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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In Other Cavities, Deeper,
But Less Spacious, The Rock Was Pierced By The Effect Of Successive
Filtrations.
We saw columns of water, eight or nine inches broad,
descending from the top of the vault, and finding an issue by clefts,
that seemed to communicate at great distances with each other.
The cascades of Europe, forming only one fall, or several falls close
to each other, can never produce such variety in the shifting
landscape. This variety is peculiar to rapids, to a succession of
small cataracts several miles in length, to rivers that force their
way across rocky dikes and accumulated blocks of granite. We had the
opportunity of viewing this extraordinary sight longer than we wished.
Our boat was to coast the eastern bank of a narrow island, and to take
us in again after a long circuit. We passed an hour and a half in vain
expectation of it. Night approached, and with it a tremendous storm.
It rained with violence. We began to fear that our frail bark had been
wrecked against the rocks, and that the Indians, conformably to their
habitual indifference for the evils of others, had returned tranquilly
to the mission. There were only three of us: we were completely wet,
and uneasy respecting the fate of our boat: it appeared far from
agreeable to pass, without sleep, a long night of the torrid zone amid
the noise of the Raudales. M. Bonpland proposed to leave me in the
island with Don Nicolas Soto, and to swim across the branches of the
river that are separated by the granitic dikes. He hoped to reach the
forest, and seek assistance at Atures from Father Zea. We dissuaded
him with difficulty from undertaking this hazardous enterprise. He
knew little of the labyrinth of small channels, into which the Orinoco
is divided. Most of them have strong whirlpools, and what passed
before our eyes while we were deliberating on our situation, proved
sufficiently that the natives had deceived us respecting the absence
of crocodiles in the cataracts. The little monkeys which we had
carried along with us for months were deposited on the point of our
island. Wet by the rains and sensible of the least lowering of the
temperature, these delicate animals sent forth plaintive cries, and
attracted to the spot two crocodiles, the size and leaden colour of
which denoted their great age. Their unexpected appearance made us
reflect on the danger we had incurred by bathing, at our first passing
by the mission of Atures, in the middle of the Raudal. After long
waiting, the Indians at length arrived at the close of day. The
natural coffer-dam by which they had endeavoured to descend in order
to make the circuit of the island, had become impassable owing to the
shallowness of the water. The pilot sought long for a more accessible
passage in this labyrinth of rocks and islands. Happily our canoe was
not damaged and in less than half an hour our instruments, provision,
and animals, were embarked.
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