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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At The Distance Of Six Miles From The Island Of Piedra Raton We
Passed, First, On The East, The Mouth
Of the Rio Sipapo, called Tipapu
by the Indians; and then, on the west, the mouth of the Rio Vichada.
Near the latter are some rocks covered by the water, that form a small
cascade or raudalito. The Rio Sipapo, which Father Gili went up in
1757, and which he says is twice as broad as the Tiber, comes from a
considerable chain of mountains, which in its southern part bears the
name of the river, and joins the group of Calitamini and of Cunavami.
Next to the Peak of Duida, which rises above the mission of Esmeralda,
the Cerros of Sipapo appeared to me the most lofty of the whole
Cordillera of Parima. They form an immense wall of rocks, shooting up
abruptly from the plain, its craggy ridge of running from
south-south-east to north-north-west. I believe these crags, these
indentations, which equally occur in the sandstone of Montserrat in
Catalonia,* (* From them the name of Montserrat is derived, Monte
Serrato signifying a mountain ridged or jagged like a saw.) are owing
to blocks of granite heaped together. The Cerros de Sipapo wear a
different aspect every hour of the day. At sunrise the thick
vegetation with which these mountains are clothed is tinged with that
dark green inclining to brown, which is peculiar to a region where
trees with coriaceous leaves prevail. Broad and strong shadows are
projected on the neighbouring plain, and form a contrast with the
vivid light diffused over the ground, in the air, and on the surface
of the waters.
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