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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Towards Sunrise We Passed The Mouth Of The Rio Pacimoni, A River Which
I Mentioned When Speaking Of The Trade In Sarsaparilla, And Which (By
Means Of The Baria) Intertwines In So Remarkable A Way With The
Cababuri.
The Pacimoni rises in a hilly ground, from the confluence of
three small rivers,* not marked on the maps of the missionaries.
(*
The Rios Guajavaca, Moreje, and Cachevaynery.) Its waters are black,
but less so than those of the lake of Vasiva, which also communicates
with the Cassiquiare. Between those two tributary streams coming from
the east, lies the mouth of the Rio Idapa, the waters of which are
white. I shall not recur again to the difficulty of explaining this
coexistence of rivers differently coloured, within a small extent of
territory, but shall merely observe, that at the mouth of the
Pacimoni, and on the borders of the lake Vasiva, we were again struck
with the purity and extreme transparency of the brown waters. Ancient
Arabian travellers have observed, that the Alpine branch of the Nile,
which joins the Bahr el Abiad near Halfaja, has green waters, which
are so transparent, that the fish may be seen at the bottom of the
river.
We passed some turbulent rapids before we reached the mission of
Mandavaca. The village, which bears also the name of Quirabuena,
contains only sixty natives. The state of the Christian settlements is
in general so miserable that, in the whole course of the Cassiquiare,
on a length of fifty leagues, not two hundred inhabitants are found.
The banks of this river were indeed more peopled before the arrival of
the missionaries; the Indians have withdrawn into the woods, toward
the east; for the western plains are almost deserted.
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