GEOGRAPHICAL ERRORS. 331 



his time no person had any knowledge of the course of the 

 Or noco above the mouth of the Guaviare. 



D'Anville, in the first edition of his great map of South 

 America, laid down the Rio Negro as an arm of the Orinoco, 

 that branched off from the principal body of the river between 

 the mouths of the Meta and the Yichada, near the cataract 

 of Atures. That great geographer was entirely ignorant of 

 the existence of the Cassiquiare and the Atabapo ; and he 

 makes the Orinoco or Bio Paragua, the Japura, and the 

 Putumayo, take their rise from three branchings of the 

 Caqueta. The expedition of the boundaries, commanded 

 by Iturriaga and Solano, corrected these errors. Solano, 

 who was the geographical engineer of this expedition, ad- 

 vanced in 1756 as far as the mouth of the Guaviare, after 

 having passed the Great Cataracts. He found that, to 

 continue to go up the Orinoco, he must direct his course 

 towards the east ; and that the river received, at the point 

 of its great inflection, in latitude 4 4', the waters of 

 the Guaviare, which two miles higher had received those of 

 the Atabapo. Interested in approaching the Portuguese 

 possessions as near as possible, Solano resolved to proceed 

 onward to the south. At the confluence of the Atabapo 

 and the Guaviare he found an Indian settlement of the 

 warlike nation of the Guaypunaves. He gained their 

 favour by presents, and with their aid founded the mission of 

 San Fernando, to which he gave the appellation of villa, or 

 town. 



To make known the political importance of this Mission, 

 we must recollect what was at that period the balance of 

 power between the petty Indian tribes of Guiana. The 

 banks of the Lower Orinoco had been long ensanguined 

 by the obstinate struggle between two powerful nations, 

 the Cabres and the Caribs. The latter, whose principal 

 abode since the close of the seventeenth century nas been 

 between the sources of the Carony, the Essequibo, the 

 Orinoco, and the Bio Parima, once not only held sway as 

 tar as the Great Cataracts, but made incursions also into 

 the Upper Orinoco, employing portages between the Pa- 

 ruspa* and the Caura, the Erevato and the Ventuari, the 



* The Rio Paruspa falls into the Rio Paragua, and the latter toto the 

 Rio Carjny, which is one of the tributary streams of the Lower Orinoco. 



