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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We Found In The Mission Of San
Carlos But One Garita,* A Square House, Constructed With Unbaked
Bricks, And Containing Six Field-Pieces.
(* This word literally
signifies a sentry-box; but it is here employed in the sense of
store-house or arsenal.) The little fort, or, as they think proper to
call it here, the Castillo de San Felipe, is situated opposite San
Carlos, on the western bank of the Rio Negro.
The banks of the Upper Guainia will be more productive when, by the
destruction of the forests, the excessive humidity of the air and the
soil shall be diminished. In their present state of culture maize
scarcely grows, and the tobacco, which is of the finest quality, and
much celebrated on the coast of Caracas, is well cultivated only on
spots amid old ruins, remains of the huts of the pueblo viejo (old
town). Indigo grows wild near the villages of Maroa, Davipe, and Tomo.
Under a different system from that which we found existing in these
countries, the Rio Negro will produce indigo, coffee, cacao, maize,
and rice, in abundance.
The passage from the mouth of the Rio Negro to Grand Para occupying
only twenty or twenty-five days, it would not have taken us much more
time to have gone down the Amazon as far as the coast of Brazil, than
to return by the Cassiquiare and the Orinoco to the northern coast of
Caracas. We were informed at San Carlos that, on account of political
circumstances, it was difficult at that moment to pass from the
Spanish to the Portuguese settlements; but we did not know till after
our return to Europe the extent of the danger to which we should have
been exposed in proceeding as far as Barcellos. It was known at
Brazil, possibly through the medium of the newspapers, that I was
going to visit the missions of the Rio Negro, and examine the natural
canal which unites two great systems of rivers. In those desert
forests instruments had been seen only in the hands of the
commissioners of the boundaries; and at that time the subaltern agents
of the Portuguese government could not conceive how a man of sense
could expose himself to the fatigues of a long journey, to measure
lands that did not belong to him. Orders had been issued to seize my
person, my instruments, and, above all, those registers of
astronomical observations, so dangerous to the safety of states. We
were to be conducted by way of the Amazon to Grand Para, and thence
sent back to Lisbon. But fortunately for me, the government at Lisbon,
on being informed of the zeal of its subaltern agents, instantly gave
orders that I should not be disturbed in my operations; but that on
the contrary they should be encouraged, if I traversed any part of the
Portuguese possessions.
In going down the Guainia, or Rio Negro, you pass on the right the
Cano Maliapo, and on the left the Canos Dariba and Eny. At five
leagues distance, nearly in 1 degree 38 minutes of north latitude, is
the island of San Josef. A little below that island, in a spot where
there are a great number of orange-trees now growing wild, the
traveller is shown a small rock, two hundred feet high, with a cavern
called by the missionaries the Glorieta de Cocuy. This summer-house
(for such is the signification of the word glorieta in Spanish)
recalls remembrances that are not the most agreeable. It was here that
Cocuy, the chief of the Manitivitanos,* had his harem of women, and
where he devoured the finest and fattest. (* At San Carlos there is
still preserved an instrument of music, a kind of large drum,
ornamented with very rude Indian paintings, which relate to the
exploits of Cocuy.) The tradition of the harem and the orgies of Cocuy
is more current in the Lower Orinoco than on the banks of the Guainia.
At San Carlos the very idea that the chief of the Manitivitanos could
be guilty of cannibalism is indignantly rejected.
The Portuguese government has established many settlements even in
this remote part of Brazil. Below the Glorieta, in the Portuguese
territory, there are eleven villages in an extent of twenty-five
leagues. I know of nineteen more as far as the mouth of the Rio Negro,
beside the six towns of Thomare, Moreira (near the Rio Demenene, or
Uaraca, where dwelt anciently the Guiana Indians), Barcellos, San
Miguel del Rio Branco, near the river of the same name (so well known
in the fictions of El Dorado), Moura, and Villa de Rio Negro. The
banks of this tributary stream of the Amazon alone are consequently
ten times more thickly peopled than all the shores of the Upper and
Lower Orinoco, the Cassiquiare, the Atabapo, and the Spanish Rio
Negro.
Among the tributary streams which the Rio Negro receives from the
north, three are particularly deserving of attention, because on
account of their branchings, their portages, and the situation of
their sources, they are connected with the often-discussed problem of
the origin of the Orinoco. The most southern of these tributary
streams are the Rio Branco,* which was long believed to issue
conjointly with the Orinoco from lake Parime (* The Portuguese name,
Rio Branco, signifies White Water. Rio Parime is a Caribbean name,
signifying Great Water. These names having also been applied to
different tributary streams, have caused many errors in geography. The
great Rio Branco, or Parime, often mentioned in this work, is formed
by the Urariquera and the Tacutu, and flows, between Carvoeyro and
Villa de Moura, into the Rio Negro. It is the Quecuene of the natives;
and forms at its confluence with the Rio Negro a very narrow delta,
between the principal trunk and the Amayauhau, which is a little
branch more to the west.), and the Rio Padaviri, which communicates by
a portage with the Mavaca, and consequently with the Upper Orinoco, to
the east of the mission of Esmeralda.
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