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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Many Marauders Of The Llanos Had Settled At Guayaval,
Because The Inhabitants Of A Mission Are Exempt From The Authority Of
Secular Law.
Here, as in Australia, it cannot be expected that good
colonists will be formed before the second or third generation.
We passed the Guarico, and encamped in the savannahs south of
Guayaval. Enormous bats, no doubt of the tribe of Phyllostomas,
hovered as usual over our hammocks during a great part of the night.
Every moment they seemed to be about to fasten on our faces. Early in
the morning we pursued our way over low grounds, often inundated. In
the season of rains, a boat may be navigated, as on a lake, between
the Guarico and the Apure. We arrived on the 27th of March at the
Villa de San Fernando, the capital of the Mission of the Capuchins in
the province of Varinas. This was the termination of our journey over
the Llanos; for we passed the three months of April, May, and June on
the rivers.
CHAPTER 2.18.
SAN FERNANDO DE APURE.
INTERTWININGS AND BIFURCATIONS OF THE RIVERS APURE AND ARAUCA.
NAVIGATION ON THE RIO APURE.
Till the second half of the eighteenth century the names of the great
rivers Apure, Arauca, and Meta were scarcely known in Europe:
certainly less than they had been in the two preceding centuries, when
the valiant Felipe de Urre and the conquerors of Tocuyo traversed the
Llanos, to seek, beyond the Apure, the great legendary city of El
Dorado, and the rich country of the Omeguas, the Timbuctoo of the New
Continent.
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