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 Exterior Circle Was Formed By The Fires
Which Are Lighted To Keep Off The Jaguars.
Such was the order of our
encampment on the banks of the Cassiquiare.
The Indians often spoke to
us of a little nocturnal animal, with a long nose, which surprises the
young parrots in their nests, and in eating makes use of its hands
like the monkeys and the maniveris, or kinkajous. They call it the
guachi; it is, no doubt, a coati, perhaps the Viverra nasua, which I
saw wild in Mexico. The missionaries gravely prohibit the natives from
eating the flesh of the guachi, to which, according to far-spread
superstitious ideas, they attribute the same stimulating qualities
which the people of the East believe to exist in the skink, and the
Americans in the flesh of the alligator.
On the 11th of May, we left the mission of San Francisco Solano at a
late hour, to make but a short day's journey. The uniform stratum of
vapours began to be divided into clouds with distinct outlines: and
there was a light east wind in the upper regions of the air. We
recognized in these signs an approaching change of the weather; and
were unwilling to go far from the mouth of the Cassiquiare, in the
hope of observing during the following night the passage of some star
over the meridian. We descried the Cano Daquiapo to the south, the
Guachaparu to the north, and a few miles further, the rapids of
Cananivacari.
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