132 THE UPPER ORINOCO. 



of the rivers. This phenomenon, which will one day be so 

 important for the political connections of nations, unques- 

 tionably deserves to be carefully examined. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



The Upper Orinoco, from Esmeralda to the confluence of the Guaviare. 

 Second passage across the Cataracts of Atures and Maypures. The 

 Lower Orinoco, between the mouth of the Rio Apure, and Angostura 

 the capital of Spanish Guiana. 



OPPOSITE to the point where the Orinoco forms its bifur- 

 cation, the granitic group of Duida rises in an amphitheatre 

 on the right bank of the river. This mountain, which the 

 missionaries call a volcano, is nearly eight thousand feet 

 high. It is perpendicular on the south and west, and has 

 an aspect of solemn grandeur. Its summit is bare and 

 stony, but, wherever its less steep declivities are covered 

 with mould vast forests appear suspended on its flanks. At 

 the foot of Duida is the mission of Esmeralda, a little 

 hamlet with eighty inhabitants, surrounded by a lovely 

 plain, intersected by rills of black but limpid water. This 

 plain is adorned witli clumps of the mauritia palm, the sago- 

 tree of America. Nearer the mountain, the distance of 

 which from the cross of the mission I found to be seven 

 thousand three hundred toises, the marshy plain changes to 

 a savannah, and spends itself along the lower region of the 

 Cordillera. Large pine-apples are there found of a delicious 

 flavour; that species of bromelia always grows solitary 

 among the gramina, like our Colchicum autumnale, while 

 the B. karatas, another species of the same genus, is a social 

 plant, like our whortleberries and heaths. The pine-apples 

 of Esmeralda are cultivated throughout Gruiana. There are 

 certain spots in America, as in Europe, where different 

 fruits attain their highest perfection. The sapota-plmn 

 (achra) should be eaten at the Island of Margareta or at 

 Curnana: the chirimoya (very different from the custard- 

 apple and sweet-sop of the West India Islands) at Loxa in 

 Peru ; the grenadilla, or parcha, at Caracas ; and the pine- 

 apple at Esmeralda, or in the island of Cuba. The pino- 



