ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 197 



hands of the learned geographer, who began a considerable time ago 

 to have them engraved at his own expense. The Portuguese some- 

 times 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 Cano 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 Qmaguas 

 on the Upper Maranon, 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 com- 

 mencement 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 at- 

 tempt 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. Hill- 

 house 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 



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