ERRORS IN THE BEST MAPS.

29

and the local circumstances, such as they can now be described, it will be easy to conceive how the different hypotheses recorded on our maps have taken rise by degrees, and have modified each other. To oppose an error, it is sufficient to recall to mind the variable forms in which we have seen it appear at different periods.

Till the middle of the eighteenth century, all that vast space of land comprised between the mountains of French Guiana and the forests of the Upper Orinoco, between the sources of the Carony and the River Amazon (from 0° to 4° of north latitude, and from 57° to 68° of longitude), was so little known, that geographers could place in it lakes where they pleased, create communications between rivers, and figure chains of mountains more or less lofty. They have made full use of this liberty; and the situation of lakes, as well as the course and branches of rivers, has been varied in so many ways, that it would not be surprising, if among the great number of maps some were found that trace the real state of things. The field of hypotheses is now singularly narrowed. I have determined the longitude of Esmeralda in the Upper Orinoco; more to the east, amid the plains of Parima (a land as unknown as Wangara and Dar-Saley, in Africa), a band of twenty leagues broad has been travelled over from north to south along the banks of the Rio Carony and the Rio Branco, in the longitude of sixty-three degrees. This is the perilous road which was taken by Don Antonio Santos in going from Santo Thomé del Angostura to Rio Negro and the Amazon; by this road also the colonists of Surinam communicated very recently with the inhabitants of Grand Para. This road divides the terra incognita of Parima into two unequal portions; and fixes limits at the same time to the sources of the Orinoco, which it is no longer possible to carry back indefinitely toward the east, without supposing that the bed of the Rio Branco, which flows from north to south, is crossed by the bed of the Upper Orinoco, which flows from east to west. If we follow the course of the Rio Branco, or that strip of cultivated land which is dependent on the Capitania General of Grand Para, we see lakes, partly imaginary, and partly enlarged by geographers, forming two distinct groups. The first of these groups includes the lakes which they place between the Esmeralda and the Rio Branco; and to the

30

DIFFERENT SITES OF EL DORADO.

second belong those that are supposed to lie between the Rio Branco and the mountains of Dutch and French Guiana. It results from this sketch, that the question whether there exists a lake Parima on the east of the Rio Branco, is altogether foreign to the problem of the sources of the Orinoco. Beside the country which we have just noticed (the Dorado de la Parime, traversed by the Rio Branco), another part of America is found, two hundred and sixty leagues toward the west, near the eastern back of the Cordillera of the Andes, equally celebrated in the expeditions to El Do rado. This is the Mesopotamia between the Caqueta, the Rio Negro, the Uaupes, and the Yurubesh, of which I have already given a particular account; it is the Dorado of the Omaquas, which contains Lake Manoa of Father Acunha, the Laguna de oro of the Guanes, and the auriferous land, whence Father Fritz received plates of beaten gold in his mission on the Amazon, toward the end of the seventeenth century.

The first, and above all the most celebrated enterprises attempted in search of El Dorado were directed toward the eastern back of the Andes of New Grenada. Fired with the ideas which an Indian of Tacunga had given of the wealth of the king or zaque of Cundirumarca, Sebastian de Belalcazar, in 1535, sent his captains Anasco and Ampudia, to discover the valley of El Dorado,* twelve days' journey from Guallabamba, consequently in the mountains between Pasto and Popayan. The information which Pedro de Anasco had obtained from the natives, joined to that which was received subsequently (1536) by Diaz de Pineda, who had discovered the provinces of Quixos and Canela, between the Rio Napo and the Rio Pastaca, gave birth to the idea that on the east of the Nevados of Tunguragua, Cayambe, and Popayan, "were vast plains, abounding in precious metals, and where the inhabitants were covered

*El valle del Dorado. Pineda relates, " que mas adelante de la provincia de la Canela se hallan tierras muy ricas, adonde andaban los hombres armados de pieças y joyas de oro, y que no havia sierra, ni montana." [Beyond the province of Canela there are found very rich countries (though without mountains) in which the natives are adorned with trinkets and plates of gold.] Herrera, dec. v, lib. x, cap. xiv, and dec. vi, lib. viii, cap. vi. Geogr. Blaviana, vol. xi, p. 261. Southey, tom i, p. 78 et 373.

*

with armour of massy gold." Gonzales Pizarro, in searching for these treasures, discovered accidentally, in 1539, the cinnamon-trees of America, (Laurus cinnamomoïdes, Mut.); and Francisco de Orellana went down the Napo, to reach the river Amazon. Since that period expeditions were undertaken at the same time from Venezuela, New Grenada, Quito, Peru, and even from Brazil and the Rio de la Plata,* for the conquest of El Dorado. Those of which the remembrance have been best preserved, and which have most contributed to spread the fable of the riches of the Manaos, the Omaguas, and the Guaypes, as well as the existence of the lagunas de oro, and the town of the gilded king' (Grand Patiti, Grand Moxo, Grand Paru, or Enim), are the incursions made to the south of the Guaviare, the Rio Fragua, and the Caqueta. Orellana, having found idols of massy gold, had fixed men's ideas on an auriferous land between the Papamene and the Guaviare. His narrative, and those of the voyages of Jorge de Espira (George von Speier), Hernan Perez de Quesada, and Felipe de Urre (Philip von Huten), undertaken in 1536, 1542, and 1545, furnish, amid much exaggeration, proofs of very exact local knowledge. When these are examined merely in a geographical point of view, we perceive the constant desire of the first conquistadores to reach the land comprised between the sources of the Rio Negro, of the Uaupès (Guape), and of the Jupura or Caqueta. This is the land which, in order to distinguish it from El Dorado de la Parime, we have called El Dorado des Omaguas. No doubt the whole country between the Amazon and the Orinoco was vaguely known by the name of las Provincias del Dorado; but in

* Nuño de Chaves went from the Ciudad de la Asumpcion, situate on the Rio Paraguay, to discover, in the latitude of 24° south, the vast empire of El Dorado, which was everywhere supposed to lie on the eastern back of the Andes.

We may be surprised to see, that the expedition of Huten is passed over in absolute silence by Herrera (dec. 7, lib. 10, cap. vii, vol. iv, p. 238). Fray Pedro Simon gives the whole particulars of it, true or fabulous; but he composed his work from materials that were unknown to Herrera.

In 1560 Pedro de Ursua even took the title of Governador del Dorado y de Omagua. (Fray Pedro Simon, vol. vi. chan. x, p. 430.)

32

THE RIO PARAGUA.

this vast extent of forests, savannahs, and mountains, the progress of those who sought the great lake with auriferous banks, and the town of the gilded king,' was directed towards two points only, on the north-east and south-west of the Rio Negro; that is, to Parima (or the isthmus between the Carony, the Essequibo, and the Rio Branco), and to the ancient abode of the Manaos, the inhabitants of the banks of the Yurubesh. I have just mentioned the situation of the latter spot, which is celebrated in the history of the conquest from 1535 to 1560; and it remains. for me to speak of the configuration of the country between the Spanish missions of the Rio Carony, and the Portuguese missions of the Rio Branco or Parima. This is the country lying near the Lower Orinoco, the Esmeralda, and French and Dutch Guiana, on which, since the end of the sixteenth century, the enterprises and exaggerated narratives of Raleigh have shed so bright a splendour.

From the general disposition of the course of the Orinoco, directed successively towards the west, the north, and the east, its mouth lies almost in the same meridian as its sources so that by proceeding from Vieja Guyana to the south the traveller passes through the whole of the country in which geographers have successively placed an inland sea (Mar Blanco), and the different lakes which are connected with the El Dorado de la Parime. We find first the Rio Carony, which is formed by the union of two branches of almost equal magnitude, the Carony properly so called, and the Rio Paragua. The missionaries of Piritu call the latter river a lake (laguna): it is full of shoals, and little cascades; but, "passing through a country entirely flat, it is subject at the same time to great inundations, and its real bed (su verdadera caxa) can scarcely be discovered." The natives have given it the name of Paragua or Parava, which means in the Caribbee language 'sea,' or great lake.' These local circumstances and this denomination no doubt have given rise to the idea of transforming the Rio Paragua, a tributary stream of the Carony, into a lake called Cassipa, on account of the Cassipagotos,* who lived in those coun

* Raleigh, p. 64, 69. I always quote, when the contrary is not ex

THE LAKE CASSIPA.

33

tries. Raleigh gives this basin forty miles in breadth; and, as all the lakes of Parima must have auriferous sands, he does not fail to assert, that in summer, when the waters retire, pieces of gold of considerable weight are found there.

The sources of the tributary streams of the Carony, the Arui, and the Caura (Caroli, Arvi, and Caora,* of the ancient geographers) being very near each other, this suggested the idea of making all these rivers take their rise from the pretended lake Cassipa.† Sanson has so much enlarged this lake, that he gives it forty-two leagues in length, and fifteen in breadth. The ancient geographers placed opposite to each other, with very little hesitation, the tributary streams of the two banks of a river; and they place the mouth of the Carony, and lake Cassipa, which communicates by the Carony with the Orinoco, sometimes‡ above the confluence of the Meta. Thus it is carried back by Hondius as far as the latitudes of 2° and 3°, giving it the form of a rectangle, the longest sides of which run from north to south. This circumstance is worthy of remark, because, in assigning gradually a more southern latitude to the lake Cassipa, it has been detached from the Carony and pressly said, the original edition of 1596. Have these tribes of Cassi pagotos, Epuremei, and Orinoqueponi, so often mentioned by Raleigh, disappeared? or did some misapprehension give rise to these denominations? I am surprised to find the Indian words [of one of the different Carib dialects?] Ezrabeta cassipuna aquerewana, translated by Raleigh, "the great princes" or greatest commander." Since acarwana certainly signifies a chief, or any person who commands (Raleigh, pp. 6 and 7), cassipuna perhaps means "great," and lake Cassipa is synonymous with great lake. In the same manner Cass-iquiare may be a great river, for iquiare, like veni, is, on the north of the Amazon, a termination common to all rivers. Goto, however, in Cassipa-goto, is a Caribbee term denoting a tribe.

66

* D'Anville names the Rio Caura, Coari; and the Rio Arui, Aroay. I have not been able hitherto to guess what is meant by the Aloica (Atoca, Atoica of Raleigh), which issues from the lake Cassipa, between the Caura and the Arui.

† Raleigh makes only the Carony and the Arui issue from it (Hondius, Nieuwe Caerte van het wonderbare landt Guiana, besocht door Sir Walter Raleigh, 1594-1596): but in later maps, for instance that of Sanson, the Rio Caura issues also from Lake Cassipa.

Sanson. Map for the Voyage of Acunha, 1680. Id. South America, 1659. Coronelli, Indes occidentales, 1689.

VOL. III.

D