IN SOUTH AMERICA, 239 



tiles of the city of Manao, the particles of gold wafhed from mines by the Yquiari, 

 and the golden fands of the Parima lake, he muft yet allow, great as it really is, that 

 cupidity and prejudice, on the part of European adventurers, determined on finding 

 what they fancied had exiftence ; and, on the part of the native Americans, interefted 

 in ridding themfelves of unwelcome guefts, a genius prone to exaggeration and lies, that 

 thefe, I fay, are media fufficient to account for the alTimilation of objects thus widely dif- 

 fimilar in themfelves, and the change and disfigurement of fads, fo as not to be known 

 for the fame. The hiftory of the difcoveries in the new world furnifh more than one 

 inftance of metamorphofes equally flrange. 



I poflefs an extract from the journal and a copy of the map of NicolasiHortfman, a 

 native of Hildefheim, probably the lafl traveller who attempted a difcovery of thefe 

 vifionary incognitse. They were given to me at Para by the author himfelf, who, in 

 the year 1740, afcended the river Eifequibo, whofe mouth is on the ocean between the 

 rivers Surinam and Oronooco. After having traverfed lakes and vaft tracks of land, 

 now dragging, now carrying his canoe, and enduring in his excurfion incredible toil 

 and fatigue, but without any traces of the objed of his fearch, he at length came to a 

 river with a fouthern courfe, by which he defcended into the Rio Negro on its northern 

 fide. The Portuguefe have given it the name of Rio Branco, or White River ; and to 

 the river Effequibo, the Dutch have attached that of Parima ; doubtlefs, becaufe of 

 their fuppofmg it to proceed from the lake of that name ; and, for a fmiilar reafon, one 

 of the rivers of Cayenne has a like denomination. It may be conceived by feme, that 

 this Parima lake was one of thofe crofTed by the adventurer lafl noticed, but in any of 

 them, he found fo little that correfponded with the idea he formed of the Golden Lake, 

 as to be far, in my opinion, from adding his fanftion to fuch a conjedure. 



The cryftalline waters of the Black River had barely lofl their tranfparence by 

 blending with the pale and muddy current of the Amazons, before, on the fouth fide, 

 we drew near the firfl mouth of another river, fcarcely fecondary to the preceding, and 

 no lefs reforted to by the Portuguefe. By them it is called Rio de Madera, or the 

 Wood River, pofTibly from the abundance of trees brought down by its current after 

 floods. Some idea of the length of its courfe may be entertained, from the fad of its 

 having been afcended in 1741 as high as to the vicinage of Santa Cruz de la Scirra, an 

 epifcopal fee of Upper Peru, in latitude 17!° fouth*. In its fuperior part, where the 

 milTionary fettlement of Moxes is eflablifhed, this river is called Mamore ; of its courfe, 

 in this part, the Jefuits of LirRa publifhed a chart in 17 13, which is given in Book XIL 

 of Lettres Edifiantes et Curieufes ; but the earliefl fource of the Madera is in the neigh- 

 bourhood of the mines of Potofi, but Httle diflant from that of the Pitcomayo, a tri- 

 butary of the great river De Plata. 



The general breadth of t?ie Amazons below the two lafl noticed rivers, the Rio Ne- 

 gro, and the Madera, is about a league ; where iflands occur, its breadth from bank 

 to bank is two to three leagues ; but in time of the greatefl height of its waters, the 

 widely fpreading deluge has no limits. At this point it is that the Portuguefe of Para 

 give the name of Amazons to the river ; higher up, it is known by no other than that of 

 O Rio de Solimoes, the River of Poifons, a diflind:ion which probably originated from 

 the envenomed aiTows before noticed, the mod common weapon of the inhabitants of 

 its fhores. 



* The whole courfe of this large river exceeds 1,700 Britifh miles, during more than 1,50° °^ which it 

 is navigable j and the greater part of this length it is of conliderable dejpth. 



