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 Aspect Of The Sky, The Progress Of The Electricity, And The Shower
Of The 28th Of March, Announced The
Commencement of the rainy season;
we were still advised, however, to go from San Fernando de Apure by
San Francisco
De Capanaparo, the Rio Sinaruco, and the Hato de San
Antonio, to the village of the Ottomacs, recently founded near the
banks of the Meta, and to embark on the Orinoco a little above
Carichana. This way by land lies across an unhealthy and feverish
country. An old farmer named Francisco Sanchez obligingly offered to
conduct us. His dress denoted the great simplicity of manners
prevailing in those distant countries. He had acquired a fortune of
more than 100,000 piastres, and yet he mounted on horseback with his
feet bare, and wearing large silver spurs. We knew by the experience
of several weeks the dull uniformity of the vegetation of the Llanos,
and preferred the longer road, which leads by the Rio Apure to the
Orinoco. We chose one of those very large canoes called lanchas by the
Spaniards. A pilot and four Indians were sufficient to manage it. They
constructed, near the stern, in the space of a few hours, a cabin
covered with palm-leaves, sufficiently spacious to contain a table and
benches. These were made of ox-hides, strained tight, and nailed to
frames of brazil-wood. I mention these minute circumstances, to prove
that our accommodations on the Rio Apure were far different from those
to which we were afterwards reduced in the narrow boats of the
Orinoco. We loaded the canoe with provision for a month. Fowls, eggs,
plantains, cassava, and cacao, are found in abundance at San Fernando.
The good Capuchin, Fray Jose Maria de Malaga, gave us sherry wine,
oranges, and tamarinds, to make cooling beverages. We could easily
foresee that a roof constructed of palm-tree leaves would become
excessively hot on a large river, where we were almost always exposed
to the perpendicular rays of the sun. The Indians relied less on the
provision we had purchased, than on their hooks and nets. We took also
some fire-arms, which we found in general use as far as the cataracts;
but farther south the great humidity of the air prevents the
missionaries from using them. The Rio Apure abounds in fish, manatees,
and turtles, the eggs of which afford an aliment more nutritious than
agreeable to the taste. Its banks are inhabited by an innumerable
quantity of birds, among which the pauxi and the guacharaca, which may
be called the turkeys and pheasants of those countries, are found to
be the most useful. Their flesh appeared to be harder and less white
than that of the gallinaceous tribe in Europe, because they use much
more muscular exercise. We did not forget to add to our provision,
fishing-tackle, fire-arms, and a few casks of brandy, to serve as a
medium of barter with the Indians of the Orinoco.
We departed from San Fernando on the 30th of March, at four in the
afternoon. The weather was extremely hot; the thermometer rising in
the shade to 34 degrees, though the breeze blew very strongly from the
south-east. Owing to this contrary wind we could not set our sails. We
were accompanied, in the whole of this voyage on the Apure, the
Orinoco, and the Rio Negro, by the brother-in-law of the governor of
the province of Varinas, Don Nicolas Soto, who had recently arrived
from Cadiz. Desirous of visiting countries so calculated to excite the
curiosity of a European, he did not hesitate to confine himself with
us during seventy-four days in a narrow boat infested with mosquitos.
His amiable disposition and gay temper often helped to make us forget
the sufferings of a voyage which was not wholly exempt from danger. We
passed the mouth of the Apurito, and coasted the island of the same
name, formed by the Apure and the Guarico. This island is in fact only
a very low spot of ground, bordered by two great rivers, both of
which, at a little distance from each other, fall into the Orinoco,
after having formed a junction below San Fernando by the first
bifurcation of the Apure. The Isla del Apurito is twenty-two leagues
in length, and two or three leagues in breadth. It is divided by the
Cano de la Tigrera and the Cano del Manati into three parts, the two
extremes of which bear the names of Isla de Blanco and Isla de los
Garzitas. The right bank of the Apure, below the Apurito, is somewhat
better cultivated than the left bank, where the Yaruros, or Japuin
Indians, have constructed a few huts with reeds and stalks of
palm-leaves. These people, who live by hunting and fishing, are very
skilful in killing jaguars. It is they who principally carry the
skins, known in Europe by the name of tiger-skins, to the Spanish
villages. Some of these Indians have been baptized, but they never
visit the Christian churches. They are considered as savages because
they choose to remain independent. Other tribes of Yaruros live under
the rule of the missionaries, in the village of Achaguas, situated
south of the Rio Payara. The individuals of this nation, whom I had an
opportunity of seeing at the Orinoco, have a stern expression of
countenance; and some features in their physiognomy, erroneously
called Tartarian, belong to branches of the Mongol race, the eye very
long, the cheekbones high, but the nose prominent throughout its whole
length. They are taller, browner, and less thick-set than the Chayma
Indians. The missionaries praise the intellectual character of the
Yaruros, who were formerly a powerful and numerous nation on the banks
of the Orinoco, especially in the environs of Cuycara, below the mouth
of the Guarico. We passed the night at Diamante, a small
sugar-plantation formed opposite the island of the same name.
During the whole of my voyage from San Fernando to San Carlos del Rio
Negro, and thence to the town of Angostura, I noted down day by day,
either in the boat or where we disembarked at night, all that appeared
to me worthy of observation.
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