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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This Was Following The System Which The Incas, Or
King-Priests Of Peru Had Employed For Ages, In Order To
Humanize the
barbarous nations of the Upper Maranon, and maintain them under their
domination; a system somewhat more reasonable than
That of making the
natives of America speak Latin, as was gravely proposed in a
provincial concilio at Mexico.
We were told that the Indians of the Cassiquiare and the Rio Negro are
preferred on the Lower Orinoco, and especially at Angostura, to the
inhabitants of the other missions, on account of their intelligence
and activity. Those of Mandavaca are celebrated among the tribes of
their own race for the preparation of the curare poison, which does
not yield in strength to the curare of Esmeralda. Unhappily the
natives devote themselves to this employment more than to agriculture.
Yet the soil on the banks of the Cassiquiare is excellent. We find
there a granitic sand, of a blackish-brown colour, which is covered in
the forests with thick layers of rich earth, and on the banks of the
river with clay almost impermeable to water. The soil of the
Cassiquiare appears more fertile than that of the valley of the Rio
Negro, where maize does not prosper. Rice, beans, cotton, sugar, and
indigo yield rich harvests, wherever their cultivation has been
tried.* (* M. Bonpland found at Mandavaca, in the huts of the natives,
a plant with tuberous roots, exactly like cassava (yucca). It is
called cumapana, and is cooked by being baked on the ashes.
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