Complete document - The Humboldt Digital Library

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from the top of the hill of San Francisco, an extensive view over the sea, the plain covered with bera* and
its golden flowers, and the Mountains of the Brigantine. We were struck at the great proximity in which
the Cordillera presented itself, before the disk of the rising sun had reached the horizon. The tint of the
summits is of a deeper blue, their outline is more strongly marked, and their masses are more detached, as
long as the transparency of the air remains undisturbed by the vapours, which, accumulated during the
night in the vallies, rise in proportion as the atmosphere acquires warmth.
At the hospital of the Divina Pastora, the path turns to the north-east, and stretches for two
leagues over a soil without trees, and formerly levelled by the waters. We there found not only cacti, tufts
of cistus-leaved tribulus, and the beautiful purple euphorbia†, cultivated in the gardens of the Havanna
under the singular name of dictamno real, but also the avicennia, the allionia, the sesuvium, the thalinum,
and most of the portulaceous plants, that grow on the banks of the gulf of Cariaco. This geographical
distribution of plants appears to designate
* Palo sano, zygophyllum arboreum, Jacq. The flowers have the smell of vanilla.
† Euphorbia tithymaloides.