Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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This Effect Is More Especially
Perceptible At Sunset.
During the day the shores of the rivers,
covered with white sand, reflect the heat in an insupportable degree,
even more than the yellowish brown clayey grounds of Calabozo and
Tisnao.
On the 28th of March I was on the shore at sunrise to measure the
breadth of the Apure, which is two hundred and six toises. The thunder
rolled in all directions around. It was the first storm and the first
rain of the season. The river was swelled by the easterly wind; but it
soon became calm, and then some great cetacea, much resembling the
porpoises of our seas, began to play in long files on the surface of
the water. The slow and indolent crocodiles seem to dread the
neighbourhood of these animals, so noisy and impetuous in their
evolutions, for we saw them dive whenever they approached. It is a
very extraordinary phenomenon to find cetacea at such a distance from
the coast. The Spaniards of the Missions designate them, as they do
the porpoises of the ocean, by the name of toninas. The Tamanacs call
them orinucna. They are three or four feet long; and bending their
back, and pressing with their tail on the inferior strata of the
water, they expose to view a part of the back and of the dorsal fin. I
did not succeed in obtaining any, though I often engaged Indians to
shoot at them with their arrows. Father Gili asserts that the Gumanos
eat their flesh.
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