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 Situation Of This
Farm, Being At The Point Where The Orinoco Changes Its Course (Which
Had Previously Been From South To North), And Runs From West To East,
Is Extremely Picturesque.
Granite rocks rise like islets amidst vast
meadows.
From their tops we discerned towards the north the Llanos of
Calabozo bounding the horizon. We had been so long accustomed to the
aspect of forests, that this view made a powerful impression on us.
The steppes after sunset assume a tint of greenish gray. The visual
ray being intercepted only by the rotundity of the earth, the stars
seemed to rise as from the bosom of the ocean, and the most
experienced mariner would have fancied himself placed on a projecting
cape of a rocky coast. Our host was a Frenchman who lived amidst his
numerous herds. Though he had forgotten his native language, he seemed
pleased to learn that we came from his country, which he had left
forty years before; and he wished to retain us for some days at his
farm. The small towns of Caycara and Cabruta were only a few miles
distant from the farm; but during part of the year our host was in
complete solitude. The Capuchino becomes an island by the inundations
of the Apure and the Orinoco, and the communication with the
neighbouring farms can be kept up only by means of a boat. The horned
cattle then seek the higher grounds which extend on the south toward
the chain of the mountains of Encaramada. This granitic chain is
intersected by valleys which contain magnetic sands (granulary
oxidulated iron), owing no doubt to the decomposition of some
amphibolic or chloritic strata.
On the morning of the 9th of June we met a great number of boats laden
with merchandize sailing up the Orinoco, in order to enter the Apure.
This is a commercial road much frequented between Angostura and the
port of Torunos in the province of Varinas. Our fellow-traveller, Don
Nicolas Soto, brother-in-law of the governor of Varinas, took the same
course to return to his family. At the period of the high waters,
several months are lost in contending with the currents of the
Orinoco, the Apure, and the Rio de Santo Domingo. The boatmen are
forced to carry out ropes to the trunks of trees and thus warp their
canoes up. In the great sinuosities of the river whole days are
sometimes passed without advancing more than two or three hundred
toises. Since my return to Europe the communications between the mouth
of the Orinoco and the provinces situated on the eastern slope of the
mountains of Merida, Pamplona, and Santa Fe de Bogota, have become
more active; and it may be hoped that steamboats will facilitate these
long voyages on the Lower Orinoco, the Portuguesa, the Rio Santo
Domingo, the Orivante, the Meta, and the Guaviare. Magazines of cleft
wood might be formed, as on the banks of the great rivers of the
United States, sheltering them under sheds.
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