crocodiles lie, with open jaws, as motionless as pieces of rock and
often covered with birds.[48] The boa serpent, his body marked like
a chess-board, coiled up, his tail wound round the branch of a tree,
lies lurking on the bank secure of his prey; he marks the young bull
or some feebler inhabitant of the forest as it fords the stream, and
swiftly uncoiling seizes the victim, and covering it with mucus forces
it laboriously down his swelling throat.[49]
In the midst of this grand and savage nature live many tribes of men,
isolated from each other by the extraordinary diversity of their
languages: some are nomadic, wholly unacquainted with agriculture,
and using ants, gums, and earth as food[50]; these, as the Otomacs
and Jarures, seem a kind of outcasts from humanity: others, like the
Maquiritares and Macos, are settled, more intelligent and of milder
manners, and live on fruits which they have themselves reared.
Large spaces between the Cassiquiare and the Atabapo are only inhabited
by the tapir and the social apes, and are wholly destitute of human
beings. Figures graven on the rocks[51] shew that even these deserts
were once the seat of some degree of intellectual cultivation. They
bear witness to the changeful destinies of man, as do the unequally
developed flexible languages; which latter belong to the oldest and
most imperishable class of historic memorials.
But as in the Steppe tigers and crocodiles fight with horses and
cattle, so in the forests on its borders, in the wildernesses of
Guiana, man is ever armed against man. Some tribes drink with unnatural
thirst the blood of their enemies; others apparently weaponless and yet
prepared for murder[52] kill with a poisoned thumb-nail. The weaker
hordes, when they have to pass along the sandy margin of the rivers,
carefully efface with their hands the traces of their timid footsteps.
Thus man in the lowest stage of almost animal rudeness, as well as
amidst the apparent brilliancy of our higher cultivation, prepares for
himself and his fellow men increased toil and danger. The traveller
wandering over the wide globe by sea and land, as well as the historic
inquirer searching the records of past ages, finds every where the
uniform and saddening spectacle of man at variance with man.
He, therefore, who, amidst the unreconciled discord of nations, seeks
for intellectual calm, gladly turns to contemplate the silent life of
vegetation, and the hidden activities of forces and powers operating
in the sanctuaries of nature; or, obedient to the inborn impulse which
for thousands of years has glowed in the human breast, gazes upwards
in meditative contemplation on those celestial orbs, which are ever
pursuing in undisturbed harmony their ancient and unchanging course.
ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS.
[1] p. 1.--“_The Lake of Tacarigua._”
In proceeding through the interior of South America from the Caraccas
or Venezuela shore towards the boundary of Brazil, from the 10th
degree of North latitude to the Equator, the traveller crosses first
an elevated mountain-chain running in an east and west direction, next
vast treeless Steppes or Plains (los Llanos), which stretch from the
foot of the above-named mountains (the coast chain of Caraccas) to the
left bank of the Orinoco, and lastly the range which occasions the
Cataracts of Atures and Maypure. This latter range of mountains, to
which I have given the name of the Sierra Parime, runs in an easterly
direction from the Cataracts to Dutch and French Guiana. It is a mass
of mountains divided into many parallel ridges, and is the site of
the fabled Dorado. It is bordered on the south by the forest plain,
through which the river of the Amazons and the Rio Negro have formed
the channels in which their waters flow. Those who desire a fuller
acquaintance with the geography of these regions will do well to
consult and compare the great map of La Cruz-Olmedilla, bearing date
1775, (from which almost all the more recent maps of South America have
been formed,) and the map of Columbia constructed by me from my own
astronomical determinations of geographical positions, and published in
1825.
The coast chain of Venezuela, geographically considered, is a part of
the chain of the Andes of Peru. The chain of the Andes divides itself,
at the great mountain junction at the sources of the Magdalena, south
of Popayan, (between 1° 55′ and 2° 20′ latitude), into three chains,
the easternmost of which terminates in the snow-covered mountains of
Merida. These mountains sink down towards the Paramo de las Rosas into
the hilly land of Quibor and Tocuyo, which connects the coast chain of
Venezuela with the Cordilleras of Cundinamarca. The coast chain forms
an unbroken rampart from Porto Cabello to the promontory of Paria. Its
mean height hardly equals 750 toises or 4795 English feet; yet single
summits, like the Silla de Caracas (also called Cerro de Avila), decked
with the purple-flowering Befaria the American Rose of the Alps, rise
1350 toises or 8630 English feet above the level of the sea. The coast
of Terra Firma bears traces of devastation. We recognise everywhere the
action of the great current which, sweeping from east to west, formed
by disruption the West Indian Islands, and hollowed out the Caribbean
gulf. The projecting tongues of land of Araja and Chuparipari, and
especially the coast of Cumana and New Barcelona, offer a remarkable
spectacle to the geologist. The precipitous Islands of Boracha,
Caracas, and Chimanas, rise like towers from the sea, and bear witness
to the terrible pressure of the waters against the mountain chain when
it was broken by their irruption. Perhaps, like the Mediterranean, the
Antillean gulf was once an inland sea, which became suddenly connected
with the ocean. The islands of Cuba, Hayti, and Jamaica, still contain
the remnants of the lofty mountains of mica slate which bounded this
sea to the north. It is remarkable that where these three islands
approach each other most nearly the highest summits are found; and
we may conjecture that the highest part of this Antillean chain was
situated between Cape Tiburon and Point Morant. The Copper Mountains
(Montañas de Cobre) near Santiago de Cuba have not yet been measured,
but their elevation is probably greater than that of the Blue Mountains
of Jamaica, (1138 toises, 7277 English feet,) which somewhat exceeds
the height of the St. Gothard Pass. My conjectures on the valley-form
of the Atlantic Ocean, and on the ancient connection of the continents,
were given more in detail in a memoir written in Cumana, entitled
Fragment d’un Tableau Géologique de l’Amerique Meridionale (Journal
de Physique, Messidor, An. IX.) It is worthy of remark, that Columbus
himself, in his Official Reports, called attention to the connection
between the direction of the equatorial current and the form of the
coast line of the larger Antilles. (Examen critique de l’hist. de la
Géographie, p. 104-108.)
The northern and most cultivated part of the province of Caraccas is
a country of mountains. The coast chain is divided like the Swiss
Alps into several subordinate chains enclosing longitudinal valleys.
The most celebrated of these is the pleasant valley of Aragua, which
produces a great quantity of indigo, sugar, cotton, and, what is most
remarkable, European wheat. The southern margin of this valley adjoins
the beautiful lake of Valencia, whose old Indian name is Tacarigua. The
contrast between its opposite shores gives it a striking resemblance
to the Lake of Geneva. It is true that the bare mountains of Guigue
and Guiripa have less grandeur of character than the Savoy Alps; but,
on the other hand, the opposite bank of the Tacarigua lake, which is
thickly clothed with plantains, mimosas, and triplaris, far surpasses
in picturesque beauty the vineyards of the Pays de Vaud. The lake
is about thirty geographical miles in length, and is full of small
islands, which, as the loss of water by evaporation exceeds the influx,
are increasing in size. Within some years sand-banks have even become
real islands, and have received the significant name of the “Newly
Appeared,” Las Aparecidas. On the island of Cura the remarkable species
of Solanum is cultivated which has edible fruit, and which Wildenow has
described in the Hortus Berolinensis (1816, Tab. xxvii.) The height
of the Lake of Tacarigua above the sea is almost 1400 French feet,
(according to my measurement exactly 230 toises, or 1470 English feet,)
less than the mean height of the valley of Caraccas. The lake has
several kinds of fish (see my Observations de Zoologie et d’Anatomie
comparée, T. ii p. 179-181), and is one of the most pleasing natural
scenes which I know in any part of the globe. In bathing, Bonpland and
myself were often alarmed by the appearance of the Bava, an undescribed
crocodile-like lizard, three or four feet in length, of repulsive
aspect, but harmless to men. We found in the lake a Typha (Cats-tail),
identical with the European Typha angustifolia; a singular fact, and
important in reference to the geography of plants.
Two varieties of sugar-cane are cultivated near the lake, in the
valleys of Aragua: the common sugar-cane of the West Indies, Caña
criolla; and the cane recently introduced from the Pacific, Caña de
Otaheiti. The verdure of the Tahitian cane is of a much lighter and
more agreeable tint, and a field of it can readily be distinguished
at a great distance from a field of the common cane. The sugar-cane
of Tahiti was first described by Cook and George Forster, who appear,
however, from the excellent memoir of the latter upon the edible plants
of the islands of the Pacific, to have been but little acquainted with
its valuable qualities. Bougainville brought it to the Isle of France,
from whence it was conveyed to Cayenne, and since 1792 it has been
taken to Martinique, Hayti, and several of the smaller West Indian
Islands. It was carried with the bread-fruit tree to Jamaica by the
brave but unfortunate Captain Bligh, and was introduced from the Island
of Trinidad to the neighbouring coast of Caraccas, where it became a
more important acquisition than the bread-fruit, which is never likely
to supersede a plant so valuable and affording so large an amount of
sustenance as the plantain. The Tahitian sugar-cane is much richer in
juice than the common cane, said to be originally a native of the east
of Asia. On an equal surface of ground it yields a third more sugar
than the caña criolla, which has a thinner stalk and smaller joints.
As, moreover, the West India islands begin to suffer great want of
fuel, (in Cuba the wood of the orange tree is used for sugar boiling,)
the thicker and more woody stalk of the Tahitian cane is an important
advantage. If the introduction of this plant had not taken place almost
at the same time as the commencement of the bloody negro war in St.
Domingo, the prices of sugar in Europe would have risen still higher
than they did, in consequence of the ruinous effects of those troubles
on agriculture and trade. It was an important question, whether the
cane of the Pacific, when removed from its native soil, would gradually
degenerate and become the same as the common cane. Experience hitherto
has decided against any such degeneration. In Cuba a caballeria (nearly
33 English acres) planted with Tahitian sugar-cane produces 870 hundred
weight of sugar. It is singular that this important production of the
islands of the Pacific is only cultivated in those parts of the Spanish
colonies which are farthest from the Pacific. The Peruvian coast is
only twenty-five days’ sail from Tahiti, and yet, at the period of
my travels in Peru and Chili, the Tahitian cane was unknown there.
The inhabitants of Easter Island, who suffer much from deficiency of
fresh water, drink the juice of the sugar-cane, and (a very remarkable
physiological fact) also sea water. In the Society, Friendly, and
Sandwich Islands, the light green, thick-stalked sugar-cane is always
the one cultivated.
Besides the Caña de Otaheiti and the Caña Criolla, a reddish African
variety, called Caña de Guinea, is cultivated in the West Indies: its
juice is less in quantity than that of the common Asiatic cane, but is
said to be better suited for making rum.
In the province of Caraccas the dark shade of the cacao plantations
contrasts beautifully with the light green of the Tahitian sugar cane.
Few tropical trees have such thick foliage as the Theobroma cacao. It
loves hot and humid valleys: great fertility of soil and insalubrity of
atmosphere are inseparable from each other in South America as well as
in Asia; and it has even been remarked that as increasing cultivation
lessens the extent of the forests, and renders the soil and climate
less humid, the cacao plantations become less flourishing. For these
reasons these plantations are diminishing in number and extent in
the province of Caraccas, and increasing rapidly in the more eastern
provinces of New Barcelona and Cumana, and particularly in the moist
woody district between Cariaco and the Golfo Triste.
[2] p. 2.--“_‘Banks’ is the name given by the natives to this
phenomenon._”
The Llanos of Caraccas are occupied by a great and widely extended
formation of conglomerate of an early period. In descending from the
vallies of Aragua, and crossing over the most southern ridge of the
coast chain of Guigue and Villa de Cura towards Parapara, one finds
successively, gneiss and mica slate;--a probably silurian formation of
clay slate and black limestone;--serpentine and greenstone in detached
spheroidal masses;--and, lastly, close to the margin of the great
plain, small hills of augitic amygdaloid and porphyritic slate. These
hills between Parapara and Ortiz appear to me like volcanic eruptions
on the ancient sea-shore of the Llanos. Farther to the north are the
celebrated grotesque-shaped cavernous rocks of Morros de San Juan;
they form a kind of rampart, have a crystalline grain like upheaved
dolomite, and are rather to be regarded as parts of the shore of the
ancient gulf than as islands. I term the Llanos a gulf, for when we
consider their small elevation above the present sea level, their form
open as it were to the equatorial current sweeping from east to west,
and the lowness of the eastern coast between the mouth of the Orinoco
and the Essequibo, we can scarcely doubt that the sea once overflowed
the whole basin between the coast chain of Caraccas and the Sierra de
la Parime, and beat against the mountains of Merida and Pamplona; (as
it is supposed to have overflowed the plains of Lombardy, and beat
against the Cottian and Pennine Alps). The strike or inclination of
the American Llanos is also directed from west to east. Their height
at Calabozo, 400 geographical miles from the sea, is barely 30 toises
(192 English feet); being 15 toises (96 English feet) less than that
of Pavia, and 45 toises (288 English feet) less than that of Milan, in
the plains of Lombardy between the Alps and Apennines. The form of the
surface of this part of the globe reminds one of Claudian’s expression,
“curvata tumore parvo planities.” The horizontality of the Llanos is
so perfect that in many portions of them no part of an area of more
than 480 square miles appears to be a foot higher than the rest. If, in
addition to this, we imagine to ourselves the absence of all bushes,
and even in the Mesa de Pavones the absence of any isolated palm-trees,
it will afford some idea of the singular aspect of this sea-like desert
plain. As far as the eye can reach, it can hardly rest on a single
object a few inches high. If it were not that the state of the lowest
strata of the atmosphere, and the consequent changes of refraction,
render the horizon continually indeterminate and undulating, altitudes
of the sun might be taken with the sextant from the margin of the plain
as well as from the horizon at sea. This great horizontality of the
former sea bottom makes the “banks” more striking. They are broken
strata which rise abruptly from two to three feet above the surrounding
rock, and extend uniformly over a length of from 40 to 48 English
geographical miles. The small streams of the Steppes take their rise on
these banks.
In passing through the Llanos of Barcelona, on our return from the Rio
Negro, we found frequent traces of earthquakes. Instead of the banks
standing _higher_ than the surrounding rock, we found here solitary
strata of gypsum from 3 to 4 toises (19 to 25 English feet) _lower_.
Farther to the west, near the junction of the Caura with the Orinoco,
and to the east of the mission of S. Pedro de Alcantara, an extensive
tract of dense forest sank down in an earthquake in 1790, and a lake
was formed of more than 300 toises (1918 English feet) diameter. The
tall trees (Desmanthus, Hymenæas, and Malpighias) long retained their
foliage and verdure under the water.
[3] p. 2.--“_We seem to see before us a shoreless ocean._”
The prospect of the distant Steppe is still more striking, when the
spectator has been long accustomed in the dense forests both to
a very restricted field of view, and to the aspect of a rich and
highly luxuriant vegetation. Ineffaceable is the impression which I
received on our return from the Upper Orinoco, when, from the Hato del
Capuchino, on a mountain opposite to the mouth of the Rio Apure, we
first saw again the distant Steppe. The sun had just set; the Steppe
appeared to rise like a hemisphere; and the light of the rising stars
was refracted in the lowest stratum of air. The excessive heating of
the plain by the vertical rays of the sun causes the variations of
refraction,--occasioned by the effects of radiation, of the ascending
current, and of the contact of strata of air of unequal density,--to
continue through the entire night.
[4] p. 2.--“_The naked stony crust._”
Immense tracts of flat bare rock form peculiar and characteristic
features in the Deserts both of Africa and Asia. In the Schamo, which
separates Mongolia and the mountain chains of Ulangom and Malakha-Oola
from the north-west part of China, these banks of rock are called
Tsy. They are also found in the forest-covered plains of the Orinoco,
surrounded by the most luxuriant vegetation (Relation Hist. t. ii. p.
279). In the middle of these flat tabular masses of granite and syenite
of some thousand feet diameter, denuded of all vegetation save a few
scantily distributed lichens, we find small islands of soil, covered
with low and always flowering plants which give them the appearance
of little gardens. The monks of the Upper Orinoco regard these bare
and perfectly level surfaces of rock, when they are of considerable
extent, as peculiarly apt to cause fevers and other illnesses. Several
missionary villages have been deserted or removed elsewhere in
consequence of this opinion, which is very widely diffused. Supposing
the opinion correct, is such an influence of these flat rocks or laxas
to be attributed to a chemical action on the atmosphere, or merely to
the effect of increased radiation?
[5] p. 2.--“_The Llanos and Pampas of South America, and the Prairies
of the Missouri._”
The physical and geognostical views entertained respecting the
western part of North America have been rectified in many respects
by the adventurous journey of Major Long, the excellent writings of
his companion Edwin James, and more especially by the comprehensive
observations of Captain Frémont. These, and all other recent accounts,
now place in a clear light what, in my work on New Spain, I could
only put forward as conjecture, on the subject of the mountain ridges
and plains to the north. In the description of nature as well as in
historical inquiries, facts long remain isolated, until by laborious
investigation they are brought into connection with each other.
The east coast of the United States of North America runs from
south-west to north-east, in the same direction as that followed in
the southern hemisphere by the Brazilian coast from the river Plate to
Olinda. In the two hemispheres two ranges of mountains exist at a short
distance from the eastern coast; they are more nearly parallel to each
other than they are to the more westerly chain, called in South America
the Cordilleras of Peru and Chili, and in North America the Rocky
Mountains. The Brazilian system of mountains forms an isolated group,
of which the highest summits (the Itacolumi and Itambe) do not rise
above the height of 900 toises (5755 English feet). The most easterly
ridges, which are nearest to the Atlantic, follow a uniform direction
from SSW. to NNE.; more to the west the group becomes broader, but
diminishes considerably in height. The Parecis hills approach the
rivers Itenes and Guaporé, and the mountains of Aguapehi (to the south
of Villabella) approach the lofty Andes of Cochabamba and Santa Cruz de
la Sierra.
There is no immediate connection between the eastern and western
chains,--the Brazilian mountains, and the Cordilleras of Peru,--for
the low province of Chiquitos, which is a longitudinal valley running
from north to south, and opening into the plains both of the Amazons
and of the river Plate, separates Brazil on the east from the Alto
Peru on the west. Here, as in Poland and Russia, an often almost
imperceptible rise of ground (called, in Slavonian, Uwaly) forms the
separating water-line between the Pilcomayo and the Madeira, between
the Aguapehi and the Guaporé, and between the Paraguay and the Rio
Topayos. The swell of the ground runs to the south-east from Chayanta
and Pomabamba (lat. 19°-20°), traverses the province of Chiquitos,
which, since the expulsion of the Jesuits, has again become almost a
terra incognita, and forms, to the north-east, where there are only
detached mountains, the “divortia aquarum” at the sources of the Baures
and near Villabella, lat. 15°-17°.
This line of separation of the waters is important in relation to
facilities of intercourse, and to the increase of cultivation and
civilisation: more to the north (2°-3° N. lat.), a similar line divides
the basin of the Orinoco from that of the Amazons and the Rio Negro.
These risings or swellings in the plains (called, by Frontin, terræ
tumores) might be regarded as undeveloped systems of mountains, which
would have connected two apparently isolated groups (the Sierra Parime
and the Brazilian mountains) with the Andes of Timana and Cochabamba.
These relations, which have been hitherto but little attended to, are
the ground of the division which I have made of South America into
three basins; viz. those of the lower Orinoco, of the Amazons, and
of the Rio de la Plata. The first and last of these are steppes or
prairies; the middle basin, that of the Amazons, between the Sierra
Parime and the Brazilian group of mountains, is a forest-covered plain
or _Hylæa_.