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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The Third, Or Easternmost Chain, Skirts The Right Bank Of
The Rio Guallaga, And Loses Itself In The Seventh Degree
Of latitude.
So long as the Amazon flows from south to north in the longitudinal
valley, between two chains of
Unequal height (that is, from the farms
of Quivilla and Guancaybamba, where the river is crossed on wooden
bridges, as far as the confluence of the Rio Chinchipe), there are
neither bars, nor any obstacle whatever to the navigation of boats.
The falls of water begin only where the Amazon turns toward the east,
crossing the intermedial chain of the Andes, which widens considerably
toward the north. It meets with the first rocks of red sandstone, or
ancient conglomerate, between Tambillo and the Pongo of Rentema (near
which I measured the breadth, depth, and swiftness of the waters), and
it leaves the rocks of red sandstone east of the famous strait of
Manseriche, near the Pongo of Tayuchuc, where the hills rise no higher
than forty or fifty toises above the level of its waters. The river
does not reach the most easterly chain, which bounds the Pampas del
Sacramento. From the hills of Tayuchuc as far as Grand Para, during a
course of more than seven hundred and fifty leagues, the navigation is
free from obstacles. It results from this rapid sketch, that, if the
Maranon had not to pass over the hilly country between Santiago and
Tomependa (which belongs to the central chain of the Andes) it would
be navigable from its mouth as far as Pumpo, near Piscobamba in the
province of Conchucos, forty-three leagues north of its source.
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