Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
- Page 33 of 635 - First - Home
The
Savannahs To The East And South Are Almost Uninhabited; We Find There
Only The Solitary Missions Of Belem, Tumuremo, Tupuquen, Puedpa, And
Santa Clara.
It were to be wished that the spots preferred for
cultivation were distant from the rivers where the land is higher and
the air more favourable to health.
The Rio Carony, the waters of
which, of an admirable clearness, are not well stocked with fish, is
free from shoals from the Villa de Barceloneta, a little above the
confluence of the Paragua, as far as the village of Guri. Farther
north it winds between innumerable islands and rocks; and only the
small boats of the Caribs venture to navigate amid these raudales, or
rapids of the Carony. Happily the river is often divided into several
branches; and consequently that can be chosen which, according to the
height of the waters, presents the fewest whirlpools and shoals. The
great fall, celebrated for the picturesque beauty of its situation, is
a little above the village of Aguacaqua, or Carony, which in my time
had a population of seven hundred Indians. This cascade is said to be
from fifteen to twenty feet high; but the bar does not cross the whole
bed of the river, which is more than three hundred feet broad. When
the population is more extended toward the east, it will avail itself
of the course of the small rivers Imataca and Aquire, the navigation
of which is pretty free from danger. The monks, who like to keep
themselves isolated, in order to withdraw from the eye of the secular
power, have been hitherto unwilling to settle on the banks of the
Orinoco.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 33 of 635
Words from 8695 to 8972
of 174507
