Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, During the Years 1799-1804, 1. köide

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H.G. Bohn, 1852 - 505 pages

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Page 135 - It is a timepiece that advances very regularly near four minutes a day ; and no other group of stars exhibits, to the naked eye, an observation of time so easily made. How often have we heard our guides exclaim, in the savannahs of the Venezuela, or in the desert extending from Lima to Truxillo, ' Midnight is past, the Cross begins to bend...
Page 135 - In the solitude of the seas, we hail a star as a friend from whom we have been long separated. Among the Portuguese and the Spaniards, peculiar motives seem to increase 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...
Page 227 - In studying the history of our cultivated plants, we are surprised to see, that before the conquest the use of tobacco was spread through the greater part of America, while the potato was unknown both in Mexico and the West India Islands, where it grows well in the mountainous regions. Tobacco has also been cultivated in Portugal since the year 1559, though the potato did not become an object of European agriculture till the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th century. This latter plant, which...
Page 453 - In this town was now repeated what had been remarked in the province of Quito, after the tremendous earthquake of 1797; a number of marriages were contracted between persons, who had neglected for many years to sanction their unión by the sacerdotal benediction.
Page 452 - Implements for digging, and clearing away the ruins were entirely wanting; and the people were obliged to use their bare hands, to disinter the living. The wounded, as well as the sick who had escaped from the hospitals, were laid on the banks of the small river Guayra. They found no shelter but the foliage of trees.
Page 377 - Oroonoko, and the river of Amazons, the Indians, who catch monkeys to sell them, know very well, that they can easily succeed in taming those, which inhabit certain islands ; while monkeys of the same species, caught on the neighbouring continent, die of terror or rage when they find themselves in the power of man.
Page 261 - We were obliged to yield to the pusillanimity of our guides, and trace back our steps. The appearance of the cavern was indeed very uniform. We find, that a bishop of St Thomas of Guiana had gone farther than ourselves.
Page xxi - ... to be the domain of wild animals. The savages of America, who have been the objects of so many systematic reveries, and on whom M. Volney has lately published some accurate and intelligent observations, inspire less interest since celebrated navigators have made known to us the inhabitants of the South Sea islands, in whose character we find a striking mixture of perversity and meekness. The state of halfcivilization existing among those islanders gives a peculiar charm to the description of...
Page 504 - In all these excursions we were agreeably surprised, not only at the progress of agriculture, but the increase of a free, laborious population, accustomed to toil, and too poor to rely on the assistance of slaves. White and mulatto farmers had every where small separate establishments.

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