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But doubtless the Indians labored greatly with imperfect comprehension. Humboldt describes a service among a South American tribe, in which a missionary preaching in Spanish was at his wits' end to make his audience differentiate between infierno and invierno.
On the other hand, the monks are as yet almost totally ignorant of the language of the Chaymas; and the resemblance of sounds confuses the poor Indians and suggests to them the most whimsical ideas. Of this I may cite an example. I saw a missionary labouring earnestly to prove that infierno, hell, and invierno, winter, were not one and the same thing; but as different as heat and cold.
and another where the truth, as in many Spanish proverbs, is sacrificed to the rhyme, saying that the climate is tres meses invierno y nueve infierno, three months winter and nine months Tophet. At the first coming of the winter frosts the genuine son of Madrid gets out his capa, the national full round cloak, and never leaves it off till late in the hot spring days.
The worst season for this, however, is the mid-year months when few people visit the island. The winter months, locally known as the "invierno," a term to be associated with our word "vernal" and not with "infernal," are almost invariably delightful, bringing to northern systems a pleasurable physical laziness that is attended by a mental indifference to, or satisfaction with, the sensation.
Y éste me parece además muy buen sujeto. DOÑA MATILDE. ¡Oh, muy bueno!... ¡Si viera usted la ley que nos tiene ... y lo que le queremos todos! ¡Pobre Bruno! Cuando estuvo el invierno pasado tan malo, ni un instante me separé yo de la cabecera de su cama. DON EDUARDO. Con qué gusto oigo a usted eso, ¡Matilde mía!
He could not separate in the minds of the neophytes the ideas of rain and hell; invierno and infierno. After passing almost the whole day in the open air, we employed our evenings, at the convent, in making notes, drying our plants, and sketching those that appeared to form new genera.
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