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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These Are The Beautiful Regions Of The *** Celebrated From
The Time Of Alexander To The ***) To Avoid Embroiling Farther A
Nomenclature Of Rivers So Arbitrarily Fixed, I Will Not Propose New
Denominations.
I shall continue, with Father Caulin and the Spanish
geographers, to call the river Esmeralda the Orinoco, or Upper
Orinoco; but I must observe that if the Orinoco, from San Fernando de
Atabapo as far as the delta which it forms opposite the island of
Trinidad, were regarded as the continuance of the Rio Guaviare, and if
that part of the Upper Orinoco between the Esmeralda and the mission
of San Fernando were considered a tributary stream, the Orinoco would
preserve, from the savannahs of San Juan de los Llanos and the eastern
declivity of the Andes to its mouth, a more uniform and natural
direction, that from south-west to north-east.
The Rio Paragua, or that part of the Orinoco east of the mouth of the
Guaviare, has clearer, more transparent, and purer water than the part
of the Orinoco below San Fernando. The waters of the Guaviare, on the
contrary, are white and turbid; they have the same taste, according to
the Indians (whose organs of sense are extremely delicate and well
practised), as the waters of the Orinoco near the Great Cataracts.
"Bring me the waters of three or four great rivers of these
countries," an old Indian of the mission of Javita said to us; "on
tasting each of them I will tell you, without fear of mistake, whence
it was taken; whether it comes from a white or black river; the
Orinoco or the Atabapo, the Paragua or the Guaviare." The great
crocodiles and porpoises (toninas) which are alike common in the Rio
Guaviare and the Lower Orinoco, are entirely wanting, as we were told,
in the Rio Paragua (or Upper Orinoco, between San Fernando and the
Esmeralda). These are very remarkable differences in the nature of the
waters, and the distribution of animals.
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