470 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



able bigness, which, with their claws and wings, do 

 wound the passengers shrewdly ; yea, and often- 

 times deprive them of life." 1 



Van Heuvel cites various accounts which he 

 found still current in Guayana, all tending to collo- 

 cate the warlike women on a site just beyond the 

 sources of the Essequibo, Marony, and Oyapock, 

 which lie apparently very near to each other, and 

 also to the sources of the Trombetas and Nhamunda, 

 the two latter rivers running in a contrary direction 

 to the three former, i.e. southwards, or towards the 

 Amazon. 



I might adduce a great deal more evidence to 

 show the universality of the traditions in Tropical 

 America of a nation of women, whose permanent 

 habitation was from i to 2 north of the Equator, 

 and in long. 54 to 58 W. ; and whose annual 

 rendezvous with their lovers was held on a site in 

 lat. about 5 S., long. 65 W. 



Those traditions must have had some foundation 

 in fact, and they appear to me inseparably connected 

 with the traditions of El Dorado. I think I have 

 read nearly all that has been written about the 

 Gilded King and his city and country ; and, com- 

 paring it with my own South American experience, 

 I can hardly doubt that that country was Peru- 

 possibly combined (or confused) with Mexico. The 

 lake called the Mansion of the Sun, because the 



The whole of this curious relation is given in Purchas's Collection of 

 Voyages, Bk. vi. ch. xvii., and is placed immediately after that of the voyage 

 made by Robert Harcourt to Guayana in 1608. Purchas says of it : " I found 

 this fairly written among Mr. Hakluyt's papers, but know not who was the 

 author." l!ut Van Ik-im-l adduces ample proof of its having been written by 

 Fisher, cousin of Harcourt, whom the latter left behind him at the third town 

 on the Mariwin, with instructions to complete the exploration of the river, 

 which he himself had unsuccessfully attempted. 



