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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According to information given me by the
Indians of the Pareka nation, it is considerably wider toward the
east.
The summits of Encaramada form the northernmost link of a group
of mountains which border the right bank of the Orinoco, between the
latitudes of 5 degrees and 7 degrees 30 minutes from the mouth of the
Rio Zama to that of the Cabullare. The different links into which this
group is divided are separated by little grassy plains. They do not
preserve a direction perfectly parallel to each other; for the most
northern stretch from west to east, and the most southern from
north-west to south-east. This change of direction sufficiently
explains the increase of breadth observed in the Cordillera of Parime
towards the east, between the sources of the Orinoco and of the Rio
Paruspa. On penetrating beyond the great cataracts of Atures and of
Maypures, we shall see seven principal links, those of Encaramada or
Sacuina, of Chaviripa, of Baraguan, of Carichana, of Uniama, of
Calitamini, and of Sipapo, successively appear. This sketch may serve
to give a general idea of the geological configuration of the ground.
We recognize everywhere on the globe a tendency toward regular forms,
in those mountains that appear the most irregularly grouped. Every
link appears, in a transverse section, like a distinct summit, to
those who navigate the Orinoco; but this division is merely in
appearance. The regularity in the direction and separation of the
links seems to diminish in proportion as we advance towards the east.
The mountains of Encaramada join those of Mato, which give birth to
the Rio Asiveru or Cuchivero; those of Chaviripe are prolonged by the
granite chain of the Corosal, of Amoco, and of Murcielago, towards the
sources of the Erevato and the Ventuari.
It was across these mountains, which are inhabited by Indians of
gentle character, employed in agriculture,* (* The Mapoyes, Parecas,
Javaranas, and Curacicanas, who possess fine plantations (conucos) in
the savannahs by which these forests are bounded.) that, at the time
of the expedition for settling boundaries, General Iturriaga took some
horned cattle for the supply of the new town of San Fernando de
Atabapo. The inhabitants of Encaramada then showed the Spanish
soldiers the way by the Rio Manapiari,* which falls into the Ventuari.
(* Between Encaramada and the Rio Manapiare, Don Miguel Sanchez, chief
of this little expedition, crossed the Rio Guainaima, which flows into
the Cuchivero. Sanchez died, from the fatigue of this journey, on the
borders of the Ventuari.) By descending these two rivers, the Orinoco
and the Atabapo may be reached without passing the great cataracts,
which present almost insurmountable obstacles to the conveyance of
cattle. The spirit of enterprise which had so eminently distinguished
the Castilians at the period of the discovery of America, was again
roused for a time in the middle of the eighteenth century, when
Ferdinand VI was desirous of knowing the true limits of his vast
possessions; and in the forests of Guiana, that land of fiction and
fabulous tradition, the wily Indians revived the chimerical idea of
the wealth of El Dorado, which had so much occupied the imagination of
the first conquerors.
Amidst the mountains of Encaramada, which, like most coarse-grained
granite rocks, are destitute of metallic veins, we cannot help
inquiring whence came those grains of gold which Juan Martinez* (* The
companion of Diego Ordaz.) and Raleigh profess to have seen in such
abundance in the hands of the Indians of the Orinoco. From what I
observed in that part of America, I am led to think that gold, like
tin,* is sometimes disseminated in an almost imperceptible manner in
the very mass of granite rocks, without our being able to perceive
that there is a ramification and an intertwining of small veins. (*
Thus tin is found in granite of recent formation, at Geyer; in
hyalomicte or graisen, at Zinnwald; and in syenitic porphyry, at
Altenberg, in Saxony, as well as near Naila, in the Fichtelgebirge. I
have also seen, in the Upper Palatinate, micaceous iron, and black
earthy cobalt, far from any kind of vein, disseminated in a granite
destitute of mica, as magnetic iron-sand is in volcanic rocks.) Not
long ago the Indians of Encaramada found in the Quebrada del Tigre* (*
The Tiger-ravine.) a piece of native gold two lines in diameter. It
was rounded, and appeared to have been washed along by the waters.
This discovery excited the attention of the missionaries much more
than of the natives; it was followed by no other of the same kind.
I cannot quit this first link of the mountains of Encaramada without
recalling to mind a fact that was not unknown to Father Gili, and
which was often mentioned to me during our abode in the Missions of
the Orinoco. The natives of those countries have retained the belief
that, "at the time of the great waters, when their fathers were forced
to have recourse to boats, to escape the general inundation, the waves
of the sea beat against the rocks of Encaramada." This belief is not
confined to one nation singly, the Tamanacs; it makes part of a system
of historical tradition, of which we find scattered notions among the
Maypures of the great cataracts; among the Indians of the Rio Erevato,
which runs into the Caura; and among almost all the tribes of the
Upper Orinoco. When the Tamanacs are asked how the human race survived
this great deluge, the age of water, of the Mexicans, they say, a man
and a woman saved themselves on a high mountain, called Tamanacu,
situated on the banks of the Asiveru; and casting behind them, over
their heads, the fruits of the mauritia palm-tree, they saw the seeds
contained in those fruits produce men and women, who repeopled the
earth. Thus we find in all its simplicity, among nations now in a
savage state, a tradition which the Greeks embellished with all the
charms of imagination!
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