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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I Think I See In The Stars, As Here, A Plain
Covered With Grass, And A Forest (Mucho Monte) Traversed By A River."
In Citing These Words I Paint The Impression Produced By The
Monotonous Aspect Of Those Solitary Regions.
May this monotony not be
found to extend to the journal of our navigation, and weary the reader
accustomed to the description of the scenes and historical memorials
of the old continent!
CHAPTER 2.23.
THE RIO NEGRO.
BOUNDARIES OF BRAZIL.
THE CASSIQUIARE.
BIFURCATION OF THE ORINOCO.
The Rio Negro, compared to the Amazon, the Rio de la Plata, or the
Orinoco, is but a river of the second order. Its possession has been
for ages of great political importance to the Spanish Government,
because it is capable of furnishing a rival power, Portugal, with an
easy passage into the missions of Guiana, and thereby disturbing the
Capitania general of Caracas in its southern limits. Three hundred
years have been spent in vain territorial disputes. According to the
difference of times, and the degree of civilization among the natives,
resource has been had sometimes to the authority of the Pope, and
sometimes the support of astronomy; and the disputants being generally
more interested in prolonging than in terminating the struggle, the
nautical sciences and the geography of the New Continent, have alone
gained by this interminable litigation. When the affairs of Paraguay,
and the possession of the colony of Del Sacramento, became of great
importance to the courts of Madrid and Lisbon, commissioners of the
boundaries were sent to the Orinoco, the Amazon, and the Rio Plata.
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