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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Ordaz, Named Adelantado Of All The Country Which He Could
Conquer Between Brazil And The Coast Of Venezuela, Which Was Then
Called The Country Of The German Company Of Welsers (Belzares) Of
Augsburg, Began His Expedition By The Mouth Of The Maranon.
He there
saw, in the hands of the natives, "emeralds as big as a man's fist."
They were, no doubt, pieces of that saussurite jade, or compact
feldspar, which we brought home from the Orinoco, and which La
Condamine found in abundance at the mouth of the Rio Topayos.
The
Indians related to Diego de Ordaz that on going up during a certain
number of suns toward the west, he would find a large rock (pena) of
green stone; but before they reached this pretended mountain of
emerald (rocks of euphotide?) a shipwreck put an end to all farther
discovery. The Spaniards saved themselves with difficulty in two small
vessels. They hastened to get out of the mouth of the Amazon; and the
currents, which in those parts run with violence to the north-west,
led Ordaz to the coast of Paria where, in the territory of the cacique
Yuripari (Uriapari, Viapari), Sedeno had constructed the Casa fuerte
de Paria. This post being very near the mouth of the Orinoco, the
Mexican Conquistador resolved to attempt an expedition on this great
river. He sojourned first at Carao (Caroa, Carora), a large Indian
village, which appears to me to have been a little to the east of the
confluence of the Carony; he then went up the Cabruta (Cabuta,
Cabritu), and to the mouth of the Meta (Metacuyu), where he found
great difficulty in passing his boats through the Raudal of Cariven.
The Aruacas, whom Ordaz employed as guides, advised him to go up the
Meta; where, on advancing towards the west, they asserted he would
find men clothed, and gold in abundance. Ordaz pursued in preference
the navigation of the Orinoco, but the cataracts of Tabaje (perhaps
even those of the Atures) compelled him to terminate his discoveries.
It is worthy of remark that in this voyage, far anterior to that of
Orellana, and consequently the greatest which the Spaniards had then
performed on a river of the New World, the name of the Orinoco was for
the first time heard. Ordaz, the leader of the expedition, affirms
that the river, from its mouth as far as the confluence of the Meta,
is called Uriaparia, but that above this confluence it bears the name
of Orinucu. This word (formed analogously with the words Tamanacu,
Otomacu, Sinarucu) is, in fact, of the Tamanac tongue; and, as the
Tamanacs dwell south-east of Encaramada, it is natural that the
conquistadores heard the actual name of the river only on drawing near
the Rio Meta.* (* Gili volume 3 page 381. The following are the most
ancient names of the Orinoco, known to the natives near its mouth, and
which historians give us altered by the double fault of pronunciation
and orthography; Yuyapari, Yjupari, Huriaparia, Urapari, Viapari, Rio
de Paria.
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