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 Indians Of San
Fernando Affirm That The Orinoco Rises From Two Rivers, The Guaviare
And The Rio Paragua.
They give this latter name to the Upper Orinoco,
from San Fernando and Santa Barbara to beyond the Esmeralda, and they
say that the Cassiquiare is not an arm of the Orinoco, but of the Rio
Paragua.
It matters but little whether or not the name of Orinoco be
given to the Rio Paragua, provided we trace the course of these rivers
as it is in nature, and do not separate by a chain of mountains, (as
was done previously to my travels,) rivers that communicate together,
and form one system. When we would give the name of a large river to
one of the two branches by which it is formed, it should be applied to
that branch which furnishes most water. Now, at the two seasons of the
year when I saw the Guaviare and the Upper Orinoco or Rio Paragua
(between the Esmeralda and San Fernando), it appeared to me that the
latter was not so large as the Guaviare. Similar doubts have been
entertained by geographers respecting the junction of the Upper
Mississippi with the Missouri and the Ohio, the junction of the
Maranon with the Guallaga and the Ucayale, and the junction of the
Indus with the Chunab (Hydaspes of Cashmere) and the Gurra, or
Sutlej.* (* The Hydaspes is properly a tributary stream of the Chunab
or Acesines. The Sutlej or Hysudrus forms, together with the Beyah or
*** Gurra.
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