Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
- Page 391 of 777 - First - Home
Long Buffeted
By The Rapids, The Whirlpools, And The Contrary Currents, They Pass
Through The Narrowest Channels, Avoid The Shoals, And Rush Down The
Whole River, Guiding The Course Of The Boat In Its Accelerated Fall."
(Nat.
Quaest.
Lib 4 cap 2 edit. Elzev. tome 2 page 609.)
In hydrographic descriptions of countries, the vague names of
cataracts, cascades, falls, and rapids,* (* The corresponding terms in
use among the people of South America, are saltos, chorros, pongos,
cachoeiras, and raudales.) denoting those tumultuous movements of
water which arise from very different circumstances, are generally
confounded with one another. Sometimes a whole river precipitating
itself from a great height, and by one single fall, renders navigation
impossible. Such is the majestic fall of the Rio Tequendama, which I
have represented in my Views of the Cordilleras; such are the falls of
Niagara and of the Rhine, much less remarkable for their elevation,
than for the mass of water they contain. Sometimes stony dikes of
small height succeed each other at great distances, and form distinct
falls; such are the cachoeiras of the Rio Negro and the Rio Madeira,
the saltos of the Rio Cauca, and the greater part of the pongos that
are found in the Upper Maranon, from the confluence of the Chinchipe
to the village of San Borja. The highest and most formidable of these
pongos, which are descended on rafts, that of Mayasi, is however only
three feet in height. Sometimes small rocky dikes are so near each
other that they form for several miles an uninterrupted succession of
cascades and whirlpools (chorros and remolinos); these are properly
what are called rapids (raudales). Such are the yellalas, or rapids of
the River Zaire,* or Congo, which Captain Tuckey has recently made
known to us (* Voyage to explore the River Zaire, 1818, pages 152,
327, 340.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 391 of 777
Words from 105704 to 106010
of 211397