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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At The Distance Of Two Or Three Leagues From The Mission, We Find, In
These Plains Intersected By Granitic Hills, A Vegetation No Less Rich
Than Varied.
On comparing the site of Carichana with that of all the
villages above the Great Cataracts, we are surprised at the facility
with which we traverse the country, without following the banks of the
rivers, or being stopped by the thickness of the forests.
M. Bonpland
made several excursions on horseback, which furnished him with a rich
harvest of plants. I shall mention only the paraguatan, a magnificent
species of the macrocnemum, the bark of which yields a red dye;* (*
Macrocnemum tinctorium.) the guaricamo, with a poisonous root;* (*
Ityania coccidea.) the Jacaranda obtusifolia; and the serrape, or
jape* (* Dipterix odorata, Willd. or Baryosma tongo of Gaertner. The
jape furnishes Carichana with excellent timber.) of the Salive
Indians, which is the Coumarouna of Aublet, so celebrated throughout
Terra Firma for its aromatic fruit. This fruit, which at Caracas is
placed among linen, as in Europe it is in snuff, under the name of
tonca, or Tonquin bean, is regarded as poisonous. It is a false
notion, very general in the province of Cumana, that the excellent
liqueur fabricated at Martinique owes its peculiar flavour to the
jape. In the Missions it is called simaruba; a name that may occasion
serious mistakes, the true simaruba being a febrifuge species of the
Quassia genus, found in Spanish Guiana only in the valley of Rio
Caura, where the Paudacot Indians give it the name of achecchari.
I found the dip of the magnetic needle, in the great square at
Carichana, 33.7 degrees (new division). The intensity of the magnetic
action was expressed by two hundred and twenty-seven oscillations in
ten minutes of time; an increase of force that would seem to indicate
some local attraction. Yet the blocks of the granite, blackened by the
waters of the Orinoco, have no perceptible action upon the needle.
The river had risen several inches during the day on the 10th of
April; this phenomenon surprised the natives so much the more, as the
first swellings are almost imperceptible, and are usually followed in
the month of April by a fall for some days. The Orinoco was already
three feet higher than the level of the lowest waters. The natives
showed us on a granite wall the traces of the great rise of the waters
of late years. We found them to be forty-two feet high, which is
double the mean rise of the Nile. But this measure was taken in a
place where the bed of the Orinoco is singularly hemmed in by rocks,
and I could only notice the marks shown me by the natives. It may
easily be conceived that the effect and the height of the increase
differs according to the profile of the river, the nature of the banks
more or less elevated, the number of rivers flowing in that collect
the pluvial waters, and the length of ground passed over.
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