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Zitierempfehlung
Alexander von Humboldt: „The forest at midnight“, 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-05-neu> [abgerufen am 25.04.2024].
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| Titel | The forest at midnight | ||||
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| Jahr | 1849 | ||||
| Ort | Banbury | ||||
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Nachweis in: The Banbury Guardian, and General Advertiser for the Counties of Oxford, Warwick, Northampton, Buckingham, Worcester, and Gloucester 333 (14. November 1849), [o. S.].
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| Sprache | Englisch | ||||
| Typografischer Befund | Antiqua; Spaltensatz; Auszeichnung: Kursivierung. | ||||
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|Seitenumbruch|
Below the mission of Santa Barbara de Arichuna we passed
the night as usual, under the open sky, on a sandy flat on the
bank of the Rio Apure closely bordered by the impenetrable
forest. It was not without difficulty that we succeeded in finding
dry wood to kindle the fires with which it is here customary
in that country to surround the bivouac, in order to guard
the attacks of the jaguar. The night was humid, mild, and
moonlight. Several crocodiles approached the shore; I think
I have observed these animals to be attracted by fire, like our
cray-fish and many other inhabitants of the water. The oars of
our boat were placed upright and carefully driven into the
ground, to form poles from which our hammocks could be sus-
pended. Deep stillness prevailed; only from time to time we
heard blowing of the fresh-water dolphins which are peculiar
to the Orinoco net-work of rivers (and, according to Colebroke,
to the Ganges as far as Benares), which followed each other in
long lines.
Soon after eleven o’clock such a disturbance began to be
heard in the adjoining forest, that for the remainder of the night
all sleep was impossible. The wild cries of animals appeared
to rage throughout the forest. Among the many voices which
resounded together, the Indians could only recognise those
which, after short pauses in the general uproar, were first heard
singly. There was the monotonous howling of the aloates (the
howling monkeys); the plaintive, soft, and almost flute-like
tones of the small sapajous; the snorting grumblings of the
striped nocturnal monkey(the Nyetipithicus trivirgatus, which
I was the first to describe); the interrupted cries of the great
tiger, the cuguar or maneless American lion, the peccary, the
sloth, and a host of parrots, parraquas, and other pheasant-
like birds. When the tigers came near the edge of the forest,
our dog, which had before barked incessantly, came howling to
seek refuge under our hammocks. Sometimes the cry of the
tiger was heard to proceed from amidst the high branches of a
tree, and was in such case always accompanied by the plaintive
piping of the monkeys, who were seeking to escape from the
unwonted pursuit.
If one asks the Indians why this incessant noise and distur-
bance arises on particular nights, they answer, with a smile,
that “the animals are rejoicing in the bright moonlight, and
keeping the feast of the full moon.” To me it appeared that
the scene had probably originated in some accidental combat,
and that hence the disturbance had spread to other animals, and
thus the noise had increased more and more. The jaguar pur-
sues the peccaries and tapirs, and these, pressing against each
other in their flight break thorugh the interwoven tree-like
shrubs which impede their escape; the apes on the tops of the
trees, being frightened by the crash, join their cries to those of
the larger animals; this arouses the tribes of birds, who build
their nests in communities, and thus the whole animal world
becomes in a state of commotion. Longer experience taught
us that it is by no means always the celebration of the bright-
ness of the moon which disturbs the repose of the woods: we
witnessed the same occurrence repeatedly, and found that the
voices were loudest during violent falls of rain, or when, with
loud peals of thunder, the flashing lightning illuminated the
deep recesses of the forest. The good-natured Franciscan
monk, who, although he had been suffering for several months
from fever, accompanied us through the Cataracts of Atures
and Maypures to San Carlos on the Rio Negro, and to the Bra-
zilian boundary, used to say, when fearful on the closing in of
night that there might be a thunder-storm, “May Heaven
grant a quiet night both to us and to the wild beasts of the
forest!”—Humboldt’s Aspects of Nature.
EXTRACTS FROM NEW WORKS.THE FOREST AT MIDNIGHT.