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Updated: May 14, 2025
The cold then deprives him of all motion and feeling, his body becomes much swollen, and fearful distortion of the features is produced by the dreadful convulsions he is suffering, while the surface of his skin becomes nearly black. The only remedy the natives know of is to scourge each other, and to drink the cold water from the springs, which are found here and there in most of the Paramos.
Paramo, in Peruvian puna, is a denomination found on all the maps of Spanish America. In the colonies it signifies neither a desert nor a heath, but a mountainous place covered with stunted trees, exposed to the winds, and in which a damp cold perpetually reigns. In the torrid zone, the paramos are generally from one thousand six hundred to two thousand toises high.
I had resolved to visit the eastern extremity of the Cordilleras of New Grenada, where they lose themselves in the paramos of Timotes and Niquitao. I learned at Barbula, that this excursion would retard our arrival at the Orinoco thirty-five days. This delay appeared to us so much the longer, as the rains were expected to begin sooner than usual.
The littoral chain of Venezuela, of which the different ranges form the Montana de Paria, the isthmus of Araya, the Silla of Caracas and the gneiss-granite mountains north and south of the lake of Valencia, is joined between Porto Cabello, San Felipe and Tocuyo to the Paramos de las Rosas and Niquitao, which form the north-east extremity of the Sierra de Merida, and the eastern Cordillera of the Andes of New Grenada.
We had all of us heard this account of the Paramos, and were fully prepared for the danger we must encounter. Being on foot, we should the better be able to keep ourselves warm; at the same time, we should be the longer exposed to the piercing wind. Already, as we mounted towards this fearful region, we began to experience unpleasant sensations when breathing.
As the paramos are almost continually enveloped in a cold and thick fog, the people say at Santa Fe and at Mexico, cae un paramito when a thick small rain falls, and the temperature of the air sinks considerably. We landed about eight in the morning at the point of Araya, near the new salt-works.
Those Llanos extend, in the form of an arch, from the mouth of the Orinoco, by San Fernando de Apure, to the confluence of the Rio Caguan with the Jupura, consequently along a length of more than 360 leagues. The general slope is eastward, and the mean height from 40 to 50 toises. Of this number are the Paramos del Almorzadero, Cacota, Laura, Porquera, Mucuchies, Timotes, and Las Rosas.
There were, besides, several churches, four convents, and two nunneries. To the north of the city, towards the Cauca, is the handsomest bridge in that part of the country. From the town, in the early part of the morning, when the sun shines on them, can be seen the Cordilleras of Chicquio, and at a less distance rises the Paramos of Puxana and Soltana, presenting a magnificent appearance.
These valleys are uninhabitable deserts known as paramos, in which no human being can exist without keeping in unceasing and violent motion. No artificial means appears sufficient to sustain life while a person is exposed to their chilling atmosphere; the strongest spirits have no effect and, indeed, increase the direful consequences.
The intermediary, or central chain, runs east of Popayan, by the high plains of Mabasa, the Paramos of Guanacas, Huila, Savelillo, Iraca, Baraguan, Tolima, Ruiz and Herveo, towards the province of Antioquia.
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