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 Ants And The
Mosquitos Troubled Us More Than The Humidity And The Want Of Food.
Notwithstanding The Privations To Which We Were Exposed During Our
Excursions In The Cordilleras, The Navigation From Mandavaca To
Esmeralda Has Always Appeared To Us The Most Painful Part Of Our
Travels In America.
I advise those who are not very desirous of seeing
the great bifurcation of the Orinoco, to take the way of the Atabapo
in preference to that of the Cassiquiare.
Above the Cano Duractumuni, the Cassiquiare pursues a uniform
direction from north-east to south-west. We were surprised to see how
much the high steep banks of the Cassiquiare had been undermined on
each side by the sudden risings of the water. Uprooted trees formed as
it were natural rafts; and being half-buried in the mud, they were
extremely dangerous for canoes. We passed the night of the 20th of
May, the last of our passage on the Cassiquiare, near the point of the
bifurcation of the Orinoco. We had some hope of being able to make an
astronomical observation, as falling-stars of remarkable magnitude
were visible through the vapours that veiled the sky; whence we
concluded that the stratum of vapours must be very thin, since meteors
of this kind have scarcely ever been seen below a cloud. Those we now
beheld shot towards the north, and succeeded each other at almost
equal intervals. The Indians, who seldom ennoble by their expressions
the wanderings of the imagination, name the falling-stars the urine;
and the dew the spittle of the stars.
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