The Sun.
London, England, 1821-09-15 00:00:00

FOREIGN LITERATURE.

(No: XXXIX.)
VOYAGE aux'IIEGIO.NS EQUINOXIALES. du NOU.:
VEAU CONTINENT : e. Travels in the Eqiiinociial
Regions of the New. Continent, performed in and from 1799
to 1804, by M. DE HUMBOLDT and A. DE BOUPL-AND ;
with two Atlases, one containing Views of the Cordilleras
and Monuments of the Indigenous Inhabitants of America,
and the other containing Geographical and Physical Maps
and Plans. Vol. IV. 8v0... Paris. 1821.

M. de IlustnoLnT proceeds slot'vly. In 1819
we followed him across the deserts of New An-
dalusia to the banks of the Oronoco ; nearly two
years have since elapsed, and we still find this
intrepid observer on tfk same river to which he
has devoted almost the whole of the fourth vo-
lume of his important Travels. What can a writer
say concerning a river to fill so many pages ?
,This is a remark that will be made by unreilc4-
lug readers, and especially by men whose opi-
nions are founded- on their prejudices and habits.
Why does M. de Humboldt remain such a long
time on the Oronoco ? The answer to this ques:-
tion will give the best idea of this part of the
Travels which we can offer in the narrow limit's
of a newspaper article._
Let us imagine a river which, in the course of
500 leagues, presents frequently- a breadth of
from 2,800 to 5,500 fathoms, the profound waters
of which conceal the great amphibious 'animals
of the ocean, and crocodiles 24 feet long. Let
us figure to ourselves afterwards all the streams
of water, tributaries of this great river, and we
shall then find, not without astonishment, that
many of these affluents equal the Danube, the
king of European rivers; that these majestic
afiluents are themselves maintained by rivers to'
which none of our own are to be compared ; and
that these rivers receive the waters of others
which Europe would deem of the first magni-
tude. Without enumerating this fluvial hierarchy,
we will terminate this description by one instance

from which the relative prof)ortions of the whole
may be conceived. The P insichin,,,a small current,
which is lost iu the desert, and on which the natives
scarcely bestow the name of cano (rivulet) is as
broad and as deep as the Thames at Vauxhall.
If physical magnitudes are of any importance
in geography, the Oronoco and its enormous and
numerous affluents ought properly to have occu-
pied a long time the attention of a traveller like
M. do Humboldt.

Yet, notwithstanding the breadth and depth of
this river, the mass of its waters is not in propor-
tion with all those it receives from so many tribu-
taries : it is true a portion of them is diverted

into other channels by the numerous cataracts
against which the main stream dashes,.and another
portion of them must he curried off by evapora-
tion, exposed as they are to a high temperature ;
but as these causes are not sufficient to account

for so great a diminution, we are inclined to
suppose that a large part of them is absorbed by
subterraneous gulphs. This 'phenomenon, of
which we have already instances in other rivers, and
especially in the Zaire, recurs in a most astonish-
ing manner in the kingdom of Quito, where the
Yong° of Manseriche engulphs a part of the
waters and the whole of the timber of the Upper
Maragnon. Where do all these waters go, and
where goes the whole of those trees which dis.
appear from the surface of the globe ? I will
answer by another question :-----Whence come all
those waters which the earth concelds at greater
or less depths ; and whence come those subter-
ranean forests which are occasionally discovered
in countries which do not abound in timber ?

A consideration of another order presented
to M. de Humboldt and his learned fellow-tra-
veller an object worthy of their ambition. Dur-
ing nearly three centuries the Oronoco had bee❑
to natural philosophers and geographers as mys-
terious a river as the Niger is in the present day.
It is true there was no question relative to the disco-

very of its mouth ; on the contrary, this was nearly
the only thing respecting which they did not
differ; but they disputed concerning a branch, a
communication between the Oronoco and the

River Amazon, the greatest stream of water on
the surface of the earth. This potamographical
phenomenon has been a long time contested, and
is continually discussing. 'A celebrated French
geographer maintained that this pretended com-
munication was a monstrosity in geography. The
maps then in existence were not capable of re-
solving this problem; indeed, their imperfection
was such that we could not form any tolerable
idea of this part of America. M. de Humboldt
refers to some of these 'maps where Quito is
placed under the meridian of Cumana ; I have
one where Quito is much nearer the Atlantic
Ocean than the South Sea, and on which there is
no trace of the Orottoco ; but it is very remark-
able that among these maps, incorrect as they
are, there are several which indicate, even at that
time, a communication between two great rivers.
I have now before me a map of the world, and a
map of America, published at Rome in 1597, on
which the Orellana and the Maragnon are re-
presented as two distinct rivers, flowing parallel
from west to east, and in both of these maps a
stream of water unites the two rivers at a spot
where the geographer places a town of Picora.—
By a- still more sino-ular coincidence, but no
doubt accidental, 'the ancient geographer has
placed his town of Picora, and the branch of the
two great rivers, at 43° west longitude from the
Isle of Ferro, which answers, within about five
.degrees, to the position where M. de Humboldt
has fixed the junction of the Oronoco to the Cas-
siquiari, a trifling error for the time when the
map was engraved ; but the geographer of the
,sixteenth century places this branch to the South

of the. Equator, which destroys all analogy be-
tween the ancient andd-rnodern notions.-

From these glimmerings of light, which shine at
intervals amid the obscurity of ancient geography,.
e may conclude that thejunction of two great'
rivets,haS been long vaguely known, and, that
tin.; phenomenon has been badly described and
badly applied before the' discovery.of th 4 assi-
quiari, which establishes the communicatioa. lu
the last century, some missionaries having 'passed
from the Rio-Negro, an affluent of the ..2rnaion,
into the Oronoco, without quitting their boat, it
was no longer possible to deny the junction, and
from that time it bechme necessary to renounce
those chains of mountains and points of separa-
tion which were then so liberally trated.on all
the maps. Even now, when geography has made
such great progress, our maps are far from being
quite accurate. However sorrowful a great los,
may make our geographers, yet I am compelled
to inform them, that they must give up for
that Sierra-Mey, at the foot of which they, plz.;.ki
the sources of the Oronoco, -and that .beautiful
Lokc Parima, which figures so well in' Spaids!i
Guiana. M. de llumboldt leaves us no hope of
seeing thorn reappear in-future maps, for they
do not exist.

The communication between the Amazo-n and
the Rio-Negro, that between the Rio-Negro and
the Cassiquiari, and that between the laSt -men-
tioned river and the Oronoco, were known and
very correctly marked on our most recent maps;
but M. de Humboldt and M. Bonplaiid wished
to be convinced of it by personal observation,
and to determine in 'the most accurate manlier all
the circumstances of this junction. It was in order
to ascertain these facts that they performed in
sixty five days a navigation of more than six
hundred leagues, -twenty five to a degree:; that
they submitted to be devoured by gnatcmuski-
tos, and the whole tipular race ; that they ex-
posed themselves to the ferocity of the- jaguars,
and the voracity of the crocodiles ; that they
braved the suffocating heats, and the putrefying
humidity of so many rivers, whose waters are,
even during the night, at the temperature of our
warm baths ; that they descended undismayed the
rapids and the cataracts of the Oronoco ; and
that they. lived so miserably as to taste with de-
light—delicate viands doubtless, or exquisite
fruits ? No,—the first piece of bread which was
presented to them at Angostura. No, truly, it'
was .not the auri sacra fames which inspired them
with this courage : science,,as well as politics,
possesses its ambition, but what a difference in
the result.

Rapid and concise as is our sketch of this
navigation on so many rivers, which, notwith-
standing they take different or contrary direc-
tions, still bring back the bark of our travellers to
the point from which it set out, yet want of space
compels us to defer its insertion until Monday.
[To be continued.]

FOR THE SUN'.