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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We Can Conceive That A Small Number
Of The Families Of Plants, For Instance The Musaceae And The Palms,
Cannot
Belong to very cold regions, on account of their internal
structure, and the importance of certain organs; but we cannot
Explain
why no one of the family of the Melastomaceae vegetates north of the
parallel of the thirtieth degree of latitude, or why no rose-tree
belongs to the southern hemisphere. Analogy of climates is often found
in the two continents, without identity of productions.
The Rio Vichada, which has a small raudal at its confluence with the
Orinoco, appeared to me, next to the Meta and the Guaviare, to be the
most considerable river coming from the west. During the last forty
years no European has navigated the Vichada. I could learn nothing of
its sources; they rise, I believe, with those of the Tomo, in the
plains that extend to the south of Casimena. Fugitive Indians of Santa
Rosalia de Cabapuna, a village situate on the banks of the Meta, have
arrived even recently, by the Rio Vichada, at the cataract of
Maypures; which sufficiently proves that the sources of this river are
not very distant from the Meta. Father Gumilla has preserved the names
of several German and Spanish Jesuits, who in 1734 fell victims to
their zeal for religion, by the hands of the Caribs on the now desert
banks of the Vichada.
Having passed the Cano Pirajavi on the east, and then a small river on
the west, which issues, as the Indians say, from a lake called Nao, we
rested for the night on the shore of the Orinoco, at the mouth of the
Zama, a very considerable river, but as little known as the Vichada.
Notwithstanding the black waters of the Zama, we suffered greatly from
insects.
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