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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On Leaving The Rio Apure We Found Ourselves In A Country Presenting A
Totally Different Aspect.
An immense plain of water stretched before
us like a lake, as far as we could see.
White-topped waves rose to the
height of several feet, from the conflict of the breeze and the
current. The air resounded no longer with the piercing cries of
herons, flamingos, and spoonbills, crossing in long files from one
shore to the other. Our eyes sought in vain those waterfowls, the
habits of which vary in each tribe. All nature appeared less animated.
Scarcely could we discover in the hollows of the waves a few large
crocodiles, cutting obliquely, by the help of their long tails, the
surface of the agitated waters. The horizon was bounded by a zone of
forests, which nowhere reached so far as the bed of the river. A vast
beach, constantly parched by the heat of the sun, desert and bare as
the shores of the sea, resembled at a distance, from the effect of the
mirage, pools of stagnant water. These sandy shores, far from fixing
the limits of the river, render them uncertain, by enlarging or
contracting them alternately, according to the variable action of the
solar rays.
In these scattered features of the landscape, in this character of
solitude and of greatness, we recognize the course of the Orinoco, one
of the most majestic rivers of the New World. The water, like the
land, displays everywhere a characteristic and peculiar aspect.
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