Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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In 1519 Pedrarius Davila Persuaded
The Court Of Madrid, By False Reports, That The Site Of The New Town
Of Panama Was More Healthful Than That Of Antigua, The Inhabitants
Were Compelled To Abandon The Latter Town, And The Bishopric Was
Transferred To Panama.
The Gulf of Uraba was deserted during thirteen
years, till the founder of the town of Carthagena, Pedro de
Heredia,
after having dug up the graves, or huacas, of the Rio Sinu, to collect
gold, sent his brother Alonzo, in 1532, to repeople Uraba, and
reconstruct on that spot a town under the name of San Sebastian de
Buenavista.) Other countries, discovered later, attract the attention
of the colonists: such is the natural progress of things in peopling a
vast continent. It may be hoped that on several points the people will
return to the places that were first chosen. It is difficult to
conceive why the mouth of a great river, descending from a country
rich in gold and platina, should have remained uninhabited. The
Atrato, heretofore called Rio del Darien, de San Juan or Dabayba, has
had the same fate as the Orinoco. The Indians who wander around the
delta of those rivers continue in a savage state.
We weighed anchor in the road of Zapote, on the 27th March, at
sunrise. The sea was less stormy, and the weather rather warmer,
although the fury of the wind was undiminished. We saw on the north a
succession of small cones of extraordinary form, as far as the Morro
de Tigua; they are known by the name of the Paps (tetas) of Santero,
Tolu, Rincon and Chichimar. The two latter are nearest the coast. The
Tetas de Tolu rise in the middle of the savannahs. There, from the
trunks of the Toluifera balsamum, is collected the precious balsam of
Tolu, heretofore so celebrated in the pharmacopoeias of Europe, and in
which is a profitable article of trade at Corozal, Caimito and the
town of Tocasuan. In the savannahs (altas del Tolu) oxen and mules
wander half wild. Several of those hills between Cienega de Pesquero
and the Punta del Comissario are linked two-and-two together, like
basaltic columns; it is, however, very probable that they are
calcareous, like the Tetas de Managua, south of the Havannah. In the
archipelago of San Bernardo we passed between the island of
Salamanquilla and Cape Boqueron. We had scarcely quitted the gulf of
Morosquillo when the sea became so rough that the waves frequently
washed over the deck of our little vessel. It was a fine moonlight
night. Our captain sought in vain a sheltering-place on the coast to
the north of the village of Rincon. We cast anchor at four fathoms
but, having discovered that we were lying over a reef of coral, we
preferred the open sea.
The coast has a singular configuration beyond the Morro de Tigua, the
terminatory point of the group of little mountains which rise like
islands from the plain. We found at first a marshy soil extending over
a square of eight leagues between the Bocas de Matuna and Matunilla.
These marshes are connected by the Cienega de la Cruz, with the Dique
of Mahates and the Rio Magdalena.
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