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 Greatest Part Comes From The
Mararo Or Caragna, Which Is An Amyris.
It is remarkable enough, that
the name mani, which Aublet heard among the Galibis* of Cayenne, was
again heard by us at Javita, three hundred leagues distant from French
Guiana.
(* The Galibis or Caribis (the r has been changed into l, as
often happens) are of the great stock of the Carib nations. The
products useful in commerce and in domestic life have received the
same denomination in every part of America which this warlike and
commercial people have overrun.) The moronobaea or symphonia of Javita
yields a yellow resin; the caragna, a resin strongly odoriferous, and
white as snow; the latter becomes yellow where it is adherent to the
internal part of old bark.
We went every day to see how our canoe advanced on the portages.
Twenty-three Indians were employed in dragging it by land, placing
branches of trees to serve as rollers. In this manner a small boat
proceeds in a day or a day and a half, from the waters of the Tuamini
to those of the Cano Pimichin, which flow into the Rio Negro. Our
canoe being very large, and having to pass the cataracts a second
time, it was necessary to avoid with particular care any friction on
the bottom; consequently the passage occupied more than four days. It
is only since 1795 that a road has been traced through the forest. By
substituting a canal for this portage, as I proposed to the ministry
of king Charles IV, the communication between the Rio Negro and
Angostura, between the Spanish Orinoco and the Portuguese possessions
on the Amazon, would be singularly facilitated.
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