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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How Often
Have I Been Perplexed By The Necessity Of Settling The Synonyms Of
Rivers, When I Have Sent For The Most Intelligent Natives, To
Interrogate Them, Through An Interpreter, Respecting The Number Of
Tributary Streams, The Sources Of The Rivers, And The Portages.
Three
or four languages being spoken in the same mission, it is difficult to
make the witnesses agree.
Our maps are loaded with names arbitrarily
shortened or perverted. To examine how far they may be accurate, we
must be guided by the geographical situation of the confluent rivers,
I might almost say by a certain etymological tact. The Rio Uaupe, or
Uapes of the Portuguese maps, is the Guapue of the Spanish maps, and
the Ucayari of the natives. The Anava of the old geographers is the
Anauahu of Arrowsmith, and the Uanauhau or Guanauhu of the Indians.
The desire of leaving no void in the maps, in order to give them an
appearance of accuracy, has caused rivers to be created, to which
names have been applied that have not been recognized as synonymous.
It is only lately that travellers in America, in Persia, and in the
Indies, have felt the importance of being correct in the denomination
of places. When we read the travels of Sir Walter Raleigh, it is
difficult indeed to recognise in the lake of Mrecabo, the laguna of
Maracaybo, and in the Marquis Paraco the name of Pizarro, the
destroyer of the empire of the Incas.
The great tributary streams of the Amazon are designated by the
missionaries by different names in their upper and lower course.
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