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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Neither Of These Three Obstacles Is To Be
Feared With Experienced Indian Pilots.
I dwell on these hydrographic
details because a great political and commercial interest is now
connected with the communications between Angostura and the banks of
the Meta and the Apure, two rivers that lead to the eastern side of
the Cordilleras of New Grenada.
The navigation from the mouth of the
Lower Orinoco to the province of Varinas is difficult only on account
of the current. The bed of the river nowhere presents obstacles more
difficult to be surmounted than those of the Danube between Vienna and
Linz. We meet with no great bars, no real cataracts, until we get
above the Meta. The Upper Orinoco, therefore, with the Cassiquiare and
the Rio Negro, forms a particular system of rivers, where the active
industry of Angostura and the shore of Caracas will remain long
unknown.
I obtained horary angles of the sun in an island in the midst of the
Boca del Infierno, where we had set up our instruments. The longitude
of this point according to the chronometer is 67 degrees 10 minutes 31
seconds. I attempted to determine the magnetic dip and intensity, but
was prevented by a heavy storm of rain. As the sky again became serene
in the afternoon, we lay down to rest that night on a vast beach, on
the southern bank of the Orinoco, nearly in the meridian of the little
town of Muitaco, or Real Corona. I found the latitude by three stars
to be 8 degrees 0 minutes 26 seconds, and the longitude 67 degrees 5
minutes 19 seconds.
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