CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO. 159 



Orinoco derives its source from a lake must be regarded as a 

 fable (9). In vain the traveller seeks to discover the Lake 

 of El Dorado, which, in Arrowsmith's maps, is set down as 

 an inland sea measuring upwards of 20 geographical (80 

 English) miles. Can the little reed-covered lake of Amucu, 

 near which rises the Pirara (a branch of the Mahu), have 

 given rise to this myth? This swamp lies, however, 4 to the 

 east of the region in which we may suppose the sources of 

 the Orinoco to be situated. Here tradition placed the island 

 of Pumacena, a rock of micaceous schist, whose shining 

 brightness has played a memorable, and, for the deluded 

 adventurers, often a fatal, part in the fable of El Dorado, 

 current since the sixteenth century. 



According to the belief of many of the natives, the 

 Magellanic clouds of the southern sky, and even the glorious 

 nebulae in the constellation Argo, are mere reflections of the 

 metallic brilliancy of these silver mountains of the Parime. 

 It was besides an ancient custom of dogmatising geographers 

 to make all the most considerable rivers of the world originate 

 in lakes. 



The Orinoco is one of those remarkable rivers which, after 

 numerous windings, first towards the west and then to the 

 north, finally return towards the east in such a manner as to 

 bring both its estuary and its source into nearly the same 

 meridian. From the Chiguire and the Gehette as far as 

 the Guaviare, the course of the Orinoco inclines westward, as 

 if it would pour its waters into the Pacific. Here branches 

 off to the south, the Cassiquiare, a remarkable river, but little 

 known to Europeans, which unites with the Rio Negro, or as 

 the natives call it, the Guainia: furnishing the only example 

 of a bifurcation which forms in the very interior of a continent 

 a natural connection between two great river valleys. 



The nature of the soil, and the junction of the Guaviare 

 and Atabapo with the Orinoco, cause the latter to deflect 

 suddenly northwards. From a want of correct geographi- 



