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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Those We Now
Beheld Shot Towards The North, And Succeeded Each Other At Almost
Equal Intervals.
The Indians, who seldom ennoble by their expressions
the wanderings of the imagination, name the falling-stars the urine;
and the dew the spittle of the stars.
The clouds thickened anew, and
we discerned neither the meteors, nor the real stars, for which we had
impatiently waited during several days.
We had been told, that we should find the insects at Esmeralda still
more cruel and voracious than in the branch of the Orinoco which we
were going up; nevertheless we indulged the hope of at length sleeping
in a spot that was inhabited, and of taking some exercise in
herbalizing. This anticipation was, however, disturbed at our last
resting-place on the Cassiquiare. Whilst we were sleeping on the edge
of the forest, we were warned by the Indians, in the middle of the
night, that they heard very near us the cries of a jaguar. These
cries, they alleged, came from the top of some neighbouring trees.
Such is the thickness of the forests in these regions, that scarcely
any animals are to be found there but such as climb trees; as, for
instance, the monkeys, animals of the weasel tribe, jaguars, and other
species of the genus Felis.
As our fires burnt brightly, we paid little attention to the cries of
the jaguars. They had been attracted by the smell and noise of our
dog. This animal (which was of the mastiff breed) began at first to
bark; and when the tiger drew nearer, to howl, hiding himself below
our hammocks. how great was our grief, when in the morning, at the
moment of re-embarking, the Indians informed us that the dog had
disappeared! There could be no doubt that it had been carried off by
the jaguars.* (* See Views of Nature page 195.) Perhaps, when their
cries had ceased, it had wandered from the fires on the side of the
beach; and possibly we had not heard its moans, as we were in a
profound sleep. We have often heard the inhabitants of the banks of
the Orinoco and the Rio Magdalena affirm, that the oldest jaguars will
carry off animals from the midst of a halting-place, cunningly
grasping them by the neck so as to prevent their cries. We waited part
of the morning, in the hope that our dog had only strayed. Three days
after we came back to the same place; we heard again the cries of the
jaguars, for these animals have a predilection for particular spots;
but all our search was vain. The dog, which had accompanied us from
Caracas, and had so often in swimming escaped the pursuit of the
crocodiles,* had been devoured in the forest. (* Ibid page 198.)
On the 21st May, we again entered the bed of the Orinoco, three
leagues below the mission of Esmeralda. It was now a month since we
had left that river near the mouth of the Guaviare. We had still to
proceed seven hundred and fifty miles* (* Of nine hundred and fifty
toises each, or two hundred and fifty nautical leagues.) before
reaching Angostura, but we should go with the stream; and this
consideration lessened our discouragement. In descending great rivers,
the rowers take the middle of the current, where there are few
mosquitos; but in ascending, they are obliged, in order to avail
themselves of the dead waters and counter-currents, to sail near the
shore, where the proximity of the forests, and the remains of organic
substances accumulated on the beach, harbour the tipulary insects. The
point of the celebrated bifurcation of the Orinoco has a very imposing
aspect. Lofty granitic mountains rise on the northern bank; and amidst
them are discovered at a distance the Maraguaca and the Duida. There
are no mountains on the left bank of the Orinoco, west or east of the
bifurcation, till opposite the mouth of the Tamatama. On that spot
stands the rock Guaraco, which is said to throw out flames from time
to time in the rainy season. When the Orinoco is no longer bounded by
mountains towards the south, and when it reaches the opening of a
valley, or rather a depression of the ground, which terminates at the
Rio Negro, it divides itself into two branches. The principal branch
(the Rio Paragua of the Indians) continues its course west-north-west,
turning round the group of the mountains of Parime; the other branch
forming the communication with the Amazon runs into plains, the
general slope of which is southward, but of which the partial planes
incline, in the Cassiquiare, to south-west, and in the basin of the
Rio Negro, south-east. A phenomenon so strange in appearance, which I
verified on the spot, merits particular attention; the more especially
as it may throw some light on analogous facts, which are supposed to
have been observed in the interior of Africa.
The existence of a communication of the Orinoco with the Amazon by the
Rio Negro, and a bifurcation of the Caqueta, was believed by Sanson,
and rejected by Father Fritz and by Blaeuw: it was marked in the first
maps of De l'Isle, but abandoned by that celebrated geographer towards
the end of his days. Those who had mistaken the mode of this
communication hastened to deny the communication itself. It is in fact
well worthy of remark that, at the time when the Portuguese went up
most frequently by the Amazon, the Rio Negro, and the Cassiquiare, and
when Father Gumilla's letters were carried (by the natural
interbranching of the rivers) from the lower Orinoco to Grand Para,
that very missionary made every effort to spread the opinion through
Europe that the basins of the Orinoco and the Amazon are perfectly
separate. He asserts that, having several times gone up the former of
these rivers as far as the Raudal of Tabaje, situate in the latitude
of 1 degree 4 minutes, he never saw a river flow in or out that could
be taken for the Rio Negro.
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