ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT.
After every deduction has been made he yet stands before us as a colossal figure not unworthy to take his place beside Goethe as the representative of the scientific side of the culture of his country.—Encyclopædia Britannica.
The Cataracts of the Orinoco.
The impression which a scene makes upon us is not so deeply fixed by the peculiarities of the country as by the light, the clear azure or the deep shade of low lying clouds, under which hill and river lie. In the same way descriptions of scenes impress us with more or less force according as they harmonize with our emotions. In our inner susceptible soul the physical world is reflected true and life-like. What gives its peculiar character to a landscape, to the outline of the mountain range which borders the dimly distant horizon, to the darkness of the pine forest, to the mountain stream which rushes madly between overhanging cliffs? They all stand in strange mysterious relations with the inner life of man, and on these relations rest the nobler share of enjoyment which nature affords. Nowhere does she impress us more strongly with consciousness of her greatness; nowhere does she speak more powerfully to us than under the Indian heavens. If I venture here to describe that country may I hope that its peculiar charm will not remain unfelt? The memory of a distant richly-endowed land, the glimpse of a luxuriant, vigorous plant-life refreshes and strengthens the mind as the restless worn spirit finds pleasure in youth and its strength.
Western currents and tropical winds favor the voyage over the peaceful straits which fill up the wide valley between America and western Africa. Before the coast appears one notices that the waves foam and dash over each other. Sailors who were unacquainted with the region would suspect shallows to be near, or fresh water springs, such as are in mid ocean among the Antilles. As the garnet coast of Guiana draws near there appears the wide mouth of a mighty stream. It bursts forth like a shoreless sea and covers the surrounding ocean with fresh water. The name Orinoco which the first discoverers gave to the river, and which owes its origin to a confusion of language, is unknown in the interior of the country, for the uncivilized inhabitants give names to only those objects which might easily be mistaken for others. The Orinoco, the Amazon, the Magdalena are called simply the river, in some cases perhaps, the great river, the great water, when the inhabitants wish to distinguish them from a small stream.
The current which the Orinoco causes between the continent of South America and the island of Trinidad is so powerful that ships which attempt to struggle against it with outspread sails are scarcely able to make any headway. This desolate and dangerous place is called the Gulf of Sorrow; the entrance is the Dragon’s Head. Here lonely cliffs rise tower-like in the raging flood. They mark the old, rocky isthmus which, cut off by the current, once joined the island of Trinidad and the coast of Venezuela.
The appearance of this country first convinced the hardy discoverer, Colon, of the existence of the American continent. Acquainted with nature as he was he concluded that so monstrous a body of fresh water could only be collected by a great number of streams, and that the land which supplied this water must be a continent and not an island. As the followers of Alexander believed the Indus, filled with crocodiles, was a branch of the Nile, so Colon concluded that this new continent was the easterly coast of the far away Asia. The coolness of the evening air, the clearness of the starry firmament, the perfume of the flowers borne on the breeze, all led him to believe that he had approached the garden of Eden, the sacred home of the first human beings. The Orinoco seemed to him one of the four streams which are said to flow from Paradise, and to water the plants of the newly-planted earth.
This poetical passage taken from Colon’s diary has a peculiar interest. It shows anew how the fancies of the poet are in the discoverer as in every great human character.