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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These Last, Situated Between Five And Six Degrees Of North Latitude,
And A Hundred Leagues West Of The Cordilleras Of New Grenada, In The
Meridian Of Porto Cabello, Are Only Twelve Leagues Distant From Each
Other.
It is surprising that their existence was not known to
D'Anville, who, in his fine map of South America, marks the
inconsiderable cascades of Marimara and San Borja, by the names of the
rapids of Carichana and Tabaje.
The Great Cataracts divide the
Christian establishments of Spanish Guiana into two unequal parts.
Those situated between the Raudal of Atures and the mouth of the river
are called the Missions of the Lower Orinoco; the Missions of the
Upper Orinoco comprehend the villages between the Raudal of Maypures
and the mountains of Duida. The course of the Lower Orinoco, if we
estimate the sinuosities at one-third of the distance in a direct
line, is two hundred and sixty nautical leagues: the course of the
Upper Orinoco, supposing its sources to be three degrees east of
Duida, includes one hundred and sixty-seven leagues.
Beyond the Great Cataracts an unknown land begins. The country is
partly mountainous and partly flat, receiving at once the confluents
of the Amazon and the Orinoco. From the facility of its communications
with the Rio Negro and Grand Para, it appears to belong still more to
Brazil than to the Spanish colonies. None of the missionaries who have
described the Orinoco before me, neither Father Gumilla, Gili, nor
Caulin, had passed the Raudal of Maypures. We found but three
Christian establishments above the Great Cataracts, along the shores
of the Orinoco, in an extent of more than a hundred leagues; and these
three establishments contained scarcely six or eight white persons,
that is to say, persons of European race. We cannot be surprised that
such a desert region should have been at all times the land of fable
and fairy visions. There, according to the statements of certain
missionaries, are found races of men, some of whom have an eye in the
centre of the forehead, whilst others have dogs' heads, and mouths
below their stomachs. There they pretend to have found all that the
ancients relate of the Garamantes, of the Arimaspes, and of the
Hyperboreans. It would be an error to suppose that these simple and
often rustic missionaries had themselves invented all these
exaggerated fictions; they derived them in great part from the
recitals of the Indians. A fondness for narration prevails in the
Missions, as it does at sea, in the East, and in every place where the
mind seeks amusement. A missionary, from his vocation, is not inclined
to scepticism; he imprints on his memory what the natives have so
often repeated to him; and, when returned to Europe, and restored to
the civilized world, he finds a pleasure in creating astonishment by a
recital of facts which he thinks he has collected, and by an animated
description of remote things. These stories, which the Spanish
colonists call tales of travellers and of monks (cuentos de viageros y
frailes), increase in improbability in proportion as you increase your
distance from the forests of the Orinoco, and approach the coasts
inhabited by the whites. When, at Cumana, Nueva Barcelona, and other
seaports which have frequent communication with the Missions, you
betray any sign of incredulity, you are reduced to silence by these
few words: The fathers have seen it, but far above the Great Cataracts
(mas arriba de los Raudales).
On the 15th of April, we left the island of Panumana at four in the
morning, two hours before sunrise. The sky was in great part obscured,
and lightnings flashed over dense clouds at more than forty degrees of
elevation. We were surprised at not hearing thunder; but possibly this
was owing to the prodigious height of the storm? It appears to us,
that in Europe the electric flashes without thunder, vaguely called
heat-lightning, are seen generally nearer the horizon. Under a cloudy
sky, that sent back the radiant caloric of the soil, the heat was
stifling; not a breath of wind agitated the foliage of the trees. The
jaguars, as usual, had crossed the arm of the Orinoco by which we were
separated from the shore, and we heard their cries extremely near.
During the night the Indians had advised us to quit our station in the
open air, and retire to a deserted hut belonging to the conucos of the
inhabitants of Atures. They had taken care to barricade the opening
with planks, a precaution which seemed to us superfluous; but near the
Cataracts tigers are very numerous, and two years before, in these
very conucos of Panumana, an Indian returning to his hut, towards the
close of the rainy season, found a tigress settled in it with her two
young. These animals had inhabited the dwelling for several months;
they were dislodged from it with difficulty, and it was only after an
obstinate combat that the former master regained possession of his
dwelling. The jaguars are fond of retiring to deserted ruins, and I
believe it is more prudent in general for a solitary traveller to
encamp in the open air, between two fires, than to seek shelter in
uninhabited huts.
On quitting the island of Panumana, we perceived on the western bank
of the river the fires of an encampment of Guahibo savages. The
missionary who accompanied us caused a few musket-shots to be fired in
the air, which he said would intimidate them, and shew that we were in
a state to defend ourselves. The savages most likely had no canoes,
and were not desirous of troubling us in the middle of the river. We
passed at sunrise the mouth of the Rio Anaveni, which descends from
the eastern mountains. On its banks, now deserted, Father Olmos had
established, in the time of the Jesuits, a small village of Japuins or
Jaruros. The heat was so excessive that we rested a long time in a
woody spot, to fish with a hook and line, and it was not without some
trouble that we carried away all the fish we had caught.
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