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 95 of 635 - First - Home
It May Be
Conceived That The Gold Of The Cordilleras Might Be Conveyed From Hand
To Hand, Through An Infinite
Number of tribes, as far as the shore of
Guiana; since, long before the fur-trade had attracted English,
Russian,
And American vessels to the north-west coast of America, iron
tools had been carried from New Mexico and Canada beyond the Rocky
Mountains. From an error in longitude, the traces of which we find in
all the maps of the 16th century, the auriferous mountains of Peru and
New Granada were supposed to be much nearer the mouths of the Orinoco
and the Amazon than they are in fact. Geographers have the habit of
augmenting and extending beyond measure countries that are recently
discovered. In the map of Peru, published at Verona by Paulo di
Forlani, the town of Quito is placed at the distance of 400 leagues
from the coast of the South Sea, on the meridian of Cumana; and the
Cordillera of the Andes there fills almost the whole surface of
Spanish, French, and Dutch Guiana. This erroneous opinion of the
breadth of the Andes has no doubt contributed to give so much
importance to the granitic plains that extend on their eastern side.
Unceasingly confounding the tributary streams of the Amazon with those
of the Orinoco, or (as the lieutenants of Raleigh called it, to
flatter their chief) the Rio Raleana, to the latter were attributed
all the traditions which had been collected respecting the Dorado of
Quixos, the Omaguas, and the Manoas.* (* The flight of Manco-Inca,
brother of Atahualpa, to the east of the Cordilleras, no doubt gave
rise to the tradition of the new empire of the Incas in Dorado.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 95 of 635
Words from 26131 to 26417
of 174507
