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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Not Far From
The Right Bank Of The Guaviare, Huten Entered Macatoa, The City Of The
Guapes.
The people there were clothed, the fields appeared well
cultivated; everything denoted a degree of civilization unknown in the
Hot region of America which extends to the east of the Cordilleras.
Speier, in his expedition to the Rio Caqueta and the province of
Papamene, had probably crossed the Guaviare far above Macatoa, before
the junction of the two branches of this river, the Ariari and the
Guayavero. Huten was told that on advancing more to the south-east he
would enter the territory of the great nation of the Omaguas, the
priest-king of which was called Quareca, and which possessed numerous
herds of llamas. These traces of cultivation - these ancient
resemblances to the table-land of Quito - appear to me very remarkable.
It has already been said above that Orellana saw llamas at the
dwelling of an Indian chief on the banks of the Amazon, and that Ordaz
had heard mention made of them in the plains of Meta.
I pause where ends the domain of geography and shall not follow Huten
in the description either of that town of immense extent, which he saw
from afar; or of the battle of the Omaguas, where thirty-nine
Spaniards (the names of fourteen are recorded in the annals of the
time) fought against fifteen thousand Indians. These false reports
contributed greatly to embellish the fable of El Dorado. The name of
the town of the Omaguas is not found in the narrative of Huten; but
the Manoas, from whom Father Fritz received, in the seventeenth
century, plates of beaten gold, in his mission of Yurim-Aguas, are
neighbours of the Omaguas.
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