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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A Little Cassava And A Few
Plantains Only Are Cultivated; And When The Fishery Is Not Abundant,
The Natives Of A Country So Favoured By Nature Are Exposed To The Most
Cruel Privations.
The pilots of the small number of boats that go from the Rio Negro to
Angostura by the Cassiquiare are afraid to ascend as far as Esmeralda,
and therefore that mission would have been much better placed at the
point of the bifurcation of the Orinoco.
It is probable that this vast
country will not always be doomed to the desertion in which it has
hitherto been left, owing to the errors of monkish administration and
the spirit of monopoly that characterises corporations. We may even
predict on what points of the Orinoco industry and commerce will
become most active. In every zone, population is concentred at the
mouth of tributary streams. The Rio Apure, by which the productions of
the provinces of Varinas and Merida are exported, will give great
importance to the little town of Cabruta, which will then be in
rivalship with San Fernando de Apure, where all commerce has hitherto
centred. Higher up, a new settlement will be formed at the confluence
of the Meta, which communicates with New Grenada by the Llanos of
Casanare. The two missions of the Cataracts will increase, from the
activity to which the transport of boats at those points will give
rise; for an unhealthy and damp climate, and the swarming of
mosquitos, will as little impede the progress of cultivation at the
Orinoco as at the Rio Magdalena, whenever a powerful mercantile
interest shall call new settlers thither.
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