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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Our First Resting-Place Above Vasiva Was Easily Arranged.
We found a
little nook of dry ground, free from shrubs, to the south of the Cano
Curamuni, in
A spot where we saw some capuchin monkeys.* (* Simia
chiropotes.) They were recognizable by their black beards and their
gloomy and sullen air, and were walking slowly on the horizontal
branches of a genipa. During the five following nights our passage was
the more troublesome in proportion as we approached the bifurcation of
the Orinoco. The luxuriance of the vegetation increases in a manner of
which it is difficult even for those acquainted with the aspect of the
forests between the tropics, to form an idea. There is no longer a
bank: a palisade of tufted trees forms the margin of the river. You
see a canal two hundred toises broad, bordered by two enormous walls,
clothed with lianas and foliage. We often tried to land, but without
success. Towards sunset we sailed along for an hour seeking to
discover, not an opening (since none exists), but a spot less wooded,
where our Indians by means of the hatchet and manual labour, could
clear space enough for a resting-place for twelve or thirteen persons.
It was impossible to pass the night in the canoe; the mosquitos, which
tormented us during the day, accumulated toward evening beneath the
toldo covered with palm-leaves, which served to shelter us from the
rain. Our hands and faces had never before been so much swelled.
Father Zea, who had till then boasted of having in his missions of the
cataracts the largest and fiercest (las mas feroces) mosquitos, at
length gradually acknowledged that the sting of the insects of the
Cassiquiare was the most painful he had ever felt.
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