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 Upper Course Of The Rio Ventuari, Beyond The Confluence
Of The Asisi, And The Great Raudales, Is Almost Unknown.
I was
informed only that the Upper Ventuari bends so much towards the east
that the ancient road from Esmeralda to the Rio Caura crosses the bed
of the river.
The proximity of the tributary streams of the Carony,
the Caura, and the Ventuari, has facilitated for ages the access of
the Caribs to the banks of the Upper Orinoco. Bands of this warlike
and trading people went up from the Rio Carony, by the Paragua, to the
sources of the Paruspa. A portage conducted them to the Chavarro, an
eastern tributary stream of the Rio Caura; they descended with their
canoes first this stream, and then the Caura itself as far as the
mouth of the Erevato. After having gone up this last river south-west,
and traversed vast savannahs for three days, they entered by the
Manipiare into the great Rio Ventuari. I trace this road with
precision not only because it was that by which the traffic of native
slaves was carried on, but also to call the attention of those, who at
some future day may rule the destiny of Guiana, to the high importance
of this labyrinth of rivers.
It is by the four largest tributary streams, which the majestic river
of the Orinoco receives on the right (the Carony, the Caura, the
Padamo, and the Ventuari), that European civilization will one day
penetrate into this region of forests and mountains, which has a
surface of ten thousand six hundred square leagues, and which is
bounded by the Orinoco on the north, the west, and the south.
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