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 94 of 635 - First - Home
I Have Now Stated, As I Announced Above, The Variable Forms Which
Geographical Errors Have Assumed At Different Periods.
I have
explained what in the configuration of the soil, the course of the
rivers, the names of the tributary streams, and the multiplicity of
the portages, may have given rise to the hypothesis of an inland sea
in the centre of Guiana.
However dry discussions of this nature may
appear, they ought not to be regarded as sterile and fruitless. They
show travellers what remains to be discovered; and make known the
degree of certainty which long-repeated assertions may claim. It is
with maps, as with those tables of astronomical positions which are
contained in our ephemerides, designed for the use of navigators: the
most heterogeneous materials have been employed in their construction
during a long space of time; and, without the aid of the history of
geography, we could scarcely hope to discover at some future day on
what authority every partial statement rests.
Before I resume the thread of my narrative, it remains for me to add a
few general reflections on the auriferous lands situate between the
Amazon and the Orinoco. We have just shown that the fable of El
Dorado, like the most celebrated fables of the nations of the ancient
world, has been applied progressively to different spots. We have seen
it advance from the south-west to the north-east, from the oriental
declivity of the Andes towards the plains of Rio Branco and the
Essequibo, an identical direction with that in which the Caribs for
ages conducted their warlike and mercantile expeditions.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 94 of 635
Words from 25861 to 26130
of 174507