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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Wet By The Rains And Sensible Of The Least Lowering Of The
Temperature, These Delicate Animals Sent Forth Plaintive Cries, And
Attracted To The Spot Two Crocodiles, The Size And Leaden Colour Of
Which Denoted Their Great Age.
Their unexpected appearance made us
reflect on the danger we had incurred by bathing, at our first passing
by the mission of Atures, in the middle of the Raudal.
After long
waiting, the Indians at length arrived at the close of day. The
natural coffer-dam by which they had endeavoured to descend in order
to make the circuit of the island, had become impassable owing to the
shallowness of the water. The pilot sought long for a more accessible
passage in this labyrinth of rocks and islands. Happily our canoe was
not damaged and in less than half an hour our instruments, provision,
and animals, were embarked.
We pursued our course during a part of the night, to pitch our tent
again in the island of Panumana. We recognized with pleasure the spots
where we had botanized when going up the Orinoco. We examined once
more on the beach of Guachaco that small formation of sandstone, which
reposes directly on granite. Its position is the same as that of the
sandstone which Burckhardt observed at the entrance of Nubia,
superimposed on the granite of Syene. We passed, without visiting it,
the new mission of San Borga, where (as we learned with regret a few
days after) the little colony of Guahibos had fled al monte, from the
chimerical fear that we should carry them off; to sell them as poitos,
or slaves.
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