Volume I Part 8 (2/2)
An observation of the meridian alt.i.tude of the sun fully confirmed the lat.i.tude obtained by Douwes's method. No more doubt remained as to the position of the vessel, with respect to the island, and we resolved to double Cape North (Tobago) to pa.s.s between that island and Grenada, and steer towards a port in Margareta.
The island of Tobago presents a very picturesque aspect. It is merely a heap of rocks carefully cultivated. The dazzling whiteness of the stone forms an agreeable contrast to the verdure of some scattered tufts of trees. Cylindric and very lofty cactuses crown the top of the mountains, and give a peculiar physiognomy to this tropical landscape. The sight of the trees alone is sufficient to remind the navigator that he has reached an American coast; for these cactuses are as exclusively peculiar to the New World, as the heaths are to the Old.
We crossed the shoal which joins Tobago to the island of Grenada.
The colour of the sea presented no visible change; but the centigrade thermometer, plunged into the water to the depth of some inches, rose only to 23 degrees; while farther at sea eastward on the same parallel, and equally near the surface, it kept at 25.6 degrees. Notwithstanding the currents, the cooling of the water indicated the existence of the shoal, which is noted in only a very few charts. The wind slackened after sunset, and the clouds disappeared as the moon reached the zenith. The number of falling stars was very considerable on this and the following nights; they appeared less frequent towards the north than the south over Terra Firma, which we began to coast. This position seems to prove the influence of local causes on meteors, the nature of which is not yet sufficiently known to us.
On the 14th at sunrise, we were in sight of the Boca del Drago. We distinguished Chacachacarreo, the most westerly of the islands situated between Cape Paria and the north-west cape of Trinidad.
When we were five leagues distant from the coast, we felt, near Punta de la Boca, the effect of a particular current which carried the s.h.i.+p southward. The motion of the waters which flow through the Boca del Draco, and the action of the tides, occasion an eddy. We cast the lead, and found from thirty-six to forty-three fathoms on a bottom of very fine green clay. According to the rules established by Dampier, we ought not to have expected so little depth near a coast formed by very high and perpendicular mountains.
We continued to heave the lead till we reached Cabo de tres Puntas* (* Cape Three Points, the name given to it by Columbus.) and we every where found shallow water, apparently indicating the prolongation of the ancient coast. In these lat.i.tudes the temperature of the sea was from twenty-three to twenty-four degrees, consequently from 1.5 to two degrees lower than in the open ocean, beyond the edge of the bank.
The Cabo de tres Puntas is, according to my observations, in 65 degrees 4 minutes 5 seconds longitude. It seemed to us the more elevated, as the clouds concealed the view of its indented top.
The aspect of the mountains of Paria, their colour, and especially their generally rounded forms, made us suspect that the coast was granitic; but we afterwards recognized how delusive, even to those who have pa.s.sed their lives in scaling mountains, are impressions respecting the nature of rocks seen at a distance.
A dead calm, which lasted several hours, permitted us to determine with exactness the intensity of the magnetic forces opposite the Cabo de tres Puntas. This intensity was greater than in the open sea, to the east of the island of Tobago, in the ratio of from 237 to 229. During the calm the current drew us on rapidly to the west.
Its velocity was three miles an hour, and it increased as we approached the meridian of Testigos, a heap of rocks which rises up amidst the waters. At the setting of the moon, the sky was covered with clouds, the wind freshened anew, and the rain descended in one of those torrents peculiar to the torrid zone.
The malady which had broken out on board the Pizarro had made rapid progress, from the time when we approached the coasts of Terra Firma; but having then almost reached the end of our voyage we flattered ourselves that all who were sick would be restored to health, as soon as we could land them at the island of St.
Margareta, or the port of c.u.mana, places remarkable for their great salubrity.
This hope was unfortunately not realised. The youngest of the pa.s.sengers attacked with the malignant fever fell a victim to the disease. He was an Asturian, nineteen years of age, the only son of a poor widow. Several circ.u.mstances rendered the death of this young man affecting. His countenance bore the expression of sensibility and great mildness of disposition. He had embarked against his own inclination; and his mother, whom he had hoped to a.s.sist by the produce of his efforts, had made a sacrifice of her affection in the hope of securing the fortune of her son, by sending him to the colonies to a rich relation, who resided at the island of Cuba. The unfortunate young man expired on the third day of his illness, having fallen from the beginning into a lethargic state interrupted only by fits of delirium. The yellow fever, or black vomit, at Vera Cruz, scarcely carries off the sick with so alarming a rapidity. Another Asturian, still younger, did not leave for one moment the bed of his dying friend; and, what is very remarkable, did not contract the disorder.
We were a.s.sembled on the deck, absorbed in melancholy reflections.
It was no longer doubtful, that the fever which raged on board had a.s.sumed within the last few days a fatal aspect. Our eyes were fixed on a hilly and desert coast on which the moon, from time to time, shed her light athwart the clouds. The sea, gently agitated, emitted a feeble phosphoric light. Nothing was heard but the monotonous cry of a few large sea-birds, flying towards the sh.o.r.e.
A profound calm reigned over these solitary regions, but this calm of nature was in discordance with the painful feelings by which we were oppressed. About eight o'clock the dead man's knell was slowly tolled. At this lugubrious sound, the sailors suspended their labours, and threw themselves on their knees to offer a momentary prayer: an affecting ceremony, which brought to our remembrance those times when the primitive christians all considered themselves as members of the same family. All were united in one common sorrow for a misfortune which was felt to be common to all. The corpse of the young Asturian was brought upon deck during the night, but the priest entreated that it might not be committed to the waves till after sunrise, that the last rites might be performed, according to the usage of the Romish church. There was not an individual on board, who did not deplore the death of this young man, whom we had beheld, but a few days before, full of cheerfulness and health.
Those among the pa.s.sengers who had not yet felt symptoms of the disease, resolved to leave the vessel at the first place where she might touch, and await the arrival of another packet, to pursue their course to the island of Cuba and to Mexico. They considered the between-decks of the s.h.i.+p as infected; and though it was by no means clear to me that the fever was contagious, I thought it most prudent to land at c.u.mana. I wished not to visit New Spain, till I had made some sojourn on the coasts of Venezuela and Paria; a few of the productions of which had been examined by the unfortunate Loefling. We were anxious to behold in their native site, the beautiful plants which Bose and Bredemeyer had collected during their journey to the continent, and which adorn the conservatories of Schoenbrunn and Vienna. It would have been painful to have touched at c.u.mana, or at Guayra, without visiting the interior of a country so little frequented by naturalists.
The resolution we formed during the night of the 14th of July, had a happy influence on the direction of our travels; for instead of a few weeks, we remained a whole year in this part of the continent.
Had not the fever broken out on board the Pizarro, we should never have reached the Orinoco, the Ca.s.siquiare, or even the limits of the Portuguese possessions on the Rio Negro. To this direction given to our travels we were perhaps also indebted for the good health we enjoyed during so long an abode in the equinoctial regions.
It is well known, that Europeans, during the first months after their arrival under the scorching sky of the tropics, are exposed to the greatest dangers. They consider themselves to be safe, when they have pa.s.sed the rainy season in the West India islands, at Vera Cruz, or at Carthagena. This opinion is very general, although there are examples of persons, who, having escaped a first attack of the yellow fever, have fallen victims to the same disease in one of the following years. The facility of becoming acclimated, seems to be in the inverse ratio of the difference that exists between the mean temperature of the torrid zone, and that of the native country of the traveller, or colonist, who changes his climate; because the irritability of the organs, and their vital action, are powerfully modified by the influence of the atmospheric heat. A Prussian, a Pole, or a Swede, is more exposed on his arrival at the islands or on the continent, than a Spaniard, an Italian, or even an inhabitant of the South of France. With respect to the people of the north, the difference of the mean temperature is from nineteen to twenty-one degrees, while to the people of southern countries it is only from nine to ten. We were fortunate enough to pa.s.s safely through the interval during which a European recently landed runs the greatest danger, in the extremely hot, but very dry climate of c.u.mana, a city celebrated for its salubrity.
On the morning of the 15th, when nearly on a line with the hill of St. Joseph, we were surrounded by a great quant.i.ty of floating seaweed. Its stems had those extraordinary appendages in the form of little cups and feathers, which Don Hippolyto Ruiz remarked on his return from the expedition to Chile, and which he described in a separate memoir as the generative organs of the Fucus natans. A fortunate accident allowed us the means of verifying a fact which had been but once observed by naturalists. The bundles of fucus collected by M. Bonpland were completely identical with the specimens given us by the learned authors of the Flora of Peru. On examining both with the microscope, we found that the supposed parts of fructification, the stamina and pistils, belong to a new genus, of the family of the Ceratophytae.
The coast of Paria stretches to the west, forming a wall of rocks of no great height, with rounded tops and a waving outline. We were long without perceiving the bold coasts of the island of Margareta, where we were to stop for the purpose of ascertaining whether we could touch at Guayra. We had learned, by alt.i.tudes of the sun, taken under very favourable circ.u.mstances, how incorrect at that period were the most highly-esteemed marine charts. On the morning of the 15th, when the time-keeper placed us in 66 degrees 1 minute 15 seconds longitude, we were not yet in the meridian of Margareta island; though according to the reduced chart of the Atlantic ocean, we ought to have pa.s.sed the very lofty western cape of this island, which is laid down in longitude 66 degrees 0 minutes. The inaccuracy with which the coasts were delineated previously to the labours of Fidalgo, Noguera, and Tiscar, and I may venture to add, before the astronomical observations I made at c.u.mana, might have become dangerous to navigators, were not the sea uniformly calm in those regions. The errors in lat.i.tude were still greater than those in longitude, for the coasts of New Andalusia stretch to the westward of Cape Three Points (or tres Puntas) fifteen or twenty miles more to the north, than appears in the charts published before the year 1800.
About eleven in the morning we perceived a very low islet, covered with a few sandy downs, and on which we discovered with our gla.s.ses no trace of habitation or culture. Cylindrical cactuses rose here and there in the form of candelabra. The soil, almost dest.i.tute of vegetation, seemed to have a waving motion, in consequence of the extraordinary refraction which the rays of the sun undergo in traversing the strata of air in contact with plains strongly heated. Under every zone, deserts and sandy sh.o.r.es appear like an agitated sea, from the effect of mirage.
The coasts, seen at a distance, are like clouds, in which each observer meets the form of the objects that occupy his imagination.
Our bearings and our chronometer being at variance with the charts which we had to consult, we were lost in vain conjectures. Some took mounds of sand for Indian huts, and pointed out the place where they alleged the fort of Pampatar was situated; others saw herds of goats, which are so common in the dry valley of St. John; or descried the lofty mountains of Macanao, which seemed to them partly hidden by the clouds. The captain resolved to send a pilot on sh.o.r.e, and the men were preparing to get out the long-boat when we perceived two canoes sailing along the coast. We fired a gun as a signal for them, and though we had hoisted Spanish colours, they drew near with distrust. These canoes, like all those in use among the natives, were constructed of the single trunk of a tree. In each canoe there were eighteen Guayqueria Indians, naked to the waist, and of very tall stature. They had the appearance of great muscular strength, and the colour of their skin was something between brown and copper-colour. Seen at a distance, standing motionless, and projected on the horizon, they might have been taken for statues of bronze. We were the more struck with their appearance, as it did not correspond with the accounts given by some travellers respecting the characteristic features and extreme feebleness of the natives. We afterwards learned, without pa.s.sing the limits of the province of c.u.mana, the great contrast existing between the physiognomy of the Guayquerias and that of the Chaymas and the Caribs.
When we were near enough to hail them in Spanish, the Indians threw aside their mistrust, and came straight on board. They informed us that the low islet near which we were at anchor was Coche, which had never been inhabited; and that Spanish vessels coming from Europe were accustomed to sail farther north, between this island and that of Margareta, to take a coasting pilot at the port of Pampatar. Our inexperience had led us into the channel to the south of Coche; and as at that period the English cruisers frequented this pa.s.sage, the Indians had at first taken us for an enemy's s.h.i.+p. The southern pa.s.sage is, in fact, highly advantageous for vessels going to c.u.mana and Barcelona. The water is less deep than in the northern pa.s.sage, which is much narrower; but there is no risk of touching the ground, if vessels keep very close to the island of Lobos and the Moros del Tunal. The channel between Coche and Margareta is narrowed by the shoals off the north-west cape of Coche, and by the bank that surrounds La Punta de los Mangles.
The Guayquerias belong to that tribe of civilized Indians who inhabit the coasts of Margareta and the suburbs of the city of c.u.mana. Next to the Caribs of Spanish Guiana they are the finest race of men in Terra Firma. They enjoy several privileges, because from the earliest times of the conquest they remained faithful friends to the Castilians. The king of Spain styles them in his public acts, ”his dear, n.o.ble, and loyal Guayquerias.” The Indians of the two canoes we had met had left the port of c.u.mana during the night. They were going in search of timber to the forests of cedar (Cedrela odorata, Linn.), which extend from Cape San Jose to beyond the mouth of Rio Carupano. They gave us some fresh cocoa-nuts, and very beautifully coloured fish of the Chaetodon genus. What riches to our eyes were contained in the canoes of these poor Indians!
Broad spreading leaves of Vijao* (* Heliconia bihai.) covered bunches of plantains. The scaly cuira.s.s of an armadillo (Dasypus), the fruit of the Calabash tree (Crescentia cujete), used as a cup by the natives, productions common in the cabinets of Europe, had a peculiar charm for us, because they reminded us that, having reached the torrid zone, we had attained the end to which our wishes had been so long directed.
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