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Alexander von Humboldt: „Nocturnal Life of Animals in the Primeval Forest“, in: ders., Sämtliche Schriften digital, herausgegeben von Oliver Lubrich und Thomas Nehrlich, Universität Bern 2021. URL: <https://humboldt.unibe.ch/text/1849-Das_naechtliche_Leben-04-neu> [abgerufen am 16.04.2024].
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| Titel | Nocturnal Life of Animals in the Primeval Forest | ||||||
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| Jahr | 1849 | ||||||
| Ort | London | ||||||
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Nachweis in: The Nonconformist 9:208 (7. November 1849), S. 895.
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| Sprache | Englisch | ||||||
| Typografischer Befund | Antiqua; Spaltensatz; Auszeichnung: Kursivierung. | ||||||
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|895|
—On leaving the Island del Diamante (inthe Orinoco), we entered on scenes of naturecharacterised by wildness and grandeur. The airwas filled with countless flocks of flamingoes andother water birds, which appeared against the bluesky like a dark cloud with continually varying out-lines. The river had here narrowed to between ninehundred and one thousand feet, and flowing in aperfectly straight line, formed a kind of canalenclosed on either side by dense wood. The marginof the forest presents at this part a singular appear-ance. In front of the almost inpenetrable wall ofgiant trunks there rises from the sandy river beach,with the greatest regularity, a low hedge of Sauso,only four feet high, consisting of a small shrub,Hermesia Castaneifolia, which forms a new genus of
|Spaltenumbruch| the family of Euphorbiaceæ. Some slender thornypalms stand next; and the whole resembles a close,well-pruned garden hedge, having only occasionalopenings at considerable distances from each other,which have doubtless been made by the larger four-footed beasts of the forest to gain easy access to theriver. One sees, more especially in the early morn-ing and at sunset, the American tiger or jaguar, thetapir and the peccary, lead their young throughthese openings to the river to drink. When startledby the passing canoe, they do not attempt to regainthe forest by breaking forcibly through the hedgewhich has been described, but one has the pleasureof seeing these wild animals stalk leisurely alongbetween the river and the hedge for four or fivehundred paces, until they have reached the nearestopening, when they disappear through it. In thecourse of an almost uninterrupted river navigationof 1,520 geographical miles on the Orinoco to nearits sources on the Cassiquiare and on the Rio Negro—and during which we were confined for seventydays to a small canoe—we enjoyed the repetition ofthe same spectacle at several points, and, I may add,always with new delight. There came down togetherto drink, to bathe, or to fish, groups consisting of themost different classes of animals, the large mam-malia being associated with many coloured herons,palamedeas, and proudly stepping curassow andcashew birds. “Es como en el Paraiso,” it is hereas in Paradise, said with a pious air, our steersman,an old Indian who had been brought up in the houseof an ecclesiastic. The peace of the golden age was,however, far from prevailing among the animals ofthis American paradise, who carefully watched andavoided each other.—Humboldt.
Nocturnal Life of Animals in the PrimevalForest.