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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A Range Of Shoals, That Crosses
Almost The Whole River, Bears The Name Of The Raudal De Marimara.
We
passed it without difficulty by a narrow channel, in which the water
seems to boil up as it
Issues out impetuously* (* These places are
called chorreros in the Spanish colonies.) below the Piedra de
Marimara, a compact mass of granite eighty feet high, and three
hundred feet in circumference, without fissures, or any trace of
stratification. The river penetrates far into the land, and forms
spacious bays in the rocks. One of these bays, inclosed between two
promontories destitute of vegetation, is called the Port of
Carichana.* (* Piedra y puerto de Carichana.) The spot has a very wild
aspect. In the evening the rocky coasts project their vast shadows
over the surface of the river. The waters appear black from reflecting
the image of these granitic masses, which, in the colour of their
external surface, sometimes resemble coal, and sometimes lead-ore. We
passed the night in the small village of Carichana, where we were
received at the priest's house, or convento. It was nearly a fortnight
since we had slept under a roof.
To avoid the effects of the inundations, often so fatal to health, the
Mission of Carichana has been established at three quarters of a
league from the river. The Indians in this Mission are of the nation
of the Salives, and they have a disagreeable and nasal pronunciation.
Their language, of which the Jesuit Anisson has composed a grammar
still in manuscript, is, with the Caribbean, the Tamanac, the Maypure,
the Ottomac, the Guahive, and the Jaruro, one of the mother-tongues
most general on the Orinoco.
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