A Description of Javita 
’Tis where the streams divide, to swell the 
floods 
Of the two mighty rivers of our globe; 
Where gushing brooklets in their narrow 
beds 
Lie hid, o’ershadow’d by th’ eternal woods 
And trickle onwards,—these to increase the 
wave 
Of turbid Orinooko; those, by a longer 
course 
In the Black River’s isle-strewn bed, flow 
down 
To mighty Amazon, the river-king, 
And, mingled with his all-engulfing stream, 
Go to do battle with proud Ocean’s self 
And drive him back even from his own 
domain 
Alfred Russell Wallace 
L ast year was the centenary both of 
the death of Alexander von Hum¬ 
boldt and of Darwin’s and Wallace’s 
joint publication of a theory of evo¬ 
lution bv natural selection. Symposia 
were held in various parts of the world 
in observance of these anniversaries. 
For Humboldt, Wallace, and other 
pioneer naturalists, one common path 
in their tropical travels was the portage 
between the Orinoco and Rio Negro 
drainages in southwestern Venezuela. 
In their travel writings, both Hum¬ 
boldt and Wallace dwelt at length on 
their experiences in this region, and un¬ 
doubtedly their ideas on the tropics 
were strongly influenced by their stays 
on the height-of-land. 
The Orinoco River describes a gigan¬ 
tic arc of some three hundred and fifty 
river miles between Tama-Tama and 
the mouth of the Meta River. Because 
of the reversal of the Orinoco’s course, 
the all-water trip from San Fernando 
de Atabapo to the Rio Negro via the 
Rio Casiquiare (about four hundred 
and twenty-five river miles) involves 
twice as much time as the Rio Atabapo 
Dr. Wurdack is Associate Curator of 
—Yavita to Pimichin portage — Rio 
Guainia route (about two hundred 
miles). Between Cano Temi and Cano 
Pimichin, the height - of - land is only 
eleven miles wide, the terrain flat. 
Indeed Humboldt proposed to King 
Charles IV of Spain the building of a 
canal between the drainages to facili¬ 
tate development of the upper Orinoco- 
Rio Negro area. 
For the last one hundred and sixty- 
four years, the approach from the Ori¬ 
noco has been the Rio Atabapo and its 
affluent, Cano Temi, to the insignifi¬ 
cant port of Yavita. From the Guainia, 
the sinuous course of Cano Pimichin is 
followed from just above Maroa to the 
landing at Pimichin. Both approaches 
The New York Botanical Garden, 
are through flat land with scrub forest 
and savannas, which are inundated dur¬ 
ing the rainy season. Inexplicably the 
entire area is considerably cooler and 
rainier than the adjacent Orinoco-Casi- 
quiare region. The walk across the 
portage is predominantly through high 
rainforest. 
Apart from the saving of time, in 
daily ease of living the portage route 
has the great advantage of being free 
from the biting blackflies which becloud 
the upper Orinoco and Casiquiare Riv¬ 
ers. Thus the short cut immediately be¬ 
came popular among the Portuguese 
who had been across the divide about 
1755. During the middle of the eight¬ 
eenth century, both Spain and Portugal 
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