Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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He Remarked The
Fires Of The Tivitivas (Tibitibies), Of The Race Of The Guaraon
Indians, On The Tops Of The Mauritia Palm-Trees; And Appears To Have
First Brought The Fruit To Europe (Fructum Squamosum, Similem Palmae
Pini).
I am surprised, that he scarcely mentions the settlement, which
had been made by Berrio under the name of Santo
Thome (la Vieja
Guayana.) This settlement however dates from 1591; and though,
according to Fray Pedro Simon, "religion and policy prohibited all
mercantile connection between Christians [Spaniards] and Heretics [the
Dutch and English]," there was then carried on at the end of the
sixteenth century, as in our days, an active contraband trade by the
mouths of the Orinoco. Raleigh passed the river Europa (Guarapo), and
"the plains of Saymas (Chaymas), which extend, keeping the same level,
as far as Cumana and Caracas;" he stopped at Morequito (perhaps a
little to the north of the site of the villa de Upata, in the missions
of the Carony), where an old cacique confirmed to him all the reveries
of Berrio on the irruption of foreign nations (Orejones and Epuremei)
into Guiana. The Raudales or cataracts of the Caroli (Carony), a river
which was at that period considered as the shortest way for reaching
the towns of Macureguarai and Manoa, situate on the banks of lake
Cassipa and of lake Rupunuwini or Dorado, put an end to this
expedition.
Raleigh went scarcely the distance of sixty leagues along the Orinoco;
but he names the upper tributary streams, according to the vague
notions he had collected; the Cari, the Pao, the Apure (Capuri?) the
Guarico (Voari?) the Meta,* and even, "in the province of Baraguan,
the great cataract of Athule (Atures), which prevents all further
navigation." (* Raleigh distinguishes the Meta from the Beta, which
flows into the Baraguan (the Orinoco) conjointly with the Daune, near
Athule; as he distinguishes the Casanare, a tributary stream of the
Meta, and the Casnero, which comes from the south, and appears to be
the Rio Cuchivero.
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