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 Rio Manaviche
Flows Down From The Mountains On The North, The Elevation Of Which
Diminishes Progressively From The Cerro Maraguaca.
As we advance
further up the Orinoco, the whirlpools and little rapids (chorros y
remolinos) become more and more
Frequent; on the north lies the Cano
Chiquire, inhabited by the Guaicas, another tribe of white Indians;
and two leagues distant is the mouth of the Gehette, where there is a
great cataract. A dyke of granitic rocks crosses the Orinoco these
rocks are, as it were, the columns of Hercules, beyond which no white
man has been able to penetrate. It appears that this point, known by
the name of the great Raudal de Guaharibos, is three-quarters of a
degree west of Esmeralda, consequently in longitude 67 degrees 38
minutes. A military expedition, undertaken by the commander of the
fort of San Carlos, Don Francisco Bovadilla, to discover the sources
of the Orinoco, led to some information respecting the cataracts of
the Guaharibos. Bovadilla had heard that some fugitive negroes from
Dutch Guiana, proceeding towards the west (beyond the isthmus between
the sources of the Rio Carony and the Rio Branco) had joined the
independent Indians. He attempted an entrada (hostile incursion)
without having obtained the permission of the governor; the desire of
procuring African slaves, better fitted for labour than the
copper-coloured race, was a far more powerful motive than that of zeal
for the progress of geography. Bovadilla arrived without difficulty as
far as the little Raudal* opposite the Gehette (* It is called Raudal
de abaxo (Low Cataract) in opposition to the great Raudal de
Guaharibos, which is situated higher up toward the east.); but having
advanced to the foot of the rocky dike that forms the great cataract,
he was suddenly attacked, while he was breakfasting, by the Guaharibos
and Guaycas, two warlike tribes, celebrated for the virulence of the
curare with which their arrows are empoisoned.
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