Footnote 53:
p. 154—“_Across that pacific arm of the sea_.”
The Atlantic Ocean, between the parallels of 23° south lat. and 70°
north lat., has the form of a furrowed longitudinal valley, in which the
advancing and receding angles are opposite to each other. I first
developed this idea in my work entitled _Essai d’un Tableau Géologique
de l’Amérique méridionale_, which was published in the _Journal de
Physique_, t. liii. p. 61.[IC] From the Canary Isles, especially from
21° north lat., and 23° west long., to the north-east coast of South
America, the surface of the ocean is so calm, and the waves so gentle,
that an open boat might navigate it in safety.
Footnote 54:
p. 155—“_Fresh springs among the Islands of the Antilles_.”
On the southern coast of the island of Cuba, south-west of the harbour
of Batabano, in the Gulf of Xagua, at a distance of eight to twelve
miles from the shore, springs of fresh water gush from the bed of the
ocean, probably from the action of hydrostatic pressure. The jet is
propelled with such force that boats use extreme caution in approaching
this spot, which is well known for its counter current producing a heavy
swell. Trading vessels sailing along the coast, which do not purpose
putting into port, sometimes visit these springs, in order to provide
themselves, in the midst of the ocean, with a supply of fresh water. The
freshness of the water increases with the depth from which it is drawn.
River cows (_Trichecus manati_), which do not generally inhabit salt
water, are frequently killed here. This singular phenomenon (the fresh
springs), of which no mention had hitherto been made, was most
accurately investigated by my friend, Don Francisco Lemaur, who made a
trigonometrical survey of the Bahia de Xagua. I did not myself visit
Xagua, but remained in the insular group situated further to the south
(the so-called _Jardines del Rey_), to make astronomical determinations
of their latitude and longitude.
Footnote 55:
p. 155—“_Ancient rocky barrier_.”
Columbus, whose unwearied spirit of observation was directed on every
side, proposes in his letters to the Spanish monarchs, a geognostic
hypothesis regarding the configuration of the larger Antilles. Being
fully impressed with the idea of the strength of the Equinoctial
current, which has often a westerly direction, he ascribes to it the
disintegration of the group of the smaller Antilles, and the singularly
lengthened configuration of the southern coasts of Porto Rico, Haiti,
Cuba, and Jamaica, all of which follow almost exactly the direction of
parallels of latitude. On his third voyage (from the end of May, 1498,
to the end of November, 1500), when, from the Boca del Drago to the
Island of Margarita, and afterwards from that island to Haiti, he felt
the whole force of the equinoctial current, “that movement of the waters
which accords with the movement of the heavens—_movimiento de los
cielos_,” he says expressly that the violence of the current has torn
the Island of Trinidad from the mainland. He refers the sovereigns to a
chart which he sends them—a “_pintura de la tierra_,” drawn by himself,
to which frequent reference is made in the celebrated lawsuit against
Don Diego Colon respecting the rights of the first Admiral. “Es la carta
de marear y figura que hizo el Almirante señalando los rumbos y vientos
por los quales vino á Paria, que dicen parte del Asia.”[ID]
Footnote 56:
p. 156—“_Across the snow-crowned Paropanisus_.”
In Diodorus’ description of the Paropanisus,[IE] we seem to recognise a
delineation of the Peruvian chain of the Andes. The army passed through
inhabited districts in which snow daily fell!
Footnote 57:
p. 156—“_Herrera in his Decades_.”
_Historia general de las Indias Occidentales_, Dec. i. lib. iii. cap. 12
(ed. 1601, p. 106); Juan Batista Muñoz, _Historia del Nuevo Mundo_, lib.
vi. c. 31, p. 301; Humboldt, _Examen Crit._, t. iii. p. 111.
Footnote 58:
p. 158—“_The Sources of the Orinoco have never been visited by any
European_.”
Thus I wrote respecting these sources in the year 1807, in the first
edition of the _Ansichten der Natur_, and I repeat with equal truth the
same statement after an interval of forty-one years. The travels of the
brothers Robert and Richard Schomburgk, so important in reference to all
departments of natural science and geography, have established other and
more interesting facts; but the problem of the situation of the sources
of the Orinoco has been only partially solved by Sir Robert Schomburgk.
M. Bonpland and myself advanced from the west as far as Esmeralda, or
the confluence of the Orinoco with the Guapo; and I was enabled, by the
aid of well-attested information, to describe the upper course of the
Orinoco to above the mouth of the Gehette, and to the small waterfall
(Raudal) de los Guaharibos. From the east Sir Robert Schomburgk,
proceeding from the mountains of the Majonkong Indians, the inhabited
portion of which he estimated by the boiling point of water to be 3517
feet in height, succeeded in reaching the Orinoco by the Padamo River,
which the Majonkongs and Guinaus (Guaynas?) call Paramu.[IF] I had
placed this confluence of the Padamo with the Orinoco in my Atlas, in 3°
12′ N. lat., and 65° 46′ W. long. but Schomburgk found it by direct
observation in 2° 53′ lat. and 65° 48′ W. long. The main object of this
traveller’s journey was not ‘natural history,’ but the solution of the
prize question proposed by the Royal Geographical Society of London, in
November, 1834,—on the connection of the coast of British Guiana with
the easternmost point which I had reached on the Upper Orinoco. After
undergoing many sufferings, this object was thoroughly achieved. Robert
Schomburgk reached Esmeralda, with his instruments, on the 22nd of
February, 1839. His determinations of the latitude and longitude of the
place agreed more closely with mine than I had anticipated. Let us here
allow the observer to speak for himself:—“Words are inadequate to
describe the feelings which overwhelmed me when I sprang on shore. My
object was attained; my observations, begun on the coast of Guiana, were
brought into connection with those of Humboldt at Esmeralda, and I
freely admit that at a time when my physical powers had almost entirely
deserted me, and when I was surrounded by dangers and difficulties of no
ordinary kind, the recognition which I hoped for from him, was the sole
inducement which inspired me with a fixed determination to press forward
towards the goal which I had now reached. The emaciated figures of my
Indian companions and my faithful guides proclaimed more fully than any
words could do, what difficulties we had had to surmount, and had
surmounted.” After citing expressions so gratifying, I must be permitted
to subjoin the opinions I expressed regarding this great undertaking
promoted by the Royal Geographical Society of London, in my Preface to
the German edition of Robert Schomburgk’s Account of his Travels,
published in 1841. “Immediately after my return from Mexico, I indicated
the direction and the routes by which the unknown portion of the South
American Continent between the sources of the Orinoco, the mountain
chain of Pacaraima, and the sea-shore near Essequibo, might be explored.
These wishes, so strongly expressed in the personal narrative of my
journey, have at length, after the lapse of nearly half a century, been
for the most part fulfilled. I rejoice that I have been spared to see so
important an enlargement of our geographical knowledge; I rejoice too in
seeing a courageous and well-conducted enterprise, requiring the most
devoted perseverance, executed by a young man, to whom I feel bound no
less by the ties of similarity of pursuits than those of country. These
circumstances were alone able to overcome the aversion and
disinclination which I entertain, perhaps unjustly, for introductory
prefaces by a different hand than that of the author himself. But I
could not resist the impulse of expressing thus publicly my sincere
esteem for the accomplished traveller who, led on by the meritorious
idea of penetrating from east to west, from the Valley of the Essequibo
to Esmeralda, has succeeded, after five years of efforts and of
sufferings (the extent of which I well appreciate from my own
experience), in attaining the object of his ambition. Courage for the
sudden accomplishment of a hazardous undertaking is easier to find, and
implies less inward strength, than the resolution to endure with
resignation long-continued physical sufferings, excited by absorbing
mental interest; and still to press forward, undismayed by the certainty
of having to retrace his steps under equally great privations and with
enfeebled powers. Serenity of mind, which is almost the first requisite
for an enterprise in inhospitable regions, a passionate love for any
department of scientific labour (be it natural history, astronomy,
hypsometrics, or magnetism), a pure feeling for the enjoyment which
nature is capable of imparting, are elements which, when they combine
together in one individual, ensure valuable results from a great and
important journey.”
I will preface my consideration of the question of the sources of the
Orinoco with my own conjectures in relation to the subject. The perilous
route travelled in 1739 by the surgeon Nicolas Hortsmann, of Hildesheim;
in 1775 by the Spaniard Don Antonio Santos, and his friend Nicolas
Rodriguez; in 1793 by the Lieutenant-Colonel of the 1st Regiment of the
Line of Para, Don Francisco José Rodriguez Barata; and (according to
manuscript maps, for which I am indebted to the former Portuguese
Ambassador in Paris, Chevalier de Brito) by several English and Dutch
settlers, who in 1811 travelled from Surinam to Para by the portage of
the Rupunuri and by the Rio Branco;—divides the _terra incognita_ of the
Parime into two unequal parts, and serves to mark the position of a very
important point in the geography of those regions—viz., the sources of
the Orinoco, which it is no longer possible to remove to an indefinite
distance towards the east, without intersecting the bed of the Rio
Branco, which flows from north to south through the fluvial district of
the Upper Orinoco; while this portion of the great river itself pursues
for the most part a direction from east to west. The Brazilians, since
the beginning of the present century, have from political motives
manifested a vivid interest in the extensive plains east of the Rio
Branco.[IG] Owing to the position of Santa Rosa on the Uraricapara,
whose course appears to have been pretty accurately determined by
Portuguese engineers, the sources of the Orinoco cannot be situated east
of the meridian of 63° 8′ west long. This is the eastern limit beyond
which they cannot be placed, and taking into consideration the state of
the river at the Raudal de los Guaharibos (above Caño Chiguire, in the
country of the strikingly fair-skinned Guaycas Indians, and 52′ east of
the great Cerro Duida), it appears to me probable that the Orinoco in
its upper part does not extend, at the utmost, beyond the meridian of
64° 8′ west long. This point is, according to my combinations, 4° 12′
west of the little lake of Amucu, which was reached by Sir Robert
Schomburgk.
I will now detail the conjectures of that traveller, after having first
given my own earlier ones. According to him the course of the Upper
Orinoco, to the east of Esmeralda, is directed from south-east to
north-west; my estimations of latitude for the mouths of the Padamo and
the Gehette appear to be respectively 19′ and 36′ too small. Schomburgk
conjectures that the sources of the Orinoco are situated in lat. 2° 30′,
and the fine “Map of Guayana, to illustrate the route of R. H.
Schomburgk,” which accompanies the splendid English work entitled _Views
in the Interior of Guiana_, places its geographical sources in 64° 56′
west long., _i.e._, 1° 6′ west of Esmeralda, and only 48′ of longitude
nearer to the Atlantic than I had determined the position of this point.
Astronomical combinations led Schomburgk to place the mountain of
Maravaca, which is about ten thousand feet high, in 3° 41′ lat. and 65°
48′ west long. The Orinoco was scarcely three hundred yards wide near
the mouth of the Padamo or Paramu, and more to the west, where it
expands to a width of from four to six hundred yards, it was so shallow,
and so full of sandbanks, that the expedition was obliged to dig
channels, as the river bed was only fifteen inches deep. Fresh-water
dolphins were still to be seen in great numbers everywhere—a phenomenon
which the zoologists of the eighteenth century would not have expected
to find in the Orinoco and the Ganges.
Footnote 59:
p. 158—“_The most luxurious product of a tropical climate_.”
The _Bertholletia excelsa_ (Juvia), of the family of Myrtaceæ (and
placed in Richard Schomburgk’s proposed division of Lecythideæ), was
first described in _Plantes Equinoxiales_, t. i. 1808, p. 122, tab. 36.
This colossal and magnificent tree offers, in the perfect development of
its cocoa-like, round, close-grained, woody fruit, inclosing the
three-cornered and also woody seed-vessels, the most remarkable example
of luxuriant organic development. The Bertholletia grows in the forests
of the Upper Orinoco, between the Padamo and the Ocamu, in the vicinity
of the mountain of Mapaya, as well as between the rivers Amaguaca and
Gehette.[IH]
Footnote 60:
p. 158—“_Grass stalks, whose joints measure upwards of eighteen feet
from knot to knot_.”
Robert Schomburgk, when visiting the small mountainous country of the
Majonkongs, on his route to Esmeralda, was fortunate enough to determine
the species of Arundinaria, which furnishes the material for these
blowing-tubes. He says of this plant: “It grows in large tufts, like the
bambusa; the first joint rises, in the old cane, without a knot, to a
height of from 16 to 17 feet before it begins to bear leaves. The entire
height of the Arundinaria, growing at the foot of the great
mountain-cluster of Maravaca, is from 30 to 40 feet, with a thickness of
scarcely half an inch in diameter. The top is always inclined; and this
species of grass is peculiar to the sandstone mountains between the
Ventuari, the Paramu (Padamo), and the Mavaca. The Indian name is
Curata, and, therefore, from the excellence of these celebrated long
blowing-tubes, the Majonkongs and Guinaus of these districts have
acquired the name of the Curata nation.”[II]
Footnote 61:
p. 159—“_Fabulous origin of the Orinoco from a lake_.”
The lakes of these regions (some of which are wholly imaginary, while
the real size of others has been much exaggerated by theoretical
geographers) may be divided into two groups. The first of these groups
comprise those situate between Esmeralda (the most easterly mission on
the Upper Orinoco), and the Rio Branco; to the second, belong the lakes
presumed to exist in the district between the Rio Branco and French,
Dutch, and British Guiana. This general view, of which travellers should
never lose sight, proves that the question of whether there is another
Lake Parime eastward of the Rio Branco, besides the Lake Amucu, seen by
Hortsmann, Santos, Colonel Barata, and Schomburgk, has nothing whatever
to do with the problem of the sources of the Orinoco. As the name of my
distinguished friend the former Director of the Hydrographic Office at
Madrid, Don Felipe Bauza, is of great weight in questions of geography,
the impartiality which ought to influence every scientific investigation
makes it incumbent on me to mention that this learned man was inclined
to the view that there must be lakes west of the Rio Branco, at no great
distance from the sources of the Orinoco. He wrote to me from London
shortly before his death, “I wish you were here that I might converse
with you respecting the geography of the Upper Orinoco, which has
occupied you so much. I have been fortunate enough to rescue from entire
destruction the papers of the General of Marine, Don José Solano, father
of the Solano who perished in so melancholy a manner at Cadiz. These
documents relate to the settlement of the boundary line between the
Spaniards and Portuguese, with which Solano had been charged since 1754,
in conjunction with the Escadre Chef Yturriaga and Don Vicente Doz. In
all these plans and sketches I find a Laguna Parime sometimes as a
source of the Orinoco, and sometimes as wholly detached from it. Are we
then to assume that there is another lake further eastward to the
north-east of Esmeralda?”
Löffling, the celebrated pupil of Linnæus, accompanied the last-named
expedition to Cumana in the capacity of botanist. He died on the 22nd of
February, 1756, at the mission of Santa Eulalia de Murucuri (somewhat to
the south of the confluence of the Orinoco and Caroni), after traversing
the missions on the Piritu and Caroni. The documents of which Bauza
speaks are the same as those on which the great map of De la Cruz
Olmedilla is based. They have served as the foundation of all the maps
of South America, which appeared in England, France, and Germany, before
the end of the last century; and have also served for the two maps
executed in 1756 by Father Caulin, the historiographer of Solano’s
expedition, and by M. de Surville, Keeper of the Archives in the
Secretary of State’s Office at Madrid, who was but an unskilful
compiler. The contradictions abounding in these maps show the little
reliance that can be placed on the results of this expedition. Nay more,
Father Caulin, above referred to, acutely details the circumstances
which gave rise to this fable of the lake of Parime; and the map of
Surville, which accompanies his work, not only restores this lake, under
the name of the White Lake, and the Mar Dorado, but indicates another
smaller one, from which flow partly by means of collateral branches, the
Orinoco, Siapa, and Ocamo. I was able to convince myself on the spot of
the following facts well known in the missions; that Don José Solano did
not do more than cross the cataracts of Atures and Maypures; that he did
not reach the confluence of the Guaviare and the Orinoco in 4° 3′ north
lat., and 68° 9′ west long.; and that the astronomical instruments of
the boundary expedition were neither carried to the isthmus of the
Pimichin and the Rio Negro, nor to the Cassiquiare; and even on the
Upper Orinoco, not beyond the mouth of the Atabapo. This vast extent of
territory was not made the scene of any accurate observations before my
journey, and has subsequently to Solano’s expedition been traversed only
by some few soldiers who had been sent on exploring expeditions; while
Don Apolinario de Fuente, whose journal I obtained from the archives of
the province of Quixos, has gathered without discrimination everything
from the fallacious narratives of the Indians that could flatter the
credulity of the Governor Centurion. No member of the expedition had
seen a lake, and Don Apolinario was unable to advance beyond the Cerro
Yumarique and Gehette.
Although a line of separation, formed by the basin of the Rio Branco, is
now established throughout the whole extent of the country, to which we
are desirous of directing the inquiring zeal of travellers, it must yet
be admitted, that our geographical knowledge of the district west of
this valley between 62° and 66° long., has made no advance whatever for
at least a century. The repeated attempts made by the Government of
Spanish Guiana since the expeditions of Iturria and Solano, to reach and
to pass over the Pacaraima Mountains, have been attended by very
unimportant results. When the Spaniards, in proceeding to the missions
of the Catalonian capuchins of Barceloneta, at the confluence of the
Caroni and the Rio Paragua, ascended the last-named river southward to
its junction with the Paraguamusi, they founded at this point the
mission of Guirion, which, at first, bore the pompous appellation of
Ciudad de Guirion. I place it in about 4° 30′ north latitude. From
thence the Governor Centurion, in consequence of the exaggerated
accounts given by two Indian chiefs, Paranacare and Arimuicapi,
respecting the powerful tribe of the Ipurucotos, was excited to search
for ‘El Dorado,’ and in carrying what were then called spiritual
conquests still further, founded, beyond the Pacaraima Mountains, the
two villages of Santa Rosa and San Bautista de Caudacacla. The former
was situate on the upper eastern bank of the Uraricapara, a tributary of
the Uraricuera, which I find in the journal of Rodriguez under the name
of the Rio Curaricara; the latter, at from 24 to 28 miles further
east-south-east. The astronomo-geographer of the Portuguese Boundary
Commission, Captain Don Antonio Pires de Sylva Pontes Leme, and the
Captain of Engineers, Don Ricardo Franco d’Almeida de Serra, who between
1787 and 1804, surveyed with the greatest care the whole course of the
Rio Branco and its upper tributaries, call the most western part of the
Uraricapara, “The Valley of Inundation.” They place the Spanish mission
of Santa Rosa in 3° 46′ north lat., and mark the route that leads from
thence northward across the mountain chain to the Caño Anocapra, a
branch of the Paraguamusi, which forms a connecting passage between the
basin of the Rio Branco and that of the Caroni. Two maps of these
Portuguese officers, embracing all the details of the trigonometrical
survey of the bends of the Rio Branco, the Uraricuera, the Tacutu, and
the Mahu, were most kindly communicated to Colonel Lapie and myself by
the Count of Linhares. These valuable unpublished documents, of which I
have availed myself, are still in the hands of the learned geographer,
who long since began to have them engraved at his own expense. The
Portuguese sometimes call the whole of the Rio Branco by the name of Rio
Parime, and sometimes limit this appellation to one branch only, the
Uraricuera, somewhat below the Caño Mayari and above the old mission of
San Antonio. As the words _Paragua_ and _Parime_ alike imply water,
great water, lake, and sea, we cannot wonder at finding them so often
repeated among tribes living at great distances from each other; as, for
instance, by the Omaguas on the Upper Marañon, by the Western Guaranis,
and by the Caribs. In all parts of the world, as I have already
remarked, large rivers are called by those who live on their banks “the
River,” without any specific denomination. Paragua, the name of a branch
of the Caroni, is also the term applied by the natives to the Upper
Orinoco. The name Orinucu is Tamanakish; and Diego de Ordaz first heard
it used in the year 1531, when he ascended to the mouth of the Meta.
Besides the Valley of Inundation above mentioned we find other large
pieces of water between the Rio Xumuru and the Parime. One of these bays
is a branch of the Tacutu, and the other of the Uraricuera. Even at the
base of the Pacaraima Mountains the rivers are subject to great
periodical overflowings; and the Lake Amucu, of which we shall
subsequently speak more fully, exhibits exactly the same character at
the commencement of the plains. The Spanish missions, Santa Rosa and San
Bautista de Caudacacla, or Cayacaya, founded in the years 1770 and 1773,
by the Governor Don Manuel Centurion, were destroy ed before the close
of the last century; and since that time, no new attempt has been made
to advance from the basin of the Caroni to the southern declivity of the
Pacaraima Mountains.
The territory east of the valley of the Rio Branco has of late years
been made the subject of several successful explorations. Mr. Hillhouse
navigated the Massaruni as far as the Bay of Caranang, whence, as he
says, a path would lead the traveller, in two days, to the source of the
Massaruni; and, in three days, to the tributaries of the Rio Branco.
With respect to the windings of the great river Massaruni, described by
Mr. Hillhouse, he himself observes, in a letter addressed to me from
Demerara, 1st January, 1831, that “the Massaruni, reckoning from its
sources, flows first to the west, then for one degree of latitude to the
north; afterwards nearly 200 miles eastward; and, finally, to the north
and north-north-east till it merges in the Essequibo.” As Mr. Hillhouse
was unable to reach the southern declivity of the Pacaraima chain, he
was not acquainted with the Amucu Lake; and he says himself, in his
printed report, that “from the accounts given him by the Accaouais, who
are continually traversing the country between the shore and the Amazon
River, he is convinced there is no lake in this district.” This
assertion occasioned me some surprise, as it was directly opposed to the
views I had previously formed regarding the Lake Amucu, from which flows
the Caño Pirara, according to the accounts given by the travellers
Hortsmann, Santos, and Rodriguez (and which had inspired me with the
more confidence, because they entirely coincide with the recent
Portuguese manuscript charts). Finally, after five years of expectation,
Schomburgk’s journey has removed all farther doubt.
“It is difficult to believe,” says Mr. Hillhouse, in his interesting
memoir on the Massaruni, “that the tradition of a large inland sea is
wholly unfounded. According to my views, the following circumstance may
have given rise to the belief in the existence of the fabulous lake of
the Parime. At some distance from the rocky fall of Teboco the waters of
the Massaruni present to the eye as little motion as the calm surface of
a lake. If at a more or less remote period the horizontal granitic
strata of Teboco had been totally compact and without fissures, the
waters must have been at least 50 feet above their present level, and
there would have been formed an immense lake 10 or 12 miles in width,
and 1500 or 2000 miles in length.”[IJ] The extent of this supposed
inundation is not the only reason which prevents me from acceding to
this explanation; for I have seen plains (Llanos), where, during the
rainy season, the overflowing of the tributaries of the Orinoco annually
covered a surface of 6400 square miles. The labyrinth of ramifications
between the Apure, Arauca, Capanaparo, and Sinaruco (see maps 17 and 18
of my Physical Atlas), is then wholly lost sight of; the configuration
of the river beds can no longer be traced, and the whole appears like
one vast lake. But the locality of the fabulous Dorado, and of the Lake
Parime, belongs historically to quite a different part of Guiana,
namely, that lying south of the Pacaraima mountains. This myth of the
White Sea and of the Dorado of the Parime, has arisen, as I endeavoured
thirty years ago to show in another work, from the appearance of the
micaceous rocks of the Ucucuamo, the name _Rio Parime_ (Rio Branco), the
inundations of the tributaries; and especially from the existence of the
lake _Amucu_, which is in the neighbourhood of the Rio Rupunuwini
(Rupunuri), and is connected by means of the Pirara with the Rio Parime.
I have had much pleasure in finding that the travels of Sir Robert
Schomburgk have fully corroborated these early views. The section of his
map which gives the course of the Essequibo and of the Rupunuri is quite
new, and of great importance in a geographical point of view. It places
the Pacaraima chain between 3° 52′and 4° north lat., while I had given
its mean direction from 4° to 4° 10′. The chain reaches the confluence
of the Essequibo and Rupunuri in 3° 57′ north lat., and 58° 1′ west
longitude; I had placed it half a degree too far to the north.
Schomburgk calls the last-named river Rupununi, according to the
pronunciation of the Macusis; and gives as the synonymes Rupunuri,
Rupunuwini and Opununy, which have arisen from the difficulty the Carib
tribes of these districts find in pronouncing the letter “r.” The
position of the lake Amucu and its relations to the Mahu (Maou) and
Tacutu (Tacoto) correspond perfectly with my map of Colombia drawn in
1825. We agree equally well regarding the latitude of the lake of Amucu,
for while he places it in 3° 33′, I considered it to be in 3° 35′; the
Caño Pirara (Pirarara) which connects the Amucu with the Rio Branco,
flows from it towards the north, and not to the west as I had marked it.
The Sibarana of my map, the sources of which Hortsmann placed to the
north of the Cerro Ucucuamo near a fine mine of rock crystal, is the
Siparuni of Schomburgk’s map. His Waa-Ekuru is the Tavaricaru of the
Portuguese geographer Pontes Leme, and is the branch of the Rupunuri
which lies the nearest to the lake of Amucu.
The following remarks from the report of Sir Robert Schomburgk throw
some light on the subject in question. “The lake of Amucu,” says this
traveller, “is without doubt the nucleus of the Lake of Parime and of
the supposed White Sea. In December and January, when we visited it, it
was scarcely a mile in length, and was half covered with reeds.” The
same observation occurs on D’Anville’s map of 1748. “The Pirara flows
from the lake to the W.N.W. of the Indian village of Pirara and falls
into the Maou or Mahu. The last-named river rises, according to the
information given me, north of the ridge of the Pacaraima mountains,
which in their eastern portion do not attain a greater elevation than
about 1600 feet. The sources of the river are on a plateau, from whence
it is precipitated in a beautiful waterfall, known as the Corona. We
were on the point of visiting this fall, when on the third day of our
excursion to the mountains, the indisposition of one of my companions
compelled me to return to the station at the lake Amucu. The Mahu has
black coffee-coloured water, and its current is more impetuous than that
of the Rupunuri. In the mountains through which it pursues its course it
is about 60 yards in breadth. Its environs are here extremely
picturesque. This valley as well as the bank of the Buroburo, which
flows into the Siparuni, are inhabited by the Macusis. In April the
whole Savannahs are overflowed, and then present the peculiar phenomenon
of the waters belonging to two different river basins commingling
together. It is probable that the vast extent of this temporary
inundation may have given rise to the fable of the lake of Parime.
During the rainy season a water communication is formed in the interior
of the country between the Essequibo, the Rio Branco, and the Gran Para.
Some groups of trees, rising like Oases on the sand-hills of the
Savannahs, present, at the time of the inundation, the appearance of
islands scattered over a lake; and these are without doubt the Ipomucena
islands of Don Antonio Santos.”
In D’Anville’s manuscripts, which his heirs kindly allowed me to
examine, I find that Hortsmann of Hildesheim, who described these
districts with great care, saw a second Alpine lake, which he places two
day’s journey above the confluence of the Mahu with the Rio Parime
(Tacutu?). It is a black water lake, situated on the summit of a
mountain. He explicitly distinguishes it from the lake of Amucu, which
he describes as “covered with rushes.” The descriptions given by
Hortsmann and Santos coincide with the Portuguese manuscript maps of the
Marine Bureau at Rio Janeiro, in not indicating the existence of an
uninterrupted connection between the Rupunuri and the lake of Amucu. In
D’Anville’s maps of South America, the rivers are better drawn in the
first edition published in 1748, than in the more extensively circulated
one of 1760. Schomburgk’s travels fully confirm the independence of the
basin of the Rupunuri and Essequibo; but he draws attention to the fact
that, during the rainy season, the Rio Waa-Ekuru, a tributary of the
Rupunuri, is in connection with the Caño Pirara. Such is the condition
of these river-channels, which are still but little developed, and
almost entirely without separating ridges.
The Rupunuri and the village of Anai, 3° 56′ north latitude, 58° 34′
west longitude, are at present recognised as the political boundaries
between the British and Brazilian domains in these desert regions. Sir
Robert Schomburgk was compelled by severe illness to make a protracted
stay at Anai. He bases his chronometrical determinations of the position
of the lake of Amucu on the mean of many lunar distances, east and west,
which he measured during his sojourn at Anai. His determinations of
longitude for these points of the Parime are in general one degree more
east than those in my map of Colombia. While I am far from calling in
question the result of these lunar observations taken at Anai, I may be
allowed to observe that the calculation of these distances is of
importance, when it is desired to carry the comparison from the lake of
Amucu to Esmeralda, which I found in 66° 19′ west longitude.
Thus then we see the great _Mar de la Parima_, (which it was so
difficult to remove from our maps, that even after my return from
America it was still supposed to be 160 miles in length,) reduced by
recent investigations to the lake of Amucu, measuring only two or three
miles in circumference. The illusions entertained for nearly two hundred
years, and which in the last Spanish expedition, in 1775, for the
discovery of El Dorado, cost several hundred lives, have finally
terminated by enriching geography with some few results. In the year
1512 thousands of soldiers perished in the expedition, undertaken by
Ponce de Leon, to discover the “Fountain of Youth,” on one of the Bahama
Islands, called Binimi, which is hardly to be found on any of our maps.
This expedition led to the conquest of Florida, and to the knowledge of
the great oceanic current, or gulf-stream, which flows through the
Straights of Bahama. The thirst after gold, and the desire of
rejuvenescence—the _Dorado_ and the _Fountain of Youth_—stimulated, to
an almost equal extent, the passions of mankind.
Footnote 62:
p. 161—“_The Piriguao, one of the noblest forms of the Palm_.”
Compare Humboldt, Bonpland, and Kunth, _Nova Genera Plantarum_, and
_Plant. æquinoct._, t. i. p. 315.
Footnote 63:
p. 171—“_The grave of an extinct race_.”
During my stay in the forests of the Orinoco, researches were being
made, by royal command, in reference to these bone-caves. The missionary
of the cataracts had been falsely accused of having discovered in these
caves treasures which the Jesuits had concealed there prior to their
flight.
Footnote 64:
p. 172—“_When his language perished with him_.”
The parrot of the Atures has been made the subject of a charming poem by
my friend Professor Ernst Curtius, the tutor of the promising young
Prince Friedrick Wilhelm of Prussia. The author will forgive me for
closing the present section of the “Views of Nature” with this poem,
which was not designed for publication, and was communicated to me by
letter.