MELANCHOLY FOBEBODINQS. 
521 
seal for the progress of natural history. We had not yet 
passed a year in the torrid zone; and my too faithful 
memory conjured up everything I had read in Europe on 
the dangers of the atmosphere inhaled in the forests. 
Instead of going up the Orinoco, we might have sojourned 
some months in the temperate and salubrious climate of the 
Sierra INevada de Merida. It was I who had chosen the 
path of the l’ivers ; and the danger of my fellow-traveller 
presented itself to my mind as the fatal consequence of this 
imprudent choice. 
Alter having attained in a few days an extraordinary 
degree of exacerbation, the fever assumed a less alarming 
character. The inflammation of the intestines yielded to the 
use of emollients obtained from malvaceous plants. The 
sidas and the melochias have singularly active properties in 
the torrid zone. The recovery of the patient however was 
extremely slow, as it always happens with Europeans who 
are not thoroughly seasoned to the cl im ate. The period of 
the rains drew near ; and in order to return to the coast of 
Cumana, it was necessary again to cross the Llanos, where, 
amidst half-inundated lands, it is rare to find shelter, or any 
other food than meat dried in the sun. To avoid exposing 
M. Bonpland to a dangerous relapse, wc resolved to stay at 
Angostura till the 10th of July. We spent part of this 
time at a neighbouring plantation, where mango-trees and 
bread-fruit trees* were cultivated. The latter had attained 
in the tenth year a height of more than forty feet. We 
measured several leaves of the Artocarpus, that were three 
feet long and eighteen inches broad, remarkable dimensions 
in a plant of the family of the dicotyledons. 
* Artocarpus incisa. Father Andujar, Capuchin missionary of the 
province of Caracas, zealous in the pursuit of natural history, has intro- 
duced tiie bread-fruit tree from Spanisli Guiana at Varinas, and thence into 
the kingdom of New Grenada. Thus the western coasts of America, 
washed by the Pacific, receive from the English Settlements in the West 
Indies a production of the Friendly Islands. 
END OF VOL. II. 
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VOL. II. 
