Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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The Space Between The Rocky Dikes
Of The Orinoco Is Filled With Islands Of Different Dimensions; Some
Hilly, Divided Into Several Peaks, And Two Or Three Hundred Toises In
Length, Others Small, Low, And Like Mere Shoals.
These islands divide
the river into a number of torrents, which boil up as they break
against the rocks.
The jaguas and cucuritos with plumy leaves, with
which all the islands are covered, seem like groves of palm-trees
rising from the foamy surface of the waters. The Indians, whose task
it is to pass the boats empty over the raudales, distinguish every
shelf, and every rock, by a particular name. On entering from the
south you find first the Leap of the Toucan (Salto del Piapoco); and
between the islands of Avaguri and Javariveni is the Raudal of
Javariveni, where, on our return from Rio Negro, we passed some hours
amid the rapids, waiting for our boat. A great part of the river
appeared dry. Blocks of granite are heaped together, as in the
moraines which the glaciers of Switzerland drive before them. The
river is ingulfed in caverns; and in one of these caverns we heard the
water roll at once over our heads and beneath our feet. The Orinoco
seems divided into a multitude of arms or torrents, each of which
seeks to force a passage through the rocks. We were struck with the
little water to be seen in the bed of the river, the frequency of
subterraneous falls, and the tumult of the waters breaking on the
rocks in foam.
Cuncta fremunt undis; ac multo murmure montis
Spumeus invictis canescit fluctibus amnis.*
(* Lucan, Pharsalia lib 10 v 132.)
Having passed the Raudal of Javariveni (I name here only the principal
falls) we come to the Raudal of Canucari, formed by a ledge of rocks
uniting the islands of Surupamana and Uirapuri. When the dikes, or
natural dams, are only two or three feet high, the Indians venture to
descend them in boats. In going up the river, they swim on before, and
if, after many vain efforts, they succeed in fixing a rope to one of
the points of rock that crown the dike, they then, by means of that
rope, draw the bark to the top of the raudal. The bark, during this
arduous task, often fills with water; at other times it is stove
against the rocks, and the Indians, their bodies bruised and bleeding,
extricate themselves with difficulty from the whirlpools, and reach,
by swimming, the nearest island. When the steps or rocky barriers are
very high, and entirely bar the river, light boats are carried on
shore, and with the help of branches of trees placed under them to
serve as rollers, they are drawn as far as the place where the river
again becomes navigable. This operation is seldom necessary when the
water is high. We cannot speak of the cataracts of the Orinoco without
recalling to mind the manner heretofore employed for descending the
cataracts of the Nile, of which Seneca has left us a description
probably more poetical than accurate. I shall cite the passage, which
traces with fidelity what may be seen every day at Atures, Maypures,
and in some pongos of the Amazon. "Two men embark in a small boat; one
steers, and the other empties it as it fills with water. Long buffeted
by the rapids, the whirlpools, and the contrary currents, they pass
through the narrowest channels, avoid the shoals, and rush down the
whole river, guiding the course of the boat in its accelerated fall."
(Nat. Quaest. lib 4 cap 2 edit. Elzev. tome 2 page 609.)
In hydrographic descriptions of countries, the vague names of
cataracts, cascades, falls, and rapids,* (* The corresponding terms in
use among the people of South America, are saltos, chorros, pongos,
cachoeiras, and raudales.) denoting those tumultuous movements of
water which arise from very different circumstances, are generally
confounded with one another. Sometimes a whole river precipitating
itself from a great height, and by one single fall, renders navigation
impossible. Such is the majestic fall of the Rio Tequendama, which I
have represented in my Views of the Cordilleras; such are the falls of
Niagara and of the Rhine, much less remarkable for their elevation,
than for the mass of water they contain. Sometimes stony dikes of
small height succeed each other at great distances, and form distinct
falls; such are the cachoeiras of the Rio Negro and the Rio Madeira,
the saltos of the Rio Cauca, and the greater part of the pongos that
are found in the Upper Maranon, from the confluence of the Chinchipe
to the village of San Borja. The highest and most formidable of these
pongos, which are descended on rafts, that of Mayasi, is however only
three feet in height. Sometimes small rocky dikes are so near each
other that they form for several miles an uninterrupted succession of
cascades and whirlpools (chorros and remolinos); these are properly
what are called rapids (raudales). Such are the yellalas, or rapids of
the River Zaire,* or Congo, which Captain Tuckey has recently made
known to us (* Voyage to explore the River Zaire, 1818, pages 152,
327, 340. What the inhabitants of Upper Egypt and Nubia call chellal
in the Nile, is called yellala in the River Congo. This analogy
between words signifying rapids is remarkable, on account of the
enormous distance of the yellalas of the Congo from the chellal and
djenadel of the Nile. Did the word chellal penetrate with the Moors
into the west of Africa? If, with Burckhardt, we consider the origin
of this word as Arabic (Travels in Nubia, 1819), it must be derived
from the root challa, to disperse, which forms chelil, water falling
through a narrow channel.); the rapids of the Orange River in Africa,
above Pella; and the falls of the Missouri, which are four leagues in
length, where the river issues from the Rocky Mountains. Such also are
the cataracts of Atures and Maypures; the only cataracts which,
situated in the equinoctial region of the New World, are adorned with
the noble growth of palm-trees.
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