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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We Have Now Examined The Prolongation Of The Sierra Parime On The
West, Towards The Source Of The Rio Negro:
It remains for us to follow
the same group in its eastern direction.
The mountains of the Upper
Orinoco, eastward of the Raudal of the Guaharibos (north latitude 1
degree 15 minutes longitude 67 degrees 38 minutes), join the chain of
Pacaraina, which divides the waters of the Carony and the Rio Branco,
and of which the micaceous schist, resplendent with silvery lustre,
figures so conspicuously in Raleigh's El Dorado. The part of that
chain containing the sources of the Orinoco has not yet been explored;
but its prolongation more to the east, between the meridian of the
military post of Guirior and the Rupunuri, a tributary of the
Essequibo, is known to me through the travels of the Spaniards Antonio
Santos and Nicolas Rodriguez, and also by the geodesic labours of two
Portuguese, Pontes and Almeida. Two portages but little frequented*
are situated between the Rio Branco and the Rio Essequibo, south of
the chain of Pacaraina; they shorten the land-road leading from the
Villa del Rio Negro to Dutch Guiana. (* The portages of Sarauru and
the lake Amucu.) On the contrary, the portage between the basin of the
Rio Branco and that of the Carony crosses the summit of the chain of
Pacaraina. On the northern slope of this chain rises the Anocapra, a
tributary of the Paraguamusi or Paravamusi; and on the southern slope,
the Araicuque, which, with the Uraricapara, forms the famous Valley of
Inundations, above the destroyed mission of Santa Rosa (latitude 3
degrees 46 minutes, longitude 65 degrees 10 minutes). The principal
Cordillera, which appears of little breadth, stretches on a length of
80 leagues, from the portage of Anocapra (longitude 65 degrees 35
minutes) to the left bank of the Rupunuri (longitude 61 degrees 50
minutes), following the parallels of 4 degrees 4 minutes and 4 degrees
12 minutes.
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