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Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, During the Year 1799-1804 — Volume 2 by Alexander von Humboldt
page 35 of 644 (05%)
by Roxburgh; the third and fourth* grow in the southern hemisphere, on
the coasts of Australia. (* Gyrocarpus sphenopterus, and G. rugosus.)

After getting out of the bath, while, half-wrapped in a sheet, we were
drying ourselves in the sun, according to the custom of the country, a
little man of the mulatto race approached us. After bowing gravely, he
made us a long speech on the virtues of the waters of Mariara,
adverting to the numbers of invalids by whom they have been visited
for some years past, and to the favourable situation of the springs,
between the two towns Valencia and Caracas. He showed us his house, a
little hut covered with palm-leaves, situated in an enclosure at a
small distance, on the bank of a rivulet, communicating with the bath.
He assured us that we should there find all the conveniences of life;
nails to suspend our hammocks, ox-leather to stretch over benches made
of reeds, earthern vases always filled with cool water, and what,
after the bath, would be most salutary of all, those great lizards
(iguanas), the flesh of which is known to be a refreshing aliment. We
judged from his harangue, that this good man took us for invalids, who
had come to stay near the spring. His counsels and offers of
hospitality were not altogether disinterested. He styled himself the
inspector of the waters, and the pulpero* (* Proprietor of a pulperia,
or little shop where refreshments are sold.) of the place. Accordingly
all his obliging attentions to us ceased as soon as he heard that we
had come merely to satisfy our curiosity; or as they express it in the
Spanish colonies, those lands of idleness, para ver, no mas, to see,
and nothing more. The waters of Mariara are used with success in
rheumatic swellings, and affections of the skin. As the waters are but
very feebly impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen, it is necessary to
bathe at the spot where the springs issue. Farther on, these same
waters are employed for the irrigation of fields of indigo. A wealthy
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