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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I Here Name The Two
Chains Of Mountains Running From East To West, And Bordering The
Plains Or Basins Of
The Cassiquiare, the Rio Negro, and the Amazon,
between 5 degrees 30 minutes north, and 14 degrees south latitude.) or
Have these walls of rock, these turrets of granite, been upheaved by
the elastic forces that still act in the interior of our planet? We
may be permitted to meditate a little on the origin of mountains,
after having seen the position of the Mexican volcanoes, and of
trachyte summits on an elongated crevice; having found in the Andes of
South America primitive and volcanic rocks in a straight line in the
same chain; and when we recollect the island, three miles in
circumference, and of a great height, which in modern times issued
from the depths of the ocean near Oonalaska.
The banks of the Cassiquiare are adorned with the chiriva palm-tree
with pinnate leaves, silvery on the under part. The rest of the forest
furnishes only trees with large, coriaceous, glossy leaves, that have
plain edges. This peculiar physiognomy* of the vegetation of the
Guainia, the Tuamini, and the Cassiquiare, is owing to the
preponderance of the families of the guttiferae, the sapotae, and the
laurineae, in the equatorial regions. (* This physiognomy struck us
forcibly, in the vast forests of Spanish Guiana, only between the
second and third degrees of north latitude.) The serenity of the sky
promising us a fine night, we resolved, at five in the evening, to
rest near the Piedra de Culimacari, a solitary granite rock, like all
those which I have described between the Atabapo and the Cassiquiare.
We found by the bearings of the sinuosities of the river, that this
rock is nearly in the latitude of the mission of San Francisco Solano.
In those desert countries, where man has hitherto left only fugitive
traces of his existence, I constantly endeavoured to make my
observations near the mouth of a river, or at the foot of a rock
distinguishable by its form. Such points only as are immutable by
their nature can serve for the basis of geographical maps. I obtained,
in the night of the 10th of May, a good observation of latitude by
alpha of the Southern Cross; the longitude was determined, but with
less precision, by the chronometer, taking the altitudes of the two
beautiful stars which shine in the feet of the Centaur. This
observation made known to us at the same time, with sufficient
precision for the purposes of geography, the positions of the mouth of
the Pacimoni, of the fortress of San Carlos, and of the junction of
the Cassiquiare with the Rio Negro. The rock of Culimacari is
precisely in latitude 2 degrees 0 minutes 42 seconds, and probably in
longitude 69 degrees 33 minutes 50 seconds.
Satisfied with our observations, we left the rock of Culimacari at
half past one on the morning of the 12th. The torment of mosquitos, to
which we were exposed, augmented in proportion as we withdrew from the
Rio Negro. There are no zancudos in the valley of Cassiquiare, but the
simulia, and all the other insects of the tipulary family, are the
more numerous and venomous. Having still eight nights to pass in the
open air in this damp and unhealthy climate, before we could reach the
mission of Esmeralda, our pilot sought to arrange our passage in such
a manner as might enable us to enjoy the hospitality of the missionary
of Mandavaca, and some shelter in the village of Vasiva. We went up
with difficulty against the current, which was nine feet, and in some
places (where I measured it with precision) eleven feet eight inches
in a second, that is, almost eight miles an hour. Our resting-place
was probably not farther than three leagues in a right line from the
mission of Mandavaca; yet, though we had no reason to complain of
inactivity on the part of our rowers, we were fourteen hours in making
this short passage.
Towards sunrise we passed the mouth of the Rio Pacimoni, a river which
I mentioned when speaking of the trade in sarsaparilla, and which (by
means of the Baria) intertwines in so remarkable a way with the
Cababuri. The Pacimoni rises in a hilly ground, from the confluence of
three small rivers,* not marked on the maps of the missionaries. (*
The Rios Guajavaca, Moreje, and Cachevaynery.) Its waters are black,
but less so than those of the lake of Vasiva, which also communicates
with the Cassiquiare. Between those two tributary streams coming from
the east, lies the mouth of the Rio Idapa, the waters of which are
white. I shall not recur again to the difficulty of explaining this
coexistence of rivers differently coloured, within a small extent of
territory, but shall merely observe, that at the mouth of the
Pacimoni, and on the borders of the lake Vasiva, we were again struck
with the purity and extreme transparency of the brown waters. Ancient
Arabian travellers have observed, that the Alpine branch of the Nile,
which joins the Bahr el Abiad near Halfaja, has green waters, which
are so transparent, that the fish may be seen at the bottom of the
river.
We passed some turbulent rapids before we reached the mission of
Mandavaca. The village, which bears also the name of Quirabuena,
contains only sixty natives. The state of the Christian settlements is
in general so miserable that, in the whole course of the Cassiquiare,
on a length of fifty leagues, not two hundred inhabitants are found.
The banks of this river were indeed more peopled before the arrival of
the missionaries; the Indians have withdrawn into the woods, toward
the east; for the western plains are almost deserted. The natives
subsist during a part of the year on those large ants of which I have
spoken above. These insects are much esteemed here, as spiders are in
the southern hemisphere, where the savages of Australia deem them
delicious.
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