Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, During the Years 1799-1804, Vol.2
by Aimé Bonpland, Alexander von Humboldt
Chapter 1 of 52 Chapter 2.16, Part 1
- Running time
- 22 h 1 min
- Language
- English
- Read by
- Gail Timmerman Vaughan
- Translated by
- Thomasina Ross
Chapters
About this recording
In Volume 2 of “The Personal Narrative”, Alexander von Humboldt and the botanist Aimé Bonpland continue their travels, beginning at Lake Valencia in the llanos of Venezuela and then travelling the mighty South American river, the Orinoco, and its tributaries, for 75 days in a dugout canoe, guided by local Indians and accompanied by one of the local missionaries. As in Volume 1, von Humboldt describes the people, plants, animals, geography and geology of the region. These descriptions include his famous experiments on electic eels as well as descriptions of the arrau tortoise, river porpoises, crocodiles, jaguars and caribe (flesh eating) fish. Likewise there are narratives of the sights, sounds and smells of the scenery through which they passed, and accounts of the peoples of the Orinoco basin.
Their canoe carried themselves and their provisions, but also their scientific instruments, collections, and a menagerie of caged birds and monkeys. von Humbold summarises the difficulties of the voyage. “The inconveniences endured at sea in small vessels are trivial in comparison with those that are suffered under a burning sky, surrounded by swarms of mosquitos, and lying stretched in a…