uniform. From sunrise to nightfall we traversed the forests
and neighboring mountains to collect plants. When the winter rains
prevented us from undertaking distant expeditions we visited
the huts of the Indians or those assemblies in which the alcaldes
every evening arrange the labors of the succeeding day. We returned
to the monastery only when the sound of the bell called us to the
refectory to share the repast of the missionaries. Sometimes,
early in the morning, we followed them to the church, to attend
the _doctrina_,--that is to say, the religious instruction of the
Indians. It was rather a difficult task to explain dogmas to these
neophytes, especially those who had but a very imperfect knowledge
of the Spanish language. On the other hand, the monks are yet almost
totally ignorant of the language of the Chaymas; and the resembling
sounds confuse the poor Indians, and suggest to them the most
whimsical ideas. I saw a missionary laboring earnestly to prove
that _inferno_, hell, and _invierno_, winter, were not one and the
same thing. The Chaymas are acquainted with no other winter than
the season of rains, and consequently they imagined the “hell of
the whites” to be a place where the wicked are exposed to frequent
showers. The missionary harangued to no purpose; it was impossible
to efface the first impression produced by the analogy between the
two consonants. He could not separate in the mind of the neophyte the
ideas of _rain_ and _hell_. The same men who manifest quickness of
intellect, and who are tolerably well acquainted with the Spanish,
were unable to connect their ideas, when, in our excursions around
the convent, we put questions to them through the intervention of the
monks. They were made to affirm or deny whatever the monks pleased;
and that wily civility, to which the least cultivated Indian is no
stranger, induced them sometimes to give to their answers the turn
that seemed to be suggested by our questions. Travellers cannot be
enough on their guard against this officious assent when they seek
to confirm their own opinions by the testimony of the natives. To put
an Indian alcalde to the proof, I asked him one day whether he did
not think the little river of Caripe, which issues from the cavern of
the Guacharo, returned into it on the opposite side by some unknown
entrance after having ascended the slope of the mountain. The Indian
seemed greatly to reflect on the subject, and then answered, by way
of supporting my hypothesis, “How else, if it were not so, would
there always be water in the bed of the river, at the mouth of the
cavern?”
We remained a month longer at Cumana, employing ourselves in the
necessary preparations for our proposed visit to the Orinoco and the
Rio Negro. We had to choose such instruments as could be most easily
transported in narrow boats, and to engage guides for an inland
journey of ten months, across a country without communication with
the coasts. The astronomical determination of places being the most
important object of this undertaking, I felt desirous not to miss the
observation of an eclipse of the sun which was to be visible at the
end of October; and in consequence I preferred remaining till that
period at Cumana, where the sky is generally clear and serene. It was
now too late to reach the banks of the Orinoco before October, and
the high valleys of Caracas promised less favorable opportunities,
on account of the vapors which accumulate round the neighboring
mountains. I was, however, near being compelled by a deplorable
occurrence to renounce, or at least to delay for a long time, my
journey to the Orinoco. On the 27th of October, the day before the
eclipse, we went as usual to take the air on the shore of the gulf.
It was eight in the evening, and the breeze was not yet stirring. The
sky was cloudy, and during a dead calm it was excessively hot.
We crossed the beach which separates the suburb of the Guayqueria
Indians from the embarcadero. I heard some one walking behind us, and
on turning I saw a tall man of the color of the Zambos, naked to the
waist. He held almost over my head a great stick of palm-tree wood,
enlarged to the end like a club. I avoided the stroke by leaping
towards the left; but M. Bonpland, who walked on my right, was less
fortunate. He did not see the Zambo so soon as I did, and received
a stroke above the temple, which levelled him with the ground. We
were alone, without arms, half a league from any habitation, on a
vast plain bounded by the sea. The Zambo, instead of attacking me,
moved off slowly to pick up M. Bonpland’s hat, which, having somewhat
deadened the violence of the blow, had fallen off and lay at some
distance. Alarmed at seeing my companion on the ground, and for some
moments senseless, I thought of him only. I helped him to raise
himself, and pain and anger doubled his strength. We ran towards
the Zambo, who, either from cowardice, common enough in people of
this caste, or because he perceived at a distance some men on the
beach, did not wait for us, but ran off in the direction of the
Tunal, a little thicket of cactus. He chanced to fall in running,
and M. Bonpland, who reached him first, seized him round the body.
The Zambo drew a large knife; and in this unequal struggle we should
infallibly have been wounded if some Biscayan merchants, who were
taking the air on the beach, had not come to our assistance. The
Zambo, seeing himself surrounded, thought no longer of defence. He
again ran away, and we pursued him through the thorny cactuses. At
length, tired out, he took shelter in a cow-house, whence he suffered
himself to be quietly led to prison. M. Bonpland was seized with
fever during the night; but, being endowed with great energy and
fortitude, and possessing that cheerful disposition which is one of
the most precious gifts of nature, he continued his labors the next
day. The inhabitants of Cumana showed us the kindest interest. It was
ascertained that the Zambo was a native of one of the Indian villages
which surround the great lake of Maracaibo. He had served on board a
privateer belonging to the Island of St. Domingo, and in consequence
of a quarrel with the captain he had been left on the coast of
Cumana, when the ship quitted the port. Having seen the signal which
we had fixed up for the purpose of observing the height of the tides,
he had watched the moment when he could attack us on the beach. But
why, after knocking one of us down, was he satisfied with simply
stealing a hat? In an examination he underwent his answers were so
confused and stupid that it was impossible to clear up our doubts.
Sometimes he maintained that his intention was not to rob us; but
that, irritated by the bad treatment he had suffered on board the
privateer of St. Domingo, he could not resist the desire of attacking
us when he heard us speak French. Justice is so tardy in this country
that prisoners, of whom the jail is full, may remain seven or eight
years without being brought to trial; we learned, therefore, with
some satisfaction, that a few days after our departure from Cumana
the Zambo had succeeded in breaking out of the castle.
We quitted the shores of Cumana as if it had been our home. This was
the first land we had trodden in a zone towards which my thoughts had
been directed from earliest youth. There is a powerful charm in the
impression produced by the scenery and climate of these regions, and
after an abode of a few months we seemed to have lived there during a
long succession of years.