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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In
Our Days A Lump Of Gold Has Been Found In A Ravine Near The Mission Of
Encaramada, And We
Must not be surprised if, since Europeans settled
in these wild spots, we hear less of the plates of gold,
Gold-dust,
and amulets of jade-stone, which could heretofore be obtained from the
Caribs and other wandering nations by barter. The precious metals,
never very abundant on the banks of the Orinoco, the Rio Negro, and
the Amazon, disappeared almost entirely when the system of the
missions caused the distant communications between the natives to
cease.
The banks of the Upper Guainia in general abound much less in
fishing-birds than those of Cassiquiare, the Meta, and the Arauca,
where ornithologists would find sufficient to enrich immensely the
collections of Europe. This scarcity of animals arises, no doubt, from
the want of shoals and flat shores, as well as from the quality of the
black waters, which (on account of their very purity) furnish less
aliment to aquatic insects and fish. However, the Indians of these
countries, during two periods of the year, feed on birds of passage,
which repose in their long migrations on the waters of the Rio Negro.
When the Orinoco begins to swell* after the vernal equinox, an
innumerable quantity of ducks (patos careteros) remove from the eighth
to the third degree of north latitude, to the first and fourth degree
of south latitude, towards the south-south-east. (* The swellings of
the Nile take place much later than those of the Orinoco; after the
summer solstice, below Syene; and at Cairo in the beginning of July.
The Nile begins to sink near that city generally about the 15th of
October, and continues sinking till the 20th of May.) These animals
then abandon the valley of the Orinoco, no doubt because the
increasing depth of waters, and the inundations of the shores, prevent
them from catching fish, insects, and aquatic worms.
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