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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The Viudita Accompanied Us On Our Whole Voyage On The Cassiquiare And
The Rio Negro, Passing The Cataracts Twice.
In studying the manners of
animals, it is a great advantage to observe them during several months
in the open air, and not in houses, where they lose all their natural
vivacity.
The new canoe intended for us was, like all Indian boats, a trunk of a
tree hollowed out partly by the hatchet and partly by fire. It was
forty feet long, and three broad. Three persons could not sit in it
side by side. These canoes are so crank, and they require, from their
instability, a cargo so equally distributed, that when you want to
rise for an instant, you must warn the rowers to lean to the opposite
side. Without this precaution the water would necessarily enter the
side pressed down. It is difficult to form an idea of the
inconveniences that are suffered in such wretched vessels.
The missionary from the cataracts made the preparations for our voyage
with greater energy than we wished. Lest there might not be a
sufficient number of the Maco and Guahibe Indians, who are acquainted
with the labyrinth of small channels and cascades of which the
Raudales or cataracts are composed, two Indians were, during the
night, placed in the cepo - a sort of stocks in which they were made to
lie with their legs between two pieces of wood, notched and fastened
together by a chain with a padlock. Early in the morning we were
awakened by the cries of a young man, mercilessly beaten with a whip
of manatee skin.
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