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 Aspect Of The Sky, The Progress Of The Electricity, And The Shower
Of The 28th Of March, Announced The
Commencement of the rainy season;
we were still advised, however, to go from San Fernando de Apure by
San Francisco
De Capanaparo, the Rio Sinaruco, and the Hato de San
Antonio, to the village of the Ottomacs, recently founded near the
banks of the Meta, and to embark on the Orinoco a little above
Carichana. This way by land lies across an unhealthy and feverish
country. An old farmer named Francisco Sanchez obligingly offered to
conduct us. His dress denoted the great simplicity of manners
prevailing in those distant countries. He had acquired a fortune of
more than 100,000 piastres, and yet he mounted on horseback with his
feet bare, and wearing large silver spurs. We knew by the experience
of several weeks the dull uniformity of the vegetation of the Llanos,
and preferred the longer road, which leads by the Rio Apure to the
Orinoco. We chose one of those very large canoes called lanchas by the
Spaniards. A pilot and four Indians were sufficient to manage it. They
constructed, near the stern, in the space of a few hours, a cabin
covered with palm-leaves, sufficiently spacious to contain a table and
benches. These were made of ox-hides, strained tight, and nailed to
frames of brazil-wood. I mention these minute circumstances, to prove
that our accommodations on the Rio Apure were far different from those
to which we were afterwards reduced in the narrow boats of the
Orinoco.
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