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Alexander von Humboldt: „The Northern Desert of Africa“, in: ders., Sämtliche Schriften digital, herausgegeben von Oliver Lubrich und Thomas Nehrlich, Universität Bern 2021. URL: <https://humboldt.unibe.ch/text/1849-Humboldts_Ansichten_der-2-neu> [abgerufen am 25.04.2024].
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| Titel | The Northern Desert of Africa | ||||
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| Jahr | 1850 | ||||
| Ort | London | ||||
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Nachweis in: Reynolds’s Miscellany of Romance, General Literature, Science, and Art 4:84 (16. Februar 1850), S. 62.
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| Sprache | Englisch | ||||
| Typografischer Befund | Antiqua; Spaltensatz; Auszeichnung: Kursivierung. | ||||
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| Weitere Fassungen | |
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Humboldts Ansichten der Natur. Stuttgart. J. W. Cotta’scher Verlag. Dritte Auflage (Augsburg, 1849, Deutsch) |
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The Northern Desert of Africa (London, 1850, Englisch) |
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—Moun-tains and forests resound with the thunder of the fall-ing waters, with the roar of the tiger-like jaguar, andwith the melancholy rain, announcing howlings ofthe bearded apes. In the midst of this grand andsavage nature live many tribes of men, isolated fromeach other by the extraordinary diversity of theirlanguages: some are nomadic, wholly unacquaintedwith agriculture, and using ants, gums, and earth asfood. These, as the Otomacs and Jarures, seem akind of outcasts from humanity: others, like the Mar-quiritares and Macas, are settled, more intelligent andof milder manners, and live on fruits which theyhave themselves reared. Large spaces between theCassiquiare and the Atabapo are only inhabited bythe tapir and the social apes, and are wholly destituteof human beings. Figures graven on the rocks showthat even these deserts were once the seat of some de-gree of intellectual cultivation. They bear witness tothe changeful destinies of man, as de the unequallydeveloped flexible languages; which latter belong tothe oldest and most imperishable class of historicmemorials. But, as in the Steppe, tigers and croco-diles fight with horses and cattle, so in the forests onits borders, in the wildernesses of Guiana, man is everarmed against man. Some tribes drink with unna-tural thirst the blood of their enemies; others appa-rently weaponless and yet prepared for murder, killwith a poisoned thumb-nail. The weaker hordes,when they have to pass along the sandy margin ofthe rivers, carefully efface with their hands the tracesof their timid footsteps. Thus man, in the lowest stageof almost animal rudeness, as well as amidst the ap-parent brilliancy of our higher cultivation, preparesfor himself and his fellow men increased toil anddanger. The traveller wandering over the wide globeby sea and land, as well as the historic inquirer,searching the records of past ages, finds every wherethe uniform and saddening spectacle of man at variancewith man. He, therefore, who, amidst the unrecon-ciled discord of nations, seeks for intellectual calm,gladly turns to contemplate the silent life of vegetation,and the hidden activities of forces and powers operat-ing in the sanctuaries of nature, or, obedient to theinborn impulse which for thousands of years hasglowed in the human breast, gases upwards in medi-tative contemplation on those celestial orbe, which areever pursuing, in undisturbed harmony, their ancientand unchanging course.—Humboldt’s “Cosmos.”
The Northern Desert of Africa.