the routes which should be followed to explore 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. These
wishes, which I expressed so strongly in my Rélation Historique, have
at last, after the lapse of almost half a century, been for the greater
part fulfilled. Besides the joy of having lived to see so important
an extension of our geographical knowledge, I have had that of seeing
it attained by means of a courageous and well-conducted enterprise,
requiring the most devoted perseverance, executed by a young man with
whom I feel united by the double bond of similarity of pursuits and
efforts, and of our common country. Motives such as these have alone
been sufficient to overcome the distaste which I entertain, perhaps
without reason, to introductory prefaces by another hand than that of
the author of the work. But in this case I could not consent to forego
the opportunity of expressing, thus publicly, my heartfelt esteem
for the accomplished traveller who, in pursuit of an object deriving
all its interest from the mind,--namely, in the self-imposed task of
penetrating from East to West, from the Valley of the Essequibo to
Esmeralda,--succeeded, after five years of efforts and of sufferings
(which I can in part appreciate from my own experience), in reaching
the goal which he had proposed to himself. Courage for the momentary
execution of a hazardous action is more easily met with, and implies
less of inward strength, than does the resolution to endure patiently
long-continued physical sufferings, incurred in the pursuit of some
deeply-felt mental interest, and still to determine to go forward,
undismayed by the certainty of having to retrace the same painful
route, and to support the same privations in returning with enfeebled
powers. Serenity of mind, almost the first requisite for an undertaking
in inhospitable regions, passionate love for some class of scientific
labour, (be it in natural history, astronomy, hypsometrics, magnetism,
or aught else,) and a pure feeling for the enjoyment which nature in
her freedom is ready to impart, are elements which, when they meet
together in an individual, ensure the attainment of valuable results
from a great and important journey.”
In discussing the question respecting the sources of the Orinoco,
I will begin with the conjectures which I had myself formed on the
subject. The dangerous 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 Jose Rodriguez
Barata; and (according to manuscript papers, for which I am indebted
to the former Portuguese Ambassador in Paris, Chevalier de Brito) by
several English and Dutch settlers, who in 1811 went 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 portions, and serves
to limit the situation 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 uncertain distance to the East, without
interfering thereby with what we know of the course of the Rio Branco,
which flows from north to south through the basin of the Upper Orinoco;
while that river itself, in this part of its course, pursues for the
most part an East and West direction. From political reasons, the
Brazilians, since the beginning of the present century, have testified
a lively interest in the extensive plains east of the Rio Branco.
See the memoir which I drew up at the request of the Portuguese
court in 1817, “sur la fixation des limites des Guyanes Française et
Portuguaise” (Schoell, Archives historiques et politiques, ou Recueil
de Pièces officielles, Memoires, &c. T. i. 1818, p. 48-58). Viewing
the position of Santa Rosa on the Uraricapara, the course of which
appears to have been determined with tolerable accuracy by Portuguese
engineers, the sources of the Orinoco cannot be looked for east of
the meridian of 65-1/2° from Paris, (63°.8′ W. long. from Greenwich).
This being the eastern limit beyond which they cannot be placed, and
considering the state of the river at the Raudal de los Guaharibos
(above Caño Chiguire, in the country of the surprisingly fair-skinned
Guaycas Indians, and 52′ East of the great Cerro Duida), it appears to
me probable that the upper part of the Orinoco does not really extend,
at the utmost, beyond the meridian of 66-1/2° from Paris (64°.08′ W.
from Greenwich.) This point is according to my combinations 4°.12′ West
of the little lake of Amucu, which was reached by Sir Robert Schomburgk.
I next subjoin the conjectures of that gentleman, having given the
earlier ones formed by myself. According to his view, the course of the
upper Orinoco to the east of Esmeralda is dedicated from South-east to
North-west; my estimations of latitude for the mouths of the Padamo and
the Gehette appearing to be respectively 19 and 36′ too small. Robert
Schomburgk supposes the sources of the Orinoco to be in lat. 2°.30′
(S. 460); 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 the sources of the Orinoco
in 67°.18′ (W. from Paris), _i. e._ 1°.6′ west of Esmeralda, and only
48′ of longitude nearer to the Atlantic than I had thought admissible.
From astronomical combinations Schomburgk has placed the mountain of
Maravaca, which is upwards of nine thousand feet high, in lat. 3°.41′
and long. 65°.38′. Near the mouth of the Padamo or Paramú the Orinoco
was scarcely three hundred yards wide; and more to the west, where
it spreads to a breadth of from four to six hundred yards, it was so
shallow and so full of sand-banks that the Expedition were obliged
to dig channels, the river bed being only fifteen inches deep. Fresh
water Dolphins were still to be seen everywhere in large numbers; a
phenomenon which the zoologists of the 18th century would not have been
prepared to expect in the Orinoco and the Ganges.
[59] p. 213.--“_The most vigorous of the productions of the tropical
world._”
The Bertholletia excelsa (Juvia), of the family of Myrtaceæ (and placed
in Richard Schomburgk’s proposed division of Lecythideæ), was first
described by Bonpland and myself in the “Plantes équinoxiales,” T. i.
1808, p. 122, tab. 36. This gigantic and magnificent tree offers, in
the perfect formation of its cocoa-like, round, thick, woody fruit
enclosing the three-cornered and also woody seed-vessels, the most
remarkable example of high organic development. The Bertholletia grows
in the forests of the Upper Orinoco between the Padamo and the Ocamu,
near the mountain of Mapaya, and also between the rivers Amaguaca and
Gehette. (Rélation historique, T. ii. p. 474, 496, 558-562.)
[60] p. 213.--“_Grass stalks having joints above eighteen feet long from
knot to knot._”
Robert Schomburgk, when visiting the small mountainous country of the
Majonkongs, on his way to Esmeralda, was so fortunate as to determine
the species of Arundinaria which furnishes the material for the
blowpipes or tubes through which the Indians discharge their arrows.
He says of this plant: “It grows in large tufts like the Bambusa;
the first joint rises without a knot to a height of from 16 to 17
feet before it begins to put forth leaves. The entire height of the
Arundinaria, as it grows at the foot of the great mountain of Maravaca,
is from 30 to 40 feet, with a thickness of scarcely half an inch
diameter. The top is always inclined. This kind of grass is peculiar to
the sandstone mountains between the Ventuari, the Paramu (Padamo), and
the Mavaca. The Indian name is Curata, and hence, from the excellence
of these far-famed blow tubes of great length, the Majonkongs and
Guinaus of these districts have been given the names of the Curata
nation.” (Reisen in Guiana und am Orinoco, S. 451.)
[61] p. 214.--“_Fabulous lake--origin of the Orinoco._”
The lakes of these regions (some of which have had their real size
much exaggerated by theoretical geographers, while the existence of
others is purely imaginary), may be divided into two groups. The first
of these groups comprises the lakes, whether real or imaginary, placed
between Esmeralda (the easternmost mission on the upper Orinoco), and
the Rio Branco; and the second those assumed 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, shews that
the question of whether there is yet a Lake Parime east of the Rio
Branco, other than 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 friend the former
Director of the Hydrographic Office at Madrid, Don Felipe Bauza, is
deservedly of great weight in geography, the impartiality which ought
to preside over every scientific investigation makes me feel it a duty
to recall that this learned man was inclined to the view, that there
must be lakes west of the Rio Branco and not far from the sources of
the Orinoco. He wrote to me from London, a short time before his death:
“I wish you were here, that I might converse with you on the subject of
the geography of the upper Orinoco, which has occupied you so much. I
have been so fortunate as 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 boundary division between the Spaniards and the Portuguese,
with which the elder Solano had been charged, in conjunction with Chef
d’Escadron Yturriaga and Don Vicente Doz, since 1754. In all these
plans and sketches I see a Laguna Parime, represented sometimes as the
source of the Orinoco, and sometimes quite detached from that river.
Are we, then, to admit the existence of another lake north-east of
Esmeralda?”
Löffling, the celebrated pupil of Linnæus, came to Cumana as the
botanist of the boundary expedition above alluded to. After traversing
the missions on the Piritu and the Caroni he died on the 22d of
February, 1756, at the mission of Santa Eulalia de Murucuri, a little
to the south of the confluence of the Orinoco and the 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 constitute the type
of all the maps which appeared in England, France, and Germany up to
the close of the last century; and they also served for the two maps
drawn in 1756 by Peter Caulin, the historian of Solano’s expedition,
and by an unskilful compiler, M. de Surville, Keeper of the Archives
of the Secretary of State’s office at Madrid. The discordance between
these maps shews the little dependence which can be placed on the
surveys of the expedition; besides which, Caulin’s acute remarks lead
us to perceive the circumstances which gave occasion to the fiction
of the Lake Parime; and Surville’s map, which accompanies his work,
not only restores this lake under the name of the White Sea and of the
Mar Dorado, but also adds another lake, from which, partly through
lateral outlets, the Orinoco, the Siapa, and the Ocamo issue. I was
able to satisfy myself on the spot of the fact, well known in the
missions, that Don José Solano went indeed beyond the cataracts of
Atures and Maypures, but not beyond the confluence of the Guaviare and
the Orinoco, in lat. 4°.3′ and long. 68°.09′; that the instruments
of the Boundary Expedition were not carried either to the Isthmus
of the Pimichin and the Rio Negro, or to the Cassiquiare; and that
even on the Upper Orinoco they were not taken above the mouth of the
Atabapo. This extensive country, in which previous to my journey no
exact observations had been attempted, had been traversed since the
time of Solano only by a few soldiers sent in search of discoveries;
and Don Apolinario de la Fuente (whose journals I obtained from the
archives of the province of Quiros), had collected, without critical
discrimination, from the lying tales told by Indians, whatever could
flatter the credulity of the governor Centurion. No member of the
Expedition had seen any lake, and Don Apolinario had not advanced
farther than the Cerro Yumariquin and the Gehette.
Having now established throughout the extensive district, to which
it is desired to direct the inquiring zeal of travellers, a dividing
line bounding the basin of the Rio Branco, it still remains to remark,
that for a century past no advance has taken place in our geographical
knowledge of the country west of this valley between 61-1/2° and
65-1/2° W. longitude. The attempts repeatedly made by the Government
of Spanish Guiana, since the expeditions of Iturria and Solano, to
reach and to pass the Pacaraima mountains, have only produced very
inconsiderable results. When the Spaniards, in travelling to the
missions of the Catalonian Capuchin monks of Barceloneta at the
confluence of the Caroni and the Rio Paragua, ascended the latter
river, in going southward, to its junction with the Paraguamusi, they
founded at the site of the latter junction the mission of Guirion,
which at first received the pompous name of Ciudad de Guirion. I
place it in about 4-1/2° of North latitude. From thence the governor
Centurion, stimulated by the exaggerated accounts given by two
Indian chiefs, Paranacare and Arimuicapi, of the powerful nation of
the Ipurucotos, to search for el Dorado, prosecuted what were then
called spiritual conquests still farther, and founded beyond the
Pacaraima mountains the two villages of Santa Rosa and San Bautista de
Caudacacla; the former on the higher eastern bank of the Uraricapara,
a tributary of the Uraricuera which in the narrative of Rodriguez I
find called Rio Curaricara; and the latter six or seven German (24
or 28 English) geographical miles farther to the east south-east.
The astronomer of the Portuguese Boundary Commission, Don Antonio
Pires de Sylva Pontes Leme, captain of a frigate, 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 branches, call the westernmost part of
the Uraricapara “the Valley of Inundation.” They place the Spanish
mission of Santa Rosa in 3°.46′ N. lat., and point out the route which
leads from thence northward across the chain of mountains to the
Caño Anocapra, an affluent of the Paraguamusi, by means of which one
passes from the basin of the Rio Branco to that of the Caroni. Two
maps of these Portuguese officers, which contain the whole details
of the trigonometrical survey of the windings of the Rio Branco, the
Uraricuera, the Tacutu, and the Mahu, have been kindly communicated
to Colonel Lapie and myself by the Count of Linhares. These valuable
unpublished documents, of which I have made use, are in the hands of
the learned geographer who began a considerable time ago to have them
engraved at his own expense. The Portuguese sometimes give the name
of Rio Parime to the whole of the Rio Branco, and sometimes confine
that denomination to one branch or tributary, the Uraricuera, below
the Caño Mayari and above the old mission of San Antonio. As the
words Paragua and Parime signify water, great water, lake, or sea,
it is not surprising to find them so often repeated among nations at
a distance from each other, the Omaguas on the Upper Marañon, the
Western Guaranis, and the Caribs. In all parts of the world, as I
have already remarked, the largest rivers are called by those who
dwell on their banks “the River,” without any distinct and peculiar
appellation. Paragua, the name of a branch of the Caroni, is also the
name given by the natives to the Upper Orinoco. The name Orinucu is
Tamanaki; and Diego de Ordaz first heard it pronounced in 1531, when
he ascended the river to the mouth of the Meta. Besides the “Valley of
Inundation,” above spoken of, we find other large lakes or expanses of
water between the Rio Xumuru and the Parime. One of these belongs to
the Tacutu river, and the other to the Uraricuera. Even at the foot
of the Pacaraima mountains the rivers are subject to great periodical
overflows; and the Lake of Amucu, which will be spoken of more in the
sequel, imparts a similar character to the country at the commencement
of the plains. The Spanish missions of Santa Rosa and San Bautista
de Caudacacla or Cayacaya, founded in the years 1770 and 1773 by the
Governor Don Manuel Centurion, were destroyed before the close of
the century, and since that period no fresh attempt has been made to
penetrate 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 the subject of some successful examination. Mr. Hillhouse
navigated the Massaruni as far as the bay of Caranang, from whence,
he says, a path would have conducted the traveller in two days to the
sources of the Massaruni, and in three days to streams flowing into the
Rio Branco. In regard to the windings of the great river Massaruni,
described by Mr. Hillhouse, that gentleman remarks, in a letter written
to me from Demerara (January 1, 1831), that “the Massaruni beginning
from its source flows first to the West, then to the North for one
degree of latitude, afterwards almost 200 English miles to the East,
and finally North and N.N.E. to its junction with the Essequibo.”
As Mr. Hillhouse was unable to reach the southern declivity of the
Pacarima chain, he was not acquainted with the Amucu Lake: he says
himself, in his printed account, that “from the information he had
gained from the Accaouais, who constantly traverse all the country
between the shore and the Amazons river, he had become satisfied that
there is no lake at all in these districts.” This statement occasioned
me some surprise, as it was in direct contradiction to the views which
I had formed respecting the Lake of Amucu, from which the Caño Pirara
flows according to the narratives of Hortsmann, Santos, and Rodriquez,
whose accounts inspired me with the more confidence because they
agree entirely with the recent Portuguese manuscript maps. Finally,
after five years of expectation, Sir Robert Schomburgk’s journey has
dispelled all doubts.
“It is difficult to believe,” says Mr. Hillhouse, in his interesting
memoir on the Massaruni, “that the report of a great inland water is
entirely without foundation. It seems to me possible that the following
circumstances may have given occasion to the belief in the existence of
the fabulous lake of the Parime. At some distance from the fallen rocks
of Teboco the waters of the Massaruni appear to the eye as motionless
as the tranquil surface of a lake. If at a more or less remote epoch
the horizontal stratum of granite at Teboco had been perfectly compact
and unbroken, the waters must have stood at least fifty feet above
their present level, and there would thus have been formed an immense
lake, ten or twelve English miles broad and 1500 to 2000 English miles
long.” (Nouvelles Annales des Voyages, 1836, Sept. p. 316.) It is not
solely the vast extent of this supposed inundation which prevents me
from accepting this explanation. I have seen plains (the Llanos),
where during the rainy season the overflowing of the affluents of the
Orinoco annually cover with water a space of 400 German geographical
square miles (equal to 6400 English geographical square miles). At such
times the labyrinth of branches between the Apure, the Arauca, the
Capanaparo, and the Sinaruco (see Maps 17 and 18 of my Geographical
and Physical Atlas), can no longer be traced, for the separate courses
are obliterated, and all appears one vast lake. But the fable of the
Dorado of the Parime, and of the White Sea or Lake of the Parime,
belongs historically, as I endeavoured to shew in another work thirty
years ago, to an entirely different part of Guiana, namely, to the
country south of the Pacaraima mountains; and originated in the shining
appearance of the micaceous rocks of the Ucucuamo, the name of the Rio
Parime (Rio Branco), the overflowings of the tributaries of that river,
and especially the existence of the Lake of Amucu, which is in the
vicinity of the Rio Rupunuwini or Rupunuri, and is connected through
the Pirara with the Rio Parime.
I have seen with pleasure that the travels of Sir Robert Schomburgk
have fully confirmed these early views. The part of his map which gives
the course of the Essequibo and the Rupunuri is entirely new and of
great geographical importance. It places the Pacaraima chain in 3° 52′
to 4° North latitude (I had given it 4° to 4° 10′), and makes it reach
the confluence of the Essequibo and the Rupunuri, in 3° 57′ N. lat.
and 60° 23′ W. long. from Paris (58° 01′ from Greenwich). I had placed
this spot half a degree too far to the north. Sir Robert Schomburgk
calls the last named river Rupununi, according to the pronunciation
of the Macusis; he gives as synonymes of Rupuniri, Rupunuwini and
Opununy, the Carib tribes in these districts having much difficulty in
articulating the sound of the letter _r_. The situation of Lake Amucu
and its relations to the Mahu (Maou) and Tacutu (Tacoto) are quite
in accordance with my map of Columbia in 1825. We agree equally well
respecting the latitude of the lake, which I gave 3° 35′, and which he
finds to be 3° 33′; but the Caño Pirara, (Pirarara) which connects the
Lake of Amucu with the Rio Branco, flows from it to the north, instead
of to the west as I had supposed. The Sibarana of my map, of which
Hortsmann places the source near a fine mine of rock-crystal, a little
to the north of the Cerro Ucucuamo, is the Siparuni of Schomburgk’s
map. His Waa-Ekuru is the Tavaricuru of the Portuguese geographer
Pontes Leme; it is the tributary of the Rupunuri, which approaches
nearest to the Lake of Amucu.
The following remarks from the narrative of Robert Schomburgk throw
some light on the subject before us. “The Lake of Amucu,” says this
traveller, “is incontestably the nucleus of the Lake of Parime and the
supposed White Sea. When we visited it in December and January its
length scarcely amounted to a mile, and its surface was half covered
with reeds.” (This remark is found as early as in D’Anville’s map, in
1748.) “The Pirara issues from the lake west north-west of the Indian
village of Pirara, and falls into the Maou or Mahu. The last named
river, from such information as I was able to gather, rises on the
north side of the Pacaraima mountains, the easternmost part of which
only attains a height of 1500 French (in round numbers 1600 English)
feet. The sources of the Mahu are on a plateau, from whence it descends
in a fine waterfall called Corona. We were about to visit this fall
when on the third day of our excursion to the mountains the sickness
of one of my companions obliged us to return to the station near Lake
Amucu. The Mahu has “black” or coffee-brown water, and its current
is more rapid than that of the Rupunuri. In the mountains through
which it makes its way it is about 60 yards broad, and its environs
are remarkably picturesque. This valley, as well as the banks of the
Buroburo which flows into the Siparuni, are inhabited by the Macusis.
In April the whole of the savannahs are overflowed, and present the
peculiar phenomenon of the waters belonging to different river basins
being intermixed and united. The enormous extent of this temporary
inundation may not improbably have given occasion to the story of the
Lake of Parime. During the rainy season there is formed in the interior
of the country a water communication between the Essequibo, the Rio
Branco, and Gran Para. Some groups of trees, which rise like oases on
the sand hills of the savannahs, assume at the time of the inundation
the character of islands scattered over the extensive lake; they are,
no doubt, the Ipomucena Islands of Don Antonio Santos.”