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 Aspect Of The Country Here
Reminds Us, But On A Much Larger Scale, Of The Plains Of Lombardy,
Which
Also are only fifty or sixty toises above the level of the
ocean; and are directed first from La Brenta
To Turin, east and west;
and then from Turin to Coni, north and south. If we were authorized,
from other geological facts, to regard the three great plains of the
Lower Orinoco, the Amazon, and the Rio de la Plata as basins of
ancient lakes,* (* In Siberia, the great steppes between the Irtish
and the Obi, especially that of Baraba, full of salt lakes (Tchabakly,
Tchany, Karasouk, and Topolony), appear to have been, according to the
Chinese traditions, even within historical times, an inland sea.) we
should imagine we perceived in the plains of the Rio Vichada and the
Meta, a channel by which the waters of the upper lake (those of the
plains of the Amazon) forced their way towards the lower basin, (that
of the Llanos of Caracas,) separating the Cordillera of La Parime from
that of the Andes. This channel is a kind of land-strait. The ground,
which is perfectly level between the Guaviare, the Meta, and the
Apure, displays no vestige of a violent irruption of the waters; but
on the edge of the Cordillera of Parime, between the latitudes of 4
and 7 degrees, the Orinoco, flowing in a westerly direction from its
source to the mouth of the Guaviare, has forced its way through the
rocks, directing its course from south to north. All the great
cataracts, as we shall soon see, are within the latitudes just named.
When the river has reached the mouth of the Apure in that very low
ground where the slope towards the north is met by the counter-slope
towards the south-east, that is to say, by the inclination of the
plains which rise imperceptibly towards the mountains of Caracas, the
river turns anew and flows eastward. It appeared to me, that it was
proper to fix the attention of the reader on these singular inflexions
of the Orinoco because, belonging at once to two basins, its course
marks, in some sort, even on the most imperfect maps, the direction of
that part of the plains intervening between New Grenada and the
western border of the mountains of La Parime.
The Llanos or steppes of the Lower Orinoco and of the Meta, like the
deserts of Africa, bear different names in different parts. From the
mouths of the Dragon the Llanos of Cumana, of Barcelona, and of
Caracas or Venezuela,* follow, running from east to west. (* The
following are subdivisions of these three great Llanos, as I marked
them down on the spot. The Llanos of Cumana and New Andalusia include
those of Maturin and Terecen, of Amana, Guanipa, Jonoro, and Cari. The
Llanos of Nueva Barcelona comprise those of Aragua, Pariaguan, and
Villa del Pao. We distinguish in the Llanos of Caracas those of
Chaguaramas, Uritucu, Calabozo or Guarico, La Portuguesa, San Carlos,
and Araure.) Where the steppes turn towards the south and
south-south-west, from the latitude of 8 degrees, between the
meridians of 70 and 73 degrees, we find from north to south, the
Llanos of Varinas, Casanare, the Meta, Guaviare, Caguau, and Caqueta.*
(* The inhabitants of these plains distinguish as subdivisions, from
the Rio Portuguesa to Caqueta, the Llanos of Guanare, Bocono, Nutrius
or the Apure, Palmerito near Quintero, Guardalito and Arauca, the
Meta, Apiay near the port of Pachaquiaro, Vichada, Guaviare, Arriari,
Inirida, the Rio Hacha, and Caguan.
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