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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These
Disputed Grounds Are Generally Separated From The Cultivated Part Of
The Colonies By Deserts, The Extent Of Which Is Unknown.
In the
celebrated conferences of Puente de Caya the question was agitated,
whether, in fixing the line of demarcation
Three hundred and seventy
Spanish leagues to the west of the Cape Verde Islands, the pope meant
that the first meridian should be reckoned from the centre of the
island of St. Nicholas, or (as the court of Portugal asserted) from
the western extremity of the little island of St. Antonio. In the year
1754, the time of the expedition of Iturriaga and Solano, negociations
were entered into respecting the possession of the then desert banks
of the Tuamini, and of a marshy tract which we crossed in one evening
going from Javita to Cano Pimichin. The Spanish commissioners very
recently would have placed the divisional line at the point where the
Apoporis falls into the Jupura, while the Portuguese astronomers
carried it back as far as Salto Grande.
The Rio Negro and the Jupuro are two tributary streams of the Amazon,
and may be compared in length to the Danube. The upper parts belong to
the Spaniards, while the lower are occupied by the Portuguese. The
Christian settlements are very numerous from Mocoa to the mouth of the
Caguan; while on the Lower Jupura the Portuguese have founded only a
few villages. On the Rio Negro, on the contrary, the Spaniards have
not been able to rival their neighbours. Steppes and forests nearly
desert separate, at a distance of one hundred and sixty leagues, the
cultivated part of the coast from the four missions of Marsa, Tomo,
Davipe, and San Carlos, which are all that the Spanish Franciscans
could establish along the Rio Negro. Among the Portuguese of Brazil
the military system, that of presides and capitanes pobladores, has
prevailed over the government of the missionaries. Grand Para is no
doubt far distant from the mouth of the Rio Negro: but the facility of
navigation on the Amazon, which runs like an immense canal in one
direction from west to east, has enabled the Portuguese population to
extend itself rapidly along the river. The banks of the Lower Maranon,
from Vistoza as far as Serpa, as well as those of the Rio Negro from
Fort da Bara to San Jose da Maravitanos, are embellished by rich
cultivation, and by a great number of large villages and towns.
These local considerations are combined with others, suggested by the
moral position of nations. The north-west coast of America furnishes
to this day no other stable settlements but Russian and Spanish
colonies. Before the inhabitants of the United States, in their
progressive movement from east to west, could reach the shore between
the latitude 41 and 50 degrees, which long separated the Spanish monks
and the Siberian hunters,* the latter had established themselves south
of the Columbia River. (* The hunters connected with military posts,
and dependent on the Russian Company, of which the principal
shareholders live at Irkutsk. In 1804 the little fortress (krepost) at
the bay of Jakutal was still six hundred leagues distant from the most
northern Mexican possessions.) Thus in New California the Franciscan
missionaries, men estimable for their morals, and their agricultural
activity, learnt with astonishment, that Greek priests had arrived in
their neighbourhood; and that two nations, who inhabit the eastern and
western extremities of Europe, were become neighbours on a coast of
America opposite to China. In Guiana circumstances were very
different: the Spaniards found on their frontiers those very
Portuguese, who, by their language, and their municipal institutions,
form with them one of the most noble remains of Roman Europe; but whom
mistrust, founded on unequal strength, and too great proximity, has
converted into an often hostile, and always rival power.
If two nations adjacent to each other in Europe, the Spaniards and the
Portuguese, have alike become neighbours in the New Continent, they
are indebted for that circumstance to the spirit of enterprise and
active courage which both displayed at the period of their military
glory and political greatness. The Castilian language is now spoken in
North and South America throughout an extent of more than one thousand
nine hundred leagues in length; if, however, we consider South America
apart, we there find the Portuguese language spread over a larger
space of ground, and spoken by a smaller number of individuals than
the Castilian. It would seem as if the bond that so closely connects
the fine languages of Camoens and Lope de Vega, had served only to
separate two nations, who have become neighbours against their will.
National hatred is not modified solely by a diversity of origin, of
manners, and of progress in civilization; whenever it is powerful, it
must be considered as the effect of geographical situation, and the
conflicting interests thence resulting. Nations detest each other the
less, in proportion as they are distant; and when, their languages
being radically different, they do not even attempt to combine
together. Travellers who have passed through New California, the
interior provinces of Mexico, and the northern frontiers of Brazil,
have been struck by these shades in the moral dispositions of
bordering nations.
When I was in the Spanish Rio Negro, the divergent politics of the
courts of Lisbon and Madrid had augmented that system of mistrust
which, even in calmer times, the commanders of petty neighbouring
forts love to encourage. Boats went up from Barcelos as far as the
Spanish missions, but the communications were of rare occurrence. A
commandant with sixteen or eighteen soldiers wearied the garrison by
measures of safety, which were dictated by the important state of
affairs; if he were attacked, he hoped to surround the enemy. When we
spoke of the indifference with which the Portuguese government
doubtless regarded the four little villages founded by the monks of
Saint Francisco, on the Upper Guainia, the inhabitants were hurt by
the motives which we alleged with the view to give them confidence.
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