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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He Availed Himself Amply Of This Permission; But His
Incursions Had An Object Which Was Not Altogether Spiritual, That Of
Making Slaves To Sell To The Portuguese.
When Solano, the second chief
of the expedition of the boundaries, arrived at San Fernando de
Atabapo, he had Javita seized, in one of his incursions to the banks
of the Temi.
He treated him with gentleness, and succeeded in gaining
him over to the interests of the Spanish government by promises that
were not fulfilled. The Portuguese, who had already formed some stable
settlements in these countries, were driven back as far as the lower
part of the Rio Negro; and the mission of San Antonio, of which the
more usual name is Javita, so called after its Indian founder, was
removed farther north of the sources of the Tuamini, to the spot where
it is now established. This captain, Javita, was still living, at an
advanced age, when we proceeded to the Rio Negro. He was an Indian of
great vigour of mind and body. He spoke Spanish with facility, and
preserved a certain influence over the neighbouring nations. As he
attended us in all our herborizations, we obtained from his own mouth
information so much the more useful, as the missionaries have great
confidence in his veracity. He assured us that in his youth he had
seen almost all the Indian tribes that inhabit the vast regions
between the Upper Orinoco, the Rio Negro, the Inirida, and the Jupura,
eat human flesh. The Daricavanas, the Puchirinavis, and the
Manitivitanos, appeared to him to be the greatest cannibals among
them. He believes that this abominable practice is with them the
effect of a system of vengeance; they eat only enemies who are made
prisoners in battle. The instances where, by a refinement of cruelty,
the Indian eats his nearest relations, his wife, or an unfaithful
mistress, are extremely rare. The strange custom of the Scythians and
Massagetes, the Capanaguas of the Rio Ucayale, and the ancient
inhabitants of the West Indian Islands, of honouring the dead by
eating a part of their remains, is unknown on the banks of the
Orinoco. In both continents this trait of manners belongs only to
nations that hold in horror the flesh of a prisoner. The Indian of
Hayti (Saint Domingo) would think himself wanting in regard to the
memory of a relation, if he did not throw into his drink a small
portion of the body of the deceased, after having dried it like one of
the mummies of the Guanches, and reduced it to powder. This gives us
just occasion to repeat with an eastern poet, "of all animals man is
the most fantastic in his manners, and the most disorderly in his
propensities."
The climate of the mission of San Antonio de Javita is extremely
rainy. When you have passed the latitude of three degrees north, and
approach the equator, you have seldom an opportunity of observing the
sun or the stars. It rains almost the whole year, and the sky is
constantly cloudy. As the breeze is not felt in these immense forests
of Guiana, and the refluent polar currents do not penetrate them, the
column of air which reposes on this wooded zone is not renewed by
dryer strata. It is saturated with vapours which are condensed into
equatorial rains. The missionary assured us that it often rains here
four or five months without cessation.
The temperature of Javita is cooler than that of Maypures, but
considerably hotter than that of the Guainia or Rio Negro. The
centigrade thermometer kept up in the day to twenty-six or
twenty-seven degrees; and in the night to twenty-one degrees.
From the 30th of April to the 11th of May, I had not been able to see
any star in the meridian so as to determine the latitude of places. I
watched whole nights in order to make use of the method of double
altitudes; but all my efforts were useless. The fogs of the north of
Europe are not more constant than those of the equatorial regions of
Guiana. On the 4th of May, I saw the sun for some minutes; and found
by the chronometer and the horary angles the longitude of Javita to be
70 degrees 22 minutes, or 1 degree 15 minutes farther west than the
longitude of the junction of the Apure with the Orinoco. This result
is interesting for laying down on our maps the unknown country lying
between the Xie and the sources of the Issana, situated on the same
meridian with the mission of Javita.
The Indians of Javita, whose number amounts to one hundred and sixty,
now belong for the most part to the nations of the Poimisanos, the
Echinavis, and the Paraganis. They are employed in the construction of
boats, formed of the trunks of sassafras, a large species of laurel,
hollowed by means of fire and the hatchet. These trees are more than
one hundred feet high; the wood is yellow, resinous, almost
incorruptible in water, and has a very agreeable smell. We saw them at
San Fernando, at Javita, and more particularly at Esmeralda, where
most of the canoes of the Orinoco are constructed, because the
adjacent forests furnish the largest trunks of sassafras.
The forest between Javita and the Cano Pimichin, contains an immense
quantity of gigantic trees, ocoteas, and laurels, the Amasonia
arborea,* (* This is a new species of the genus taligalea of Aublet.
On the same spot grow the Bignonia magnoliaefolia, B. jasminifolia,
Solanum topiro, Justicia pectoralis, Faramea cymosa, Piper javitense,
Scleria hirtella, Echites javitensis, Lindsea javitensis, and that
curious plant of the family of the verbenaceae, which I have dedicated
to the illustrious Leopold von Buch, in whose early labours I
participated.) the Retiniphyllum secundiflorum, the curvana, the
jacio, the iacifate, of which the wood is red like the brazilletto,
the guamufate, with its fine leaves of calophyllum from seven to eight
inches long, the Amyris carana, and the mani.
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