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 Vichada, The Zama, The
Inirida, The Rio Negro, The Uaupe, And The Apoporis, Which Are Marked
In Our Maps
As extending westward as far as the mountains, take rise
at a great distance from them, either in the savannahs
Between the
Meta and the Guaviare, or in the mountainous country which, according
to the information given me by the natives, begins at four or five
days' journey westward of the missions of Javita and Maroa, and
extends through the Sierra Tuhuny, beyond the Xie, towards the banks
of the Issana.
It is remarkable that this ridge of the Cordilleras, which contains
the sources of so many majestic rivers (the Meta, the Guaviare, the
Caqueta, and the Putumayo), is as little covered with snow as the
mountains of Abyssinia from which flow the waters of the Blue Nile;
but, on the contrary, on going up the tributary streams which furrow
the plains, a volcano as found still in activity, before you reach the
Cordillera of the Andes. This phenomenon was discovered by the
Franciscan monks, who go down from Ceja by the Rio Fragua to Caqueta.
A solitary hill, emitting smoke night and day, is found on the
north-east of the mission of Santa Rosa, and west of the Puerto del
Pescado. This is the effect of a lateral action of the volcanoes of
Popayan and Pasto; as Guacamayo and Sangay, situated also at the foot
of the eastern declivity of the Andes, are the effect of a lateral
action produced by the system of the volcanoes of Quito. After having
closely inspected the banks of the Orinoco and the Rio Negro, where
the granite everywhere pierces the soil; when we reflect on the total
absence of volcanoes in Brazil, Guiana, on the coast of Venezuela, and
perhaps in all that part of the continent lying eastward of the Andes;
we contemplate with interest the three burning volcanoes situated near
the sources of the Caqueta, the Napo, and the Rio de Macas or Morona.
The little group of mountains with which we became acquainted at the
sources of the Guainia, is remarkable from its being isolated in the
plain that extends to the south-west of the Orinoco. Its situation
with regard to longitude might lead to the belief that it stretches
into a ridge, which forms first the strait (angostura) of the
Guaviare, and then the great cataracts (saltos, cachoeiras) of the
Uaupe and the Jupura. Does this ground, composed probably of primitive
rocks, like that which I examined more to the east, contain
disseminated gold? Are there any gold-washings more to the south,
toward the Uaupe, on the Iquiare (Iguiari, Iguari), and on the
Yurubesh (Yurubach, Urubaxi)? It was there that Philip von Huten first
sought El Dorado, and with a handful of men fought the battle of
Omaguas, so celebrated in the sixteenth century. In separating what is
fabulous from the narratives of the Conquistadores, we cannot fail to
recognize in the names preserved on the same spots a certain basis of
historic truth. We follow the expedition of Huten beyond the Guaviare
and the Caqeta; we find in the Guaypes, governed by the cacique of
Macatoa, the inhabitants of the river of Uaupe, which also bears the
name of Guape, or Guapue; we call to mind, that Father Acunha calls
the Iquiari (Quiquiare) a gold river; and that fifty years later
Father Fritz, a missionary of great veracity, received, in the mission
of Yurimaguas, the Manaos (Manoas), adorned with plates of beaten
gold, coming from the country between the Uaupe and the Caqueta, or
Jupura. The rivers that rise on the eastern declivity of the Andes
(for instance the Napo) carry along with them a great deal of gold,
even when their sources are found in trachytic soils. Why may there
not be an alluvial auriferous soil to the east of the Cordilleras, as
there is to the west, in the Sonoro, at Choco, and at Barbacoas? I am
far from wishing to exaggerate the riches of this soil; but I do not
think myself authorized to deny the existence of precious metals in
the primitive mountains of Guiana, merely because in our journey
through that country we saw no metallic veins. It is somewhat
remarkable that the natives of the Orinoco have a name in their
languages for gold (carucuru in Caribbee, caricuri in Tamanac, cavitta
in Maypure), while the word they use to denote silver, prata, is
manifestly borrowed from the Spanish.* (* The Parecas say, instead of
prata, rata. It is the Castilian word plata ill-pronounced. Near the
Yurubesh there is another inconsiderable tributary stream of the Rio
Negro, the Curicur-iari. It is easy to recognize in this name the
Caribbee word carucur, gold. The Caribs extended their incursions from
the mouth of the Orinoco south-west toward the Rio Negro; and it was
this restless people who carried the fable of El Dorado, by the same
way, but in an opposite direction (from south-west to north-east),
from the Mesopotamia between the Rio Negro and the Jupura to the
sources of the Rio Branco.) The notions collected by Acunha, Father
Fritz, and La Condamine, on the gold-washings south and north of the
river Uaupe, agree with what I learnt of the auriferous soil of those
countries. However great we may suppose the communications that took
place between the nations of the Orinoco before the arrival of
Europeans, they certainly did not draw their gold from the eastern
declivity of the Cordilleras. This declivity is poor in mines,
particularly in mines anciently worked; it is almost entirely composed
of volcanic rocks in the provinces of Popayan, Pasto, and Quito. The
gold of Guiana probably came from the country east of the Andes. In
our days a lump of gold has been found in a ravine near the mission of
Encaramada, and we must not be surprised if, since Europeans settled
in these wild spots, we hear less of the plates of gold, gold-dust,
and amulets of jade-stone, which could heretofore be obtained from the
Caribs and other wandering nations by barter.
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