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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When We Consider The Difficulty Of
Overcoming The Force Of The Current, And Of Passing The Cataracts;
When We Reflect
On the constant employment of the muscular powers
during a navigation of two months; we are equally surprised at the
Constitutional vigour and the abstinence of the Indians of the Orinoco
and the Amazon. Amylaceous and saccharine substances, sometimes fish
and the fat of turtles' eggs, supply the place of food drawn from the
first two classes of the animal kingdom, those of quadrupeds and
birds.
We found the bed of the river, to the length of six hundred toises,
full of granite rocks. Here is what is called the Raudal de Cariven.
We passed through channels that were not five feet broad. Our canoe
was sometimes jammed between two blocks of granite. We sought to avoid
these passages, into which the waters rushed with a fearful noise; but
there is really little danger, in a canoe steered by a good Indian
pilot. When the current is too violent to be resisted the rowers leap
into the water, and fasten a rope to the point of a rock, to warp the
boat along. This manoeuvre is very tedious; and we sometimes availed
ourselves of it, to climb the rocks among which we were entangled.
They are of all dimensions, rounded, very black, glossy like lead, and
destitute of vegetation. It is an extraordinary phenomenon to see the
waters of one of the largest rivers on the globe in some sort
disappear.
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