Complete document - The Humboldt Digital Library

6
From these united causes, the natives who inhabit the Missions are kept in a state remote from all
improvement; and which we should call stationary, if societies did not follow the course of the human
mind, and must therefore be said to retrograde, whenever they cease to go forward.
On the 4th of September, at five in the morning, we began our journey to the Missions of the
Chayma Indians, and the group of lofty mountains which traverse New Andalusia. We had been advised,
on account of the extreme difficulties of the road, to reduce our baggage to a small bulk. Two beasts of
burden were indeed sufficient to carry our provision, our instruments, and the paper necessary to dry our
plants. One chest contained a sextant, a dipping-needle, an apparatus to determine the magnetic variation,
thermometers, and Saussure's hygrometer. We always selected these instruments in excursions of short
duration. The barometer requires more attention even than the time-keeper; and it may be well to add, that
this instrument embarrasses travellers more than any other. We confided it during five years to a guide,
who followed us on foot; and this precaution, which was expensive, did not always secure it from
accidents. Having determined with precision the period of the atmospheric tides, that is, the hours at
which the mercury rises and falls