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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It Is An
Unquestionable Fact That At Carichana, At San Borja, At Atures, And At
Maypures, Wherever The River Has
Forced its way through the mountains,
you see at a hundred, sometimes at a hundred and thirty feet, above
the
Highest present swell of the river, black bands and erosions, that
indicate the ancient levels of the waters. Is then this river, which
appears to us so grand and so majestic, only the feeble remains of
those immense currents of fresh water which heretofore traversed the
country at the east of the Andes, like arms of inland seas? What must
have been the state of those low countries of Guiana that now undergo
the effects of annual inundations? What immense numbers of crocodiles,
manatees, and boas must have inhabited these vast spaces of land,
converted alternately into marshes of stagnant water, and into barren
and fissured plains! The more peaceful world which we inhabit has then
succeeded to a world of tumult. The bones of mastodons and American
elephants are found dispersed on the table-lands of the Andes. The
megatherium inhabited the plains of Uruguay. On digging deep into the
ground, in high valleys, where neither palm-trees nor arborescent
ferns can grow, strata of coal are discovered, that still show
vestiges of gigantic monocotyledonous plants.
There was a remote period then, in which the classes of plants were
otherwise distributed, when the animals were larger, and the rivers
broader and of greater depth. There end those records of nature, that
it is in our power to consult. We are ignorant whether the human race,
which at the time of the discovery of America scarcely formed a few
feeble tribes on the east of the Cordilleras, had already descended
into the plains; or whether the ancient tradition of the great waters,
which is found among the nations of the Orinoco, the Erevato, and the
Caura, belong to other climates, whence it has been propagated to this
part of the New Continent.
On the 11th of April, we left Carichana at two in the afternoon, and
found the course of the river more and more encumbered by blocks of
granite rocks. We passed on the west the Cano Orupe, and then the
great rock known by the name of Piedra del Tigre. The river is there
so deep, that no bottom can be found with a line of twenty-two
fathoms. Towards evening the weather became cloudy and gloomy. The
proximity of the storm was marked by squalls alternating with dead
calms. The rain was violent, and the roof of foliage, under which we
lay, afforded but little shelter. Happily these showers drove away the
mosquitos, at least for some time. We found ourselves before the
cataract of Cariven, and the impulse of the waters was so strong, that
we had great difficulty in gaining the land. We were continually
driven back to the middle of the current. At length two Salive
Indians, excellent swimmers, leaped into the water, and having drawn
the boat to shore by means of a rope, made it fast to the Piedra de
Carichana Vieja, a shelf of bare rock, on which we passed the night.
The thunder continued to roll during a part of the night; the swell of
the river became considerable; and we were several times afraid that
our frail bark would be driven from the shore by the impetuosity of
the waves.
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