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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-16-neu> [abgerufen am 20.04.2024].
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| Titel | The Forest at Midnight | ||||
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| Jahr | 1850 | ||||
| Ort | Worcester | ||||
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Nachweis in: The Worcestershire Chronicle and Provincial Railway Gazette 13:673 (20. November 1850), S. 6.
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| Sprache | Englisch | ||||
| Typografischer Befund | Antiqua; Spaltensatz; Auszeichnung: Kursivierung. | ||||
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The Forest at Midnight.—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 diffi-
culty that we succeeded in finding dry wood to kindle the fire
with which it is always customary in that country to surround a
bivouac, in order to guard against 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 inha-
bitants 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 suspended. 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 impos-
sible. 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 mon-
keys); the plaintive, soft, and almost flute-like tones of the
small sapajous; the snorting grumblings of the striped noc-
turnal monkey (the Nyctipithicus 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 disturbance arises on particular nights, they answer,
with a smile, that “the animals are rejoicing in the bright moon-
light, and keeping the feast of the full moon.” To me it appeared
that the scene had probably originated in some accidental com-
bat, and that hence the disturbance had spread to other animals,
and thus the noise had increased more and more. The jaguar
pursues 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.