2 A NATURALIST IN THE GUI ANAS 



streams, such as the Sipapo, Cuehivero, Suapure, fall into 

 the Orinoco and drain the country between the Ventuari 

 and the Caura, but so little has been done in the ex- 

 ploration of the region through which they run, that the 

 courses of these streams as laid down on maps must be 

 looked upon as being merely approximate and not by any 

 means accurate. Unlike the affluents of the left bank, 

 like the Meta and the Apure, which flow for the most 

 part through grassy treeless plains, the tributaries on the 

 right, rising in the unexplored tableland forming the 

 watershed between the basins of the Amazon and the 

 Orinoco, are rapid in their descent to the lowlands, and 

 they rush through a region of dense forests and numerous 

 isolated mountains and mountain ranges. While the 

 navigation of the Apure, the Meta, and the other streams 

 of the plains is comparatively easy, although encumbered 

 by sandbanks during the dry season, that of the affluents 

 on the right hand, especially the Caroni and the Caura, is 

 difficult and dangerous. 



Three centuries have passed away since the first 

 adventurers tried to reach the Golden Land supposed to 

 exist somewhere near the sources of these rivers, yet our 

 knowledge of the far interior of the Guianas remains 

 shadowy and indefinite. After the conquest and spoha- 

 tion of the Inca kingdom, the cities of the Andes held 

 many bands of needy adventurers. They consisted of 

 men, some of whom had accompanied the conqidstadorcs 

 in their first descent upon the land of the children of the 

 sun, and had squandered in wild excesses the gold they 

 had acquired so easily ; while others, who had been lured 

 by the stories of the fabulous wealth of the new country 

 conquered by Pizarro, had hurried in numbers from the 

 shores of Europe to find, after a long and tedious voyage, 



