rocks, they answer that it was done when the waters were so high that
their fathers’ boats were only a little lower than the drawings. Those
rude memorials of human art would in such case have belonged to the
same age as a state of the waters implying a distribution of land and
water very different from that which now prevails, and belonging to an
earlier condition of the earth’s surface; which must not, however, be
confounded with that in which the earlier vegetation which adorned our
planet, the gigantic bodies of extinct land animals, and the oceanic
creatures of a more chaotic state, became entombed in the indurating
crust of globe.
At the northernmost extremity of the cataracts, attention is excited by
what are called the natural drawings or pictures of the Sun and Moon.
The rock Keri, to which I have several times referred, has received
its name from a white spot which is conspicuous from a great distance,
and in which the Indians have thought they recognised a remarkable
similarity to the disk of the full moon. I was not myself able to climb
the steep precipice, but the white mark in question is probably a
large knot of quartz formed by a cluster of veins in the greyish-black
granite.
Opposite to the Keri rock, on the twin mountain of the island of
Uivitari, which has a basaltic appearance, the Indians shew with
mysterious admiration a similar disk which they venerate as the image
of the Sun, Camosi. Perhaps the geographical position of the two rocks
may have contributed to these denominations, as the Keri (or Moon Rock)
is turned to the West, and the Camosi to the East. Some etymologists
have thought they recognised in the American word Camosi a similarity
to Camosh, the name of the Sun in one of the Phœnician dialects, and to
Apollo Chomeus, or Beelphegor and Ammon.
Unlike the grander falls of Niagara (which are 140 French or 150
English feet high) the “Cataracts of Maypures” are not formed by the
single precipitous descent of a vast mass of waters, nor are they
“narrows” or passes through which the river rushes with accelerated
velocity, as in the Pongo of Manseriche in the River of the Amazons.
The Cataracts of Maypures consist of a countless number of little
cascades succeeding each other like steps. The “Raudal” (the name given
by the Spaniards to this species of cataract) is formed by numerous
islands and rocks which so restrict the bed of the river, that out of
a breadth of 8000 (8526 E.) feet there often only remains an open
channel of twenty feet in width. The eastern side is now much more
inaccessible and dangerous than the western.
At the confluence of the Cameji with the Orinoco, goods are unladen in
order that the empty canoe, or, as it is here called, the Piragua, may
be conveyed by Indians well acquainted with the Raudal to the mouth
of the Toparo, where the danger is considered to be past. Where the
separate rocks or steps (each of which is designated by a particular
name) are not much above two or three feet high, the natives, if
descending the stream, venture, remaining themselves in the canoe, to
let it go down the falls: if they are ascending the stream they leave
the boat, swim forward, and when after many unsuccessful attempts they
have succeeded in casting a rope round the points of rock which rise
above the broken water, they draw up their vessel, which is often
either overset or entirely filled with water in the course of these
laborious proceedings.
Sometimes, and it is the only case which gives the natives any
uneasiness, the canoe is dashed in pieces against the rocks; the men
have then to disengage themselves with bleeding bodies from the wreck
and from the whirling force of the torrent, and to gain the shore by
swimming. Where the rocky steps are very high and extend across the
entire bed of the river, the light boat is brought to land and drawn
along the bank by means of branches of trees placed under it as rollers.
The most celebrated and difficult steps, those of Purimarimi and
Manimi, are between nine and ten feet high. I found with astonishment
by barometric measurements, (geodesical levelling being out of
the question from the inaccessibility of the locality, its highly
insalubrious atmosphere, and the swarms of mosquitoes which fill the
air), that the whole fall of the Raudal from the mouth of the Cameji to
that of the Toparo hardly amounts to 28 or 30 feet (30 or 32 English).
I say, “I found with astonishment;” for this shews that the dreadful
noise and wild dashing and foaming of the river are the results of the
narrowing of its bed by countless rocks and islands, and of the counter
currents produced by the form and situation of the masses of rock. The
best ocular demonstration of the small height of the whole fall is
obtained by descending from the village of Maypures to the bed of the
river by the rock of Manimi.
From this point a wonderful prospect is enjoyed. A foaming surface of
four miles in length presents itself at once to the eye: iron-black
masses of rock resembling ruins and battlemented towers rise frowning
from the waters. Rocks and islands are adorned with the luxuriant
vegetation of the tropical forest; a perpetual mist hovers over the
waters, and the summits of the lofty palms pierce through the cloud
of spray and vapour. When the rays of the glowing evening sun are
refracted in these humid exhalations a magic optical effect begins.
Coloured bows shine, vanish, and reappear; and the ethereal image is
swayed to and fro by the breath of the sportive breeze. During the
long rainy season the streaming waters bring down islands of vegetable
mould, and thus the naked rocks are studded with bright flower-beds
adorned with Melastomas and Droseras, and with small silver-leaved
mimosas and ferns. These spots recall to the recollection of the
European those blocks of granite decked with flowers which rise
solitary amidst the glaciers of Savoy, and are called by the dwellers
in the Alps “Jardins,” or “Courtils.”
In the blue distance the eye rests on the mountain chain of Cunavami, a
long extended ridge which terminates abruptly in a truncated cone. We
saw the latter, (Calitamini is its Indian name), glowing at sunset as
if in roseate flames. This appearance returns daily: no one has ever
been near the mountain to detect the precise cause of this brightness,
which may perhaps proceed from a reflecting surface produced by the
decomposition of tale or mica slate.
During the five days which we passed in the neighbourhood of the
cataracts, it was striking to hear the thunder of the rushing torrents
sound three times louder by night than by day. In all European
waterfalls the same phenomenon is remarked. What can be its cause in a
wilderness where there is nothing to interrupt the repose of nature?
Perhaps the currents of heated ascending air by causing irregular
density in the elastic medium impede the propagation of sound during
the day, by the disturbance they may occasion in the waves of sound;
whereas during the nocturnal cooling of the earth’s surface the upward
currents cease.
The Indians called our attention to ancient tracks of wheels. They
speak with admiration of the horned animals, (oxen), which in the times
of the Jesuit missions used to draw the canoes on wheeled supports,
along the left bank of the Orinoco, from the mouth of the Cameji
to that of the Toparo. The lading was not then removed from the
boats, nor were the latter worn and injured as they now are by being
constantly stranded upon the rocks and dragged over their rough surface.
The topographical plan of the district sketched by me shews the
facilities which the nature of the ground offers for the opening of a
canal from the Cameji to the Toparo, which would form a navigable side
arm to the river, the dangerous portion of which would be thus avoided.
I proposed its execution to the Governor-General of Venezuela.
The Raudal of Atures closely resembles that of Maypures; like it, it is
a cluster of islands between which the river forces its way for ten or
twelve thousand yards; a forest of palms rising from the midst of the
foaming waters. The most celebrated “Steps” of this Raudal are situated
between the islands of Avaguri and Javariveni, between Suripamana and
Uirapuri.
When M. Bonpland and I returned from the banks of the Rio Negro, we
ventured to pass the latter or lower half of the Raudal of Atures with
the loaded canoe, often leaving it for the rocky dikes which connect
one island with another. Sometimes the waters rush over these dikes,
and sometimes they fall with a hollow thundering sound into cavities,
and flowing for a time through subterranean channels, leave large
pieces of the bed of the river dry. Here the golden Pipra rupicola
makes its nest; it is one of the most beautiful of tropical birds, with
a double moveable crest of feathers, and is as pugnacious as the East
Indian domestic cock.
In the Raudal of Canucari the rocky dike or weir consists of piled-up
granite spheres. We crept into the interior of a grotto the damp walls
of which were covered with confervæ and shining Byssus, and where the
river rushed high above our heads with deafening noise.
We had accidentally more time than we desired for the enjoyment of
this grand scene of nature. The Indians had left us in the middle of
the cataract, proposing to take the canoe round a long narrow island
below which we were to re-embark. We waited an hour and a half under
a heavy tempestuous rain; night was coming on, and we sought in vain
for shelter between the masses of granite. The little monkeys, which
we had carried with us for months in wicker cages, by their mournful
cries attracted crocodiles whose size and leaden-grey colour shewed
their great age. I should not here notice an occurrence so usual in
the Orinoco, if the Indians had not assured us that no crocodiles were
ever seen in the cataracts; and in dependence on this assurance we had
even ventured repeatedly to bathe in this part of the river. Meanwhile
our anxiety lest we might be forced to pass the long tropical night in
the middle of the Raudal, wet through and deafened by the thundering
noise of the falling waters, increased every moment; until at last the
Indians reappeared with our canoe. From the low state of the waters
they had found the steps by which they had intended to let themselves
down inaccessible, and had been forced to seek among the labyrinth of
channels for a more practicable passage.
Near the southern entrance of the Raudal of Atures, on the right bank
of the river, is the cave of Ataruipe, which is widely celebrated among
the Indians. The grand and melancholy character of the scenery around
fits it for the burying-place of a deceased nation. We climbed with
difficulty, and not without danger of falling to a great depth below, a
steep and perfectly bare granite precipice. It would be hardly possible
to keep one’s footing on the smooth surface, if it were not for large
crystals of feldspar, which, resisting “weathering,” project as much as
an inch from the face of the rock.
On reaching the summit the traveller beholds a wide, diversified, and
striking prospect. From the foaming river-bed rise wood-crowned hills,
while beyond the western shore of the Orinoco the eye rests on the
boundless grassy plain of the Meta, uninterrupted save where at one
part of the horizon the Mountain of Uniama rises like a threatening
cloud. Such is the distance; the nearer prospect is desolate, and
closely hemmed in by high and barren rocks. All is motionless save
where the vulture or the hoarse goat-sucker hover solitarily in
mid-air, or, as they wing their flight through the deep-sunk ravine,
their silent shadows are seen gliding along the face of the bare rocky
precipice until they vanish from the eye.
This precipitous valley is bounded by mountains on whose rounded
summits are enormous detached granite spheres of more than 40 to 50
feet diameter: they appear to touch the base on which they rest only in
a single point, as if the slightest movement, such as that of a faint
earthquake shock, must cause them to roll down.
The farther part of the valley is densely wooded, and it is in this
shady portion that the cave of Ataruipe is situated. It is not properly
speaking a cave, but rather a vaulted roof formed by a far over-hanging
cliff, the cavity having apparently been formed by the waters when at
their ancient level. This place is the vault or cemetery of an extinct
nation.[63] We counted about 600 well-preserved skeletons placed in as
many baskets woven from the stalks of palm leaves. These baskets, which
the Indians call “mapires,” are shaped like square sacks, differing in
size according to the age of the deceased. Even new-born children had
each its own mapire. The skeletons are so perfect that not a bone or a
joint is wanting.
The bones had been prepared in three different ways; some bleached,
some coloured red with onoto, the pigment of the Bixa Orellana; and
some like mummies closely enveloped in sweet-smelling resin and
plantain leaves.
The Indians assured us that the custom had been to bury the fresh
corpses for some months in damp earth, which gradually consumed the
flesh; they were then dug up, and any remaining flesh scraped away with
sharp stones. This the Indians said was still the practice of several
tribes in Guiana. Besides the mapires or baskets we found urns of half
burnt clay which appeared to contain the bones of entire families.
The larger of these urns were about three feet high and nearly six
feet long, of a pleasing oval form and greenish colour, having handles
shaped like snakes and crocodiles, and meandering or labyrinthine
ornaments round the upper margin. These ornaments are quite similar
to those which cover the walls of the Mexican Palace at Mitla. They
are found in all countries and climates, and in the most different
stages of human cultivation,--among the Greeks and Romans, as well as
on the shields of the natives of Tahiti and other islands of the South
Sea,--wherever the eye is gratified by the rhythmical recurrence of
regular forms. These similarities, as I have elsewhere remarked in more
detail, are rather to be ascribed to psychological causes, or to such
as belong inherently to our mental constitution, than to be viewed as
evidences of kindred descent or ancient intercourse between different
nations.
Our interpreters could give us no certain information as to the age of
these vessels; that of the skeletons appeared for the most part not
to exceed a century. It is reported among the Guareca Indians, that
the brave Atures, being pressed upon by cannibal Caribs, withdrew to
the rocks of the Cataracts; a melancholy refuge and dwelling-place,
in which the distressed tribe finally perished, and with them their
language. In the most inaccessible parts of the Raudal there are
cavities and recesses which have served like the cave of Ataruipe as
burying-places. It is even probable that the last family of the Atures
may not have been long deceased, for (a singular fact,) there is still
in Maypures an old parrot of whom the natives affirm that he is not
understood because he speaks the Ature language.
We left the cave at nightfall, after having collected, to the great
displeasure of our Indian guides, several skulls and the entire
skeleton of a man. One of these skulls has been figured by Blumenbach
in his excellent craniological work, but the skeleton (together
with a large part of our natural history collections, especially the
entomological) was lost in a shipwreck on the coast of Africa, in which
our friend and former travelling companion, the young Franciscan monk
Juan Gonzalez, perished.
As if with a presentiment of this painful loss, we turned our steps
in a thoughtful and melancholy mood from this burying-place of a race
deceased. It was one of those clear and cool nights so frequent in the
tropics. The moon, encircled with coloured rings, stood high in the
zenith illuminating the margin of the mist which lay with well-defined
cloud-like outlines on the surface of the foaming river. Countless
insects poured their red phosphoric light on the herb-covered ground,
which glowed with living fire as if the starry canopy of heaven had
sunk down upon the turf. Climbing Bignonias, fragrant Vanillas, and
yellow-flowering Banisterias, adorned the entrance of the cave; and the
summits of the palms rustled above the graves.
Thus perish the generations of men! Thus do the name and the traces of
nations fade and disappear! Yet when each blossom of man’s intellect
withers,--when in the storms of time the memorials of his art moulder
and decay,--an ever new life springs forth from the bosom of the earth;
maternal Nature unfolds unceasingly her germs, her flowers, and her
fruits; regardless though man with his passions and his crimes treads
under foot her ripening harvest.
ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS.
[53] p. 209.--“_Across the peaceful ocean arm, which fills the wide
valley between the American shore and Western Africa._”
The Atlantic Ocean, from the 23d degree of South to the 70th degree of
North latitude, has the form of an excavated longitudinal valley, in
which the salient and re-entering angles are opposite to each other.
I first developed this idea in my “Essai d’un Tableau géologique de
l’Amérique méridionale,” printed in the Journal de Physique, T. liii.
p. 61. (Geognostische Skizze von Südamerika, in Gilbert’s Annalen der
Physik, Bd. xvi. 1804, S. 394-449.) From the Canaries, and especially
from the 21st degree of North latitude and the 23d degree of West
longitude, to the North-East coast of South America, the surface of
the sea is usually so calm, and the waves so gentle, that an open boat
might navigate in safety.
[54] p. 209.--“_A wonderful outbreak of fresh springs in the middle of
the ocean._”
On the southern coast of the island of Cuba, south-west of the Port of
Batabano in the gulf of Xagua, a few miles from the coast, springs of
fresh water gush from the bed of the ocean probably under the influence
of hydrostatic pressure, and rise through the midst of the salt water.
They issue forth with such force that boats are cautious in approaching
this locality, which has an ill repute on account of the high cross sea
thus caused. Trading vessels sailing along the coast and not disposed
to land, sometimes visit these springs to take in a supply of fresh
water, which is thus obtained in the open sea. The greater the depth
from which the water is taken, the fresher it is found to be. The
“river cow,” Trichecus manati, which does not remain habitually in
salt water, is often killed here. This remarkable phenomenon of fresh
springs issuing from the sea has been most carefully examined by a
friend of mine, Don Francisco Lemaur, who made a trigonometrical survey
of the Bay of Xagua. I have been farther to the South in the group
of islands called the Jardines del Rey, (the King’s Gardens), making
astronomical observations for latitude and longitude; but I have never
been at Xagua itself.
[55] p. 210.--“_The ancient site of a rocky bulwark._”
Columbus, whose unwearied spirit of observation exerted itself in
every direction, propounds in his letters to the Spanish monarchs a
geognostical hypothesis respecting the forms of the larger Antilles.
Having his mind deeply impressed with the strength of the East and
West Equinoctial current, he ascribes to it the breaking up of the
group of the smaller West Indian islands, and the singularly lengthened
configuration of the southern coasts of Porto Rico, Haiti, Cuba, and
Jamaica, which all follow almost exactly the direction of parallels
of latitude. On his third voyage (from the end of May 1498 to the end
of November 1500), in which, from the Boca del Drago to the Island
of Margarita, and afterwards from that island to Haiti, he felt
the whole force of the Equinoctial current, “that movement of the
waters which is in accordance or conformity with the movement of the
heavens--movimiento de los cielos,” he says expressly that the Island
of Trinidad had been torn from the mainland by the violence of the
current. He alludes to a chart which he sends to the monarchs,--a
“pintura de la tierra” by himself, which is often referred to in the
celebrated lawsuit against Don Diego Colon respecting the rights of
the Admiral. “Es la carta de marear y figura que hizo el Almirante
señalando los rumbos y vientos por los quales vino á Paria, que dicen
parte del Asia”, (Navarrete Viages y Descubrimientos que hiciéron por
mar los Españoles, T. i. p. 253 and 260; T. iii. p. 539 and 587.)
[56] p. 210.--“_Over the snow-covered Paropanisus._”
Diodorus’s descriptions of the Paropanisus (Diodor. Sicul. lib. xvii.
p. 553, Rhodom.) might almost pass for a description of the Andes of
Peru. The Army passed through inhabited places where snow fell daily!
[57] p. 211.--“_Herrara in the Decades._”
Historia general de las Indias occidentales, Dec. i. lib iii. cap. 12
(ed. 1601, p. 106); Juan Bautista Muñoz, Historia del Nuevo Mundo, lib.
vi. c. 31, p. 301; Humboldt, Examen Crit. T. iii p. 111.
[58] p. 213.--“_The Sources of the Orinoco have never been visited by
any European._”
Thus I wrote respecting these sources in the year 1807, in the first
edition of the “Ansichten der Natur,” and I have to repeat the same
statement after an interval of 41 years. The travels of the brothers
Robert and Richard Schomburgk, so important for all departments
of natural knowledge and geography, have afforded us thorough
investigations of other and more interesting facts; but the problem of
the situation of the sources of the Orinoco has been only approximately
solved by Sir Robert Schomburgk. It was from the West that M. Bonpland
and myself advanced as far as Esmeralda, or the confluence of the
Orinoco and the Guapo; and I was able to describe with certainty, by
the aid of well-assured information, the upper course of the Orinoco to
above the mouth of the Gehette, and to the small Waterfall (Raudal) de
los Guaharibos. It was from the East that Robert Schomburgk, advancing
from the mountains of the Majonkong Indians, (the altitude of the
inhabited portions of which he estimated by the boiling point of water
at 3300 F., or 3517 E. feet), came to the Orinoco by the Padamo River,
which the Majonkongs and Guinaus (Guaynas?) call Paramu (Reisen in
Guiana, 1841, S. 448). In my Atlas I had estimated the position of the
confluence of the Padamo with the Orinoco at N. lat. 3° 12′, and W.
long. 65° 46′: Robert Schomburgk found it by direct observation, lat.
2° 53′, long. 65° 48′. The leading object of this traveller’s arduous
journey was not the pursuit of natural history, but the solution of the
prize question proposed by the Royal Geographical Society of London
in November 1834,--viz. the connection of the coast of British Guiana
with the easternmost point which I had reached on the Upper Orinoco.
After many difficulties and much suffering, the desired object was
completely attained. Robert Schomburgk arrived with his instruments
on the 22d of February, 1839, at Esmeralda. His determinations of the
latitude and longitude of the place agreed more closely with mine than
I had expected would be the case (S. xviii. and 471). Here let us
allow the observer to speak for himself:--“I want words to describe
the feelings which overpowered me as I sprang to shore. My aim was
attained; my observations, began on the coast of Guiana, were brought
into connection with those of Humboldt at Esmeralda: I frankly own,
that in the course of this enterprise, at a time when almost all my
physical powers had well nigh deserted me, and when I was surrounded
by dangers and difficulties of no common nature, it was only by the
recognition which I hoped for from him, that I had been encouraged to
press onward with unalterable determination towards the goal which
I had now reached. The emaciated figures of my Indians and faithful
guides told more plainly than any words could do, what difficulties we
had had to surmount, and had surmounted.” After expressions so kind
towards myself, I must be permitted to subjoin the following passage,
extracted from my Preface to the German Edition of Robert Schomburgk’s
Account of his Travels, published in 1841.