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Antiqua
Antiqua; Spaltensatz; Auszeichnung: Schriftgradvergrößerung.
Here are no splendid
shadow-trees (says Humboldt in his Travels), no
majestic streams, and no eternally snow-covered moun-
tains, which mightily move us. A few drops of
vegetable sap remind us of the almightiness and fruit-
fulness of nature. On the sterile declivity of a rock
there grows a tree whose leaves are dry and tough,
whose thick, woody roots can hardly penetrate the
stony soil; for several months in the year, no re-
freshing rain moistures its foliage, the branches seem dead and shrivelled:
but make an incision in the stem, and a sweet nourishing milk
flows from it. At sunrise this vegetable spring is the richest; then
the negroes and the natives come from all sides, provided with large
vessels to collect the milk, which turns yellow, and thickens on the
surface. Some empty their vessels, at once, under the tree, others
take the milk to their children. One seems to see the establishment
of a shepherd who distributes the milk of his herds.