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
Study Of The Surface And The Inequalities Of The Soil Would Indeed Be
Irksome And Useless Were It Not Connected With More General
Considerations.
At the distance of six miles from the island of Piedra Raton we
passed, first, on the east, the
Mouth of the Rio Sipapo, called Tipapu
by the Indians; and then, on the west, the mouth of the Rio Vichada.
Near the latter are some rocks covered by the water, that form a small
cascade or raudalito. The Rio Sipapo, which Father Gili went up in
1757, and which he says is twice as broad as the Tiber, comes from a
considerable chain of mountains, which in its southern part bears the
name of the river, and joins the group of Calitamini and of Cunavami.
Next to the Peak of Duida, which rises above the mission of Esmeralda,
the Cerros of Sipapo appeared to me the most lofty of the whole
Cordillera of Parima. They form an immense wall of rocks, shooting up
abruptly from the plain, its craggy ridge of running from
south-south-east to north-north-west. I believe these crags, these
indentations, which equally occur in the sandstone of Montserrat in
Catalonia,* (* From them the name of Montserrat is derived, Monte
Serrato signifying a mountain ridged or jagged like a saw.) are owing
to blocks of granite heaped together. The Cerros de Sipapo wear a
different aspect every hour of the day. At sunrise the thick
vegetation with which these mountains are clothed is tinged with that
dark green inclining to brown, which is peculiar to a region where
trees with coriaceous leaves prevail. Broad and strong shadows are
projected on the neighbouring plain, and form a contrast with the
vivid light diffused over the ground, in the air, and on the surface
of the waters. But towards noon, when the sun reaches its zenith,
these strong shadows gradually disappear, and the whole group is
veiled by an aerial vapour of a much deeper azure than that of the
lower regions of the celestial vault. These vapours, circulating
around the rocky ridge, soften its outline, temper the effects of the
light, and give the landscape that aspect of calmness and repose which
in nature, as in the works of Claude Lorraine and Poussin, arises from
the harmony of forms and colours.
Cruzero, the powerful chief of the Guaypunaves, long resided behind
the mountains of Sipapo, after having quitted with his warlike horde
the plains between the Rio Inirida and the Chamochiquini. The Indians
told us that the forests which cover the Sipapo abound in the climbing
plant called vehuco de maimure. This species of liana is celebrated
among the Indians, and serves for making baskets and weaving mats. The
forests of Sipapo are altogether unknown, and there the missionaries
place the nation of the Rayas,* whose mouths are believed to be in
their navels.
(* Rays, on account of the pretended analogy with the fish of this
name, the mouth of which seems as if forced downwards below the body.
This singular legend has been spread far and wide over the earth.
Shakespeare has described Othello as recounting marvellous tales:
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