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 Great Cataracts Divide The
Christian Establishments Of Spanish Guiana Into Two Unequal Parts.
Those Situated Between The Raudal Of
Atures and the mouth of the river
are called the Missions of the Lower Orinoco; the Missions of the
Upper
Orinoco comprehend the villages between the Raudal of Maypures
and the mountains of Duida. The course of the Lower Orinoco, if we
estimate the sinuosities at one-third of the distance in a direct
line, is two hundred and sixty nautical leagues: the course of the
Upper Orinoco, supposing its sources to be three degrees east of
Duida, includes one hundred and sixty-seven leagues.
Beyond the Great Cataracts an unknown land begins. The country is
partly mountainous and partly flat, receiving at once the confluents
of the Amazon and the Orinoco. From the facility of its communications
with the Rio Negro and Grand Para, it appears to belong still more to
Brazil than to the Spanish colonies. None of the missionaries who have
described the Orinoco before me, neither Father Gumilla, Gili, nor
Caulin, had passed the Raudal of Maypures. We found but three
Christian establishments above the Great Cataracts, along the shores
of the Orinoco, in an extent of more than a hundred leagues; and these
three establishments contained scarcely six or eight white persons,
that is to say, persons of European race. We cannot be surprised that
such a desert region should have been at all times the land of fable
and fairy visions. There, according to the statements of certain
missionaries, are found races of men, some of whom have an eye in the
centre of the forehead, whilst others have dogs' heads, and mouths
below their stomachs.
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