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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Those Waters Probably Formed A Lake, The
Northern Dike Preventing Their Running Out:
But, when this dike was
broken down, the savannah that surrounds the mission appeared at first
like a very low island, bounded by two arms of the same river.
It may
be supposed that the Orinoco continued for some time to fill the
ravine, which we shall call the valley of Keri, because it contains
the rock of that name; and that the waters retired wholly toward the
eastern chain, leaving dry the western arm of the river, only as they
gradually diminished. Coloured stripes, which no doubt owe their black
tint to the oxides of iron and manganese, seem to justify this
conjecture. They are found on all the stones, far from the mission,
and indicate the former abode of the waters. In going up the river,
all merchandise is discharged at the confluence of the Rio Toparo and
the Orinoco. The boats are entrusted to the natives, who have so
perfect a knowledge of the raudal, that they have a particular name
for every step. They conduct the boats as far as the mouth of the
Cameji, where the danger is considered as past.
I will here describe the cataract of Quituna or Maypures as it
appeared at the two periods when I examined it, in going down and up
the river. It is formed, like that of Mapara or Atures, by an
archipelago of islands, which, to the length of three thousand toises,
fill the bed of the river, and by rocky dikes, which join the islands
together.
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