372 Till BIO 1TEGEO. 



life in the missions of the Upper Orinoco, slept with us 

 on the bank of the river. He was an intelligent man, who, 

 during a calm and serene night, pressed me with questions 

 on the magnitude of the stars, on the inhabitants of the 

 moon, on a thousand subjects of which I was as ignorant 

 as himself. Being unable by my answers to satisfy his 

 curiosity, he said to me in a firm tone of the most positive 

 conviction : " with respect to men, I believe there are no 

 more up there than you would have found if you had gone 

 by land from Javita to Cassiquiare. I think I see in the 

 stars, as here, a plain covered with grass, and a forest (mucho 

 moiite) traversed by a river." In citing these words I 

 paint the impression produced bv the monotonous aaspect 

 of those solitary regions. May this monotony not be found 

 to extend to the journal of our navigation, and weary the 

 reader accustomed to the description of the scenes and his- 

 torical memorials of the old continent ! 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



The Rio Negro. Boundaries of Brazil. The Cassiquiare. Bifurcation of 

 the Orinoco. 



THE Rio Negro, compared to the Amazon, the Bio de la 

 Plata, or the Orinoco, is but a river of the second order. 

 Its possession has been for ages of great political importance 

 to the Spanish Government, because it is capable of furnish- 

 ing a rival power, Portugal, with an easy passage into the 

 missions of Guiana, and thereby disturbing the Capitania 

 general of Caracas in its southern limits. Three hundred 

 years have been spent in vain territorial disputes. Accord- 

 ing to the difference of times, and the degree of civilization 

 among the natives, resource has been had sometimes to 

 the authority of the Pope, and sometimes the support of 

 astronomy ; and the disputants being generally more inte- 

 rested in Prolonging than in terminating the struggle, the 

 nautical sciences and the geography of the New Continent, 

 have alone gained by this interminable litigation. "WTien 

 the affairs of Paraguay, and the possession of the colony 

 pt' Del Sacramento, became of great importance to the courts 





