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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The First, The Atures, Is Most
Easily Passable When The Waters Are Low.
The Indians prefer crossing
the second, the Maypures, at the time of great floods.
Beyond the
Maypures and the mouth of the Cano Cameji, the Orinoco is again
unobstructed for the length of more than one hundred and sixty-seven
leagues, or nearly to its source; that is to say, as far as the
Raudalito of Guaharibos, east of the Cano Chiguire and the lofty
mountains of Yumariquin.
Having visited the basins of the two rivers Orinoco and Amazon, I was
singularly struck by the differences they display in their course of
unequal extent. The falls of the Amazon, which is nearly nine hundred
and eighty nautical leagues (twenty to a degree) in length, are pretty
near its source in the first sixth of its total length, and
five-sixths of its course are entirely free. We find the great falls
of the Orinoco on a point far more unfavourable to navigation; if not
at the half, at least much beyond the first third of its length. In
both rivers it is neither the mountains, nor the different stages of
flat lands lying over one another, whence they take their origin, that
cause the cataracts; they are produced by other mountains, other
ledges which, after a long and tranquil course, the rivers have to
pass over, precipitating themselves from step to step.
The Amazon does not pierce its way through the principal chain of the
Andes, as was affirmed at a period when it was gratuitously supposed
that, wherever mountains are divided into parallel chains, the
intermedial or central ridge must be more elevated than the others.
This great river rises (and this is a point of some importance to
geology) eastward of the western chain, which alone in this latitude
merits the denomination of the high chain of the Andes. It is formed
by the junction of the river Aguamiros with the Rio Chavinillo, which
issues from the lake Llauricocha in a longitudinal valley bounded by
the western and the intermedial chain of the Andes. To form an
accurate idea of these hydrographical relations, it must be borne in
mind that a division into three chains takes place in the colossal
group or knot of the mountains of Pasco and Huanuco. The western
chain, which is the loftiest, and takes the name of the Cordillera
Real de Nieve, directs its course (between Huary and Caxatamba,
Guamachuco and Luema, Micuipampa and Guangamarca) by the Nevados of
Viuda, Pelagatos, Moyopata, and Huaylillas, and by the Paramos of
Guamani and Guaringa, towards the town of Loxa. The intermedial chain
separates the waters of the Upper Maranon from those of the Guallaga,
and over a long space reaches only the small elevation of a thousand
toises; it enters the region of perpetual snow to the south of Huanuco
in the Cordillera of Sasaguanca. It stretches at first northward by
Huacrachuco, Chachapoyas, Moyobamba, and the Paramo of Piscoguannuna;
then it progressively lowers toward Peca, Copallin, and the Mission of
Santiago, at the eastern extremity of the province of Jaen de
Bracamoros.
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