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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We Passed The Punta Curiquima, Which Is
An Isolated Mass Of Quartzose Granite, A Small Promontory Composed Of
Rounded Blocks.
There, on the right bank of the Orinoco, Father
Rotella founded, in the time of the Jesuits, a Mission of the Palenka
and Viriviri or Guire Indians.
But during inundations, the rock
Curiquima and the village at its foot were entirely surrounded by
water; and this serious inconvenience, together with the sufferings of
the missionaries and Indians from the innumerable quantity of
mosquitos and niguas,* led them to forsake this humid spot. (* The
chego (Pulex penetrans) which penetrates under the nails of the toe in
men and monkeys, and there deposits its eggs.) It is now entirely
deserted, while opposite to it, on the right bank of the river, the
little mountains of Coruato are the retreat of wandering Indians,
expelled either from the Missions, or from tribes that are not subject
to the government of the monks.
Struck with the extreme breadth of the Orinoco, between the mouth of
the Apure and the rock Curiquima, I ascertained it by means of a base
measured twice on the western beach. The bed of the Orinoco, at low
water, was 1906 toises broad; but this breadth increases to 5517
toises, when, in the rainy season, the rock Curiquima, and the farm of
Capuchino near the hill of Pocopocori, become islands. The swelling of
the Orinoco is augmented by the impulse of the waters of the Apure,
which, far from forming, like other rivers, an acute angle with the
upper part of that into which it flows, meets it at right angles.
We first proceeded south-west, as far as the shore inhabited by the
Guaricoto Indians on the left bank of the Orinoco, and then we
advanced straight toward the south. The river is so broad that the
mountains of Encaramada appear to rise from the water, as if seen
above the horizon of the sea. They form a continued chain from east to
west. These mountains are composed of enormous blocks of granite,
cleft and piled one upon another. Their division into blocks is the
effect of decomposition. What contributes above all to embellish the
scene at Encaramada is the luxuriance of vegetation that covers the
sides of the rocks, leaving bare only their rounded summits. They look
like ancient ruins rising in the midst of a forest. The mountain
immediately at the back of the Mission, the Tepupano* of the Tamanac
Indians is terminated by three enormous granitic cylinders, two of
which are inclined, while the third, though worn at its base, and more
than eighty feet high, has preserved a vertical position. (*
Tepu-pano, place of stones, in which we recognize tepu stone, rock, as
in tepu-iri, mountain. We here perceive that Lesgian Oigour-Tartar
root tep, stone (found in America among the Americans, in teptl; among
the Caribs, in tebou; among the Tamanacs, in tepuiri); a striking
analogy between the languages of Caucasus and Upper Asia and those of
the banks of the Orinoco.) This rock, which calls to mind the form of
the Schnarcher in the Hartz mountains, or that of the Organs of
Actopan in Mexico,* composed formerly a part of the rounded summit of
the mountain. (* In Captain Tuckey's Voyage on the river Congo, we
find represented a granitic rock, Taddi Enzazi, which bears a striking
resemblance to the mountain of Encaramada.) In every climate,
unstratified granite separates by decomposition into blocks of
prismatic, cylindric, or columnar figures.
Opposite the shore of the Guaricotos, we drew near another heap of
rocks, which is very low, and three or four toises long. It rises in
the midst of the plain, and has less resemblance to a tumulus than to
those masses of granitic stone, which in North Holland and Germany
bear the name of hunenbette, beds (or tombs) of heroes. The shore, at
this part of the Orinoco, is no longer of pure and quartzose sand; but
is composed of clay and spangles of mica, deposited in very thin
strata, and generally at an inclination of forty or fifty degrees. It
looks like decomposed mica-slate. This change in the geological
configuration of the shore extends far beyond the mouth of the Apure.
We had begun to observe it in this latter river as far off as
Algodonal and the Cano del Manati. The spangles of mica come, no
doubt, from the granite mountains of Curiquima and Encaramada; since
further north-east we find only quartzose sand, sandstone, compact
limestone, and gypsum. Alluvial earth carried successively from south
to north need not surprise us in the Orinoco; but to what shall we
attribute the same phenomenon in the bed of the Apure, seven leagues
west of its mouth? In the present state of things, notwithstanding the
swellings of the Orinoco, the waters of the Apure never retrograde so
far; and, to explain this phenomenon, we are forced to admit that the
micaceous strata were deposited at a time when the whole of the very
low country lying between Caycara, Algodonal, and the mountains of
Encaramada, formed the basin of an inland lake.
We stopped some time at the port of Encaramada, which is a sort of
embarcadero, a place where boats assemble. A rock of forty or fifty
feet high forms the shore. It is composed of blocks of granite, heaped
one upon another, as at the Schneeberg in Franconia, and in almost all
the granitic mountains of Europe. Some of these detached masses have a
spheroidal form; they are not balls with concentric layers, but merely
rounded blocks, nuclei separated from their envelopes by the effect of
decomposition. This granite is of a greyish lead-colour, often black,
as if covered with oxide of manganese; but this colour does not
penetrate one fifth of a line into the rock, which is of a reddish
white colour within, coarse-grained, and destitute of hornblende.
The Indian names of the Mission of San Luis del Encaramada, are Guaja
and Caramana.* (* All the Missions of South America have names
composed of two words, the first of which is necessarily the name of a
saint, the patron of the church, and the second an Indian name, that
of the nation, or the spot where the establishment is placed.
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