200 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO. 



rime 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 tempo- 

 rary 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 Esse- 

 quibo, 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 exten- 

 sive lake; they are, no doubt, the Ipomucena Islands of Don Anto- 

 nio Santos." 



In D' Anville's manuscripts, which his heirs have kindly permitted 

 me to examine, I find that the surgeon Hortsmann, of Hildesheim, 

 who described these countries with great care, saw a second Alpine 

 lake, which he places two days' journey above the confluence of the 

 Mahu with the Rio Parime (Tacutu ?). It is a lake of black water 

 on the top of a mountain. He distinguishes it clearly from the Lake 

 of Amucu, which he describes as " covered with reeds." The nar- 

 ratives of Hortsmann and Santos are as far as the Portuguese 



