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 Latter Live, Jointly With A Tribe Of
The Macos, In The Savannahs That Are By The Padamo.
They are so
numerous, that they have even given their name to this tributary
stream of the Orinoco.); the Caribbee prevails on the Lower Orinoco;
the Ottomac, near the confluence of the Apure, at the Great Cataracts;
and the Maravitan, on the banks of the Rio Negro.
These are the five
or six languages most generally spoken. We were surprised to find at
Esmeralda many zambos, mulattos, and copper-coloured people, who
called themselves Spaniards (Espanoles) and who fancy they are white,
because they are not so red as the Indians. These people live in the
most absolute misery; they have for the most part been sent hither in
banishment (desterrados). Solano, in his haste to found colonies in
the interior of the country, in order to guard its entrance against
the Portuguese, assembled in the Llanos, and as far as the island of
Margareta, vagabonds and malefactors, whom justice had vainly pursued,
and made them go up the Orinoco to join the unhappy Indians who had
been carried off from the woods. A mineralogical error gave celebrity
to Esmeralda. The granites of Duida and Maraguaca contain in open
veins fine rock-crystals, some of them of great transparency, others
coloured by chlorite or blended with actonite; these were mistaken for
diamonds and emeralds.
So near the sources of the Orinoco we heard of nothing in these
mountains but the proximity of El Dorado, the lake Parima, and the
ruins of the great city of Manoa.
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