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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One Understands
Gardening Perfectly; Another Knows How To Prepare Chiza, An
Intoxicating Beverage Extracted From The Root Of Cassava; All Appear
To Him Alike Clever And Useful.
Sometimes the desire of preserving his
wives overcomes in the Indian his inclination to christianity; but
most frequently, in his perplexity, the husband prefers submitting to
the choice of the missionary, as to a blind fatality.
The Indians, who from May to August take journeys to the east of
Esmeralda, to gather the vegetable productions of the mountains of
Yumariquin, gave us precise notions of the course of the Orinoco to
the east of the mission. This part of my itinerary may differ entirely
from the maps that preceded it. I shall begin the description of this
country with the granitic group of Duida, at the foot of which we
sojourned. This group is bounded on the west by the Rio Tamatama, and
on the east by the Rio Guapo. Between these two tributary streams of
the Orinoco, amid the morichales, or clumps of mauritia palm-trees,
which surround Esmeralda, the Rio Sodomoni flows, celebrated for the
excellence of the pine-apples that grow upon its banks. I measured, on
the 22nd of May, in the savannah at the foot of Duida, a base of four
hundred and seventy-five metres in length; the angle, under which the
summit of the mountain appeared at the distance of thirteen thousand
three hundred and twenty-seven metres, was still nine degrees. A
trigonometric measurement, made with great care, gave me for Duida
(that is, for the most elevated peak, which is south-west of the Cerro
Maraguaca) two thousand one hundred and seventy-nine metres, or one
thousand one hundred and eighteen toises, above the plain of
Esmeralda. The Cerro Duida thus yields but little in height (scarcely
eighty or one hundred toises) to the summit of St. Gothard, or the
Silla of Caracas on the shore of Venezuela. It is indeed considered as
a colossal mountain in those countries; and this celebrity gives a
precise idea of the mean height of Parima and of all the mountains of
eastern America. To the east of the Sierra Nevada de Merida, as well
as to the south-east of the Paramo de las Rosas, none of the chains
that extend in the same parallel line reach the height of the central
ridge of the Pyrenees.
The granitic summit of Duida is so nearly perpendicular that the
Indians have vainly attempted the ascent. It is a well-known fact that
mountains not remarkable for elevation are sometimes the most
inaccessible. At the beginning and end of the rainy season, small
flames, which seem to change their place, are seen on the top of
Duida. This phenomenon, the existence of which is borne out by
concurrent testimony, has caused this mountain to be improperly called
a volcano. As it stands nearly alone, it might be supposed that
lightning from time to time sets fire to the brushwood; but this
supposition loses its probability when we reflect on the extreme
difficulty with which plants are ignited in these damp climates. It
must be observed also that these flames are said to appear often where
the rock seems scarcely covered with turf, and that the same igneous
phenomena are visible, on days entirely exempt from storms, on the
summit of Guaraco or Murcielago, a hill opposite the mouth of the Rio
Tamatama, on the southern bank of the Orinoco. This hill is scarcely
elevated one hundred toises above the neighbouring plains. If the
statements of the natives be correct, it is probable that some
subterraneous cause produces these flames on the Duida and the
Guaraco; for they never appear on the lofty neighbouring mountains of
Jao and Maraguaca, so often wrapped in electric storms. The granite of
the Cerro Duida is full of veins, partly open, and partly filled with
crystals of quartz and pyrites. Gaseous and inflammable emanations,
either of hydrogen or of naphtha, may pass through these veins. Of
this the mountains of Caramania, of Hindookho, and of Himalaya,
furnish frequent examples. We saw the appearance of flames in many
parts of eastern America subject to earthquakes, even from secondary
rocks, as at Cuchivero, near Cumanacoa. The fire shows itself when the
ground, strongly heated by the sun, receives the first rains; or when,
after violent showers, the earth begins to dry. The first cause of
these igneous phenomena lies at immense depths below the secondary
rocks, in the primitive formations: the rains and the decomposition of
atmospheric water act only a secondary part. The hottest springs of
the globe issue immediately from granite. Petroleum gushes from
mica-schist; and frightful detonations are heard at Encaramada,
between the rivers Arauca and Cuchivero, in the midst of the granitic
soil of the Orinoco and the Sierra Parima. Here, as everywhere else on
the globe, the focus of volcanoes is in the most ancient soils; and it
appears that an intimate connection exists between the great phenomena
that heave up and liquify the crust of our planet, and those igneous
meteors which are seen from time to time on its surface, and which
from their littleness we are tempted to attribute solely to the
influence of the atmosphere.
Duida, though lower than the height assigned to it by popular belief,
is however the most prominent point of the whole group of mountains
that separate the basin of the Lower Orinoco from that of the Amazon.
These mountains lower still more rapidly on the north-east, toward the
Purunama, than on the east, toward the Padamo and the Rio Ocamo. In
the former direction the most elevated summits next to Duida are
Cuneva, at the sources of the Rio Paru (one of the tributary streams
of the Ventuari), Sipapo, Calitamini, which forms one group with
Cunavami and the peak of Umiana. East of Duida, on the right bank of
the Orinoco, Maravaca, or Sierra Maraguaca, is distinguished by its
elevation, between the Rio Caurimoni and the Padamo; and on the left
bank of the Orinoco rise the mountains of Guanaja and Yumariquin,
between the Rios Amaguaca and Gehette.
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