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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He There Found Nations More Civilized Than Those Of The
Orinoco, But That Fed On The Flesh Of Mute Dogs.
Herrera was killed in
battle by an arrow poisoned with the juice of curare (yierva); and
when dying named
Alvaro de Ordaz his lieutenant, who led the remains
of the expedition (1535) to the fortress of Paria, after having lost
the few horses which had resisted a campaign of eighteen months.
Confused reports which were circulated of the wealth of the
inhabitants of the Meta, and the other tributary streams that descend
from the eastern side of the Cordilleras of New Grenada, engaged
successively Geronimo de Ortal, Nicolas Federmann, and Jorge de Espira
(George von Speier), in 1535 and 1536, to undertake expeditions by
land towards the south and south-west. From the promontory of Paria,
as far as Cabo de la Vela, little figures of molten gold had been
found in the hands of the natives, as early as the years 1498 and
1500. The principal markets for these amulets, which the women used as
ornaments, were the villages of Curiana (Coro) and Cauchieto (Near the
Rio la Hacha). The metal employed by the founders of Cauchieto came
from a mountainous country more to the south. It may be conceived that
the expeditions of Ordaz and Herrera served to increase the desire of
drawing nearer to those auriferous countries. George von Speier left
Coro (1535), and penetrated by the mountains of Merida to the banks of
the Apure and the Meta.
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