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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This Last River Is, Next To The Rio Arauca, The Most
Considerable Between The Apure And The Meta.
The Suapure, full of
little cascades, is celebrated among the Indians for the quantity of
wild honey obtained from the forests in its neighbourhood.
The
melipones there suspend their enormous hives to the branches of trees.
Father Gili, in 1766, made an excursion on the Suapure, and on the
Turiva, which falls into it. He there found tribes of the nation of
Areverians. We passed the night a little below the island Macapina.
Early on the following morning we arrived at the beach of Pararuma,
where we found an encampment of Indians similar to that we had seen at
the Boca de la Tortuga. They had assembled to search the sands, for
collecting the turtles' eggs, and extracting the oil; but they had
unfortunately made a mistake of several days. The young turtles had
come out of their shells before the Indians had formed their camp; and
consequently the crocodiles and the garzes, a species of large white
herons, availed themselves of the delay. These animals, alike fond of
the flesh of the young turtles, devour an innumerable quantity. They
fish during the night, for the tortuguillos do not come out of the
earth to gain the neighbouring river till after the evening twilight.
The zamuro vultures are too indolent to hunt after sunset. They stalk
along the shores in the daytime, and alight in the midst of the Indian
encampment to steal provisions; but they often find no other means of
satisfying their voracity than by attacking young crocodiles of seven
or eight inches long, either on land or in water of little depth.
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