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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Solano, Who Was The Geographical Engineer Of
This Expedition, Advanced In 1756 As Far As The Mouth Of The Guaviare,
After Having Passed The Great Cataracts.
He found that, to continue to
go up the Orinoco, he must direct his course towards the east; and
That the river received, at the point of its great inflection, in
latitude 4 degrees 4 minutes, the waters of the Guaviare, which two
miles higher had received those of the Atabapo. Interested in
approaching the Portuguese possessions as near as possible, Solano
resolved to proceed onward to the south. At the confluence of the
Atabapo and the Guaviare he found an Indian settlement of the warlike
nation of the Guaypunaves. He gained their favour by presents, and
with their aid founded the mission of San Fernando, to which he gave
the appellation of villa, or town.
To make known the political importance of this Mission, we must
recollect what was at that period the balance of power between the
petty Indian tribes of Guiana. The banks of the Lower Orinoco had been
long ensanguined by the obstinate struggle between two powerful
nations, the Cabres and the Caribs. The latter, whose principal abode
since the close of the seventeenth century has been between the
sources of the Carony, the Essequibo, the Orinoco, and the Rio Parima,
once not only held sway as far as the Great Cataracts, but made
incursions also into the Upper Orinoco, employing portages between the
Paruspa* (* The Rio Paruspa falls into the Rio Paragua, and the latter
into the Rio Carony, which is one of the tributary streams of the
Lower Orinoco. There is also an ancient portage of the Caribs between
the Paruspa and the Rio Chavaro, which flows into the Rio Caura above
the mouth of the Erevato. In going up the Erevato you reach the
savannahs that are traversed by the Rio Manipiare above the tributary
streams of the Ventuari. The Caribs in their distant excursions
sometimes passed from the Rio Caura to the Ventuari, thence to the
Padamo, and then by the Upper Orinoco to the Atacavi, which, westward
of Manuteso, takes the name of the Atabapo.) and the Caura, the
Erevato and the Ventuari, the Conorichite and the Atacavi. None knew
better than the Caribs the intertwinings of the rivers, the proximity
of the tributary streams, and the roads by which distances might be
diminished. The Caribs had vanquished and almost exterminated the
Cabres. Having made themselves masters of the Lower Orinoco, they met
with resistance from the Guaypunaves, who had founded their dominion
on the Upper Orinoco; and who, together with the Cabres, the
Manitivitanos, and the Parenis, are the greatest cannibals of these
countries. They originally inhabited the banks of the great river
Inirida, at its confluence with the Chamochiquini, and the hilly
country of Mabicore. About the year 1744, their chief, or as the
natives call him, their king (apoto), was named Macapu. He was a man
no less distinguished by his intelligence than his valour; had led a
part of the nation to the banks of the Atabapo; and when the Jesuit
Roman made his memorable expedition from the Orinoco to the Rio Negro,
Macapu suffered that missionary to take with him some families of the
Guaypunaves to settle them at Uruana, and near the cataract of
Maypures.
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