ILLUSTRATIONS (9). LAKE PARIME. 187 



In April the whole Savannahs are overflowed, and then 

 present the peculiar phenomenon of the waters belonging to 

 two different river basins commingling together. It is pro- 

 bable that the vast extent of this temporary inundation may 

 have given rise to the fable of the lake of Parime. During 

 the rainy season a water communication is formed in the inte- 

 rior of the country between the Essequibo, the Rio Branco, 

 and the Gran Para. Some groups of trees, rising like Oases 

 on the sand-hills of the Savannahs, present, at the time of 

 the inundation, the appearance of islands scattered over a 

 lake ; and these are without doubt the Ipomucena islands of 

 Don Antonio Santos." 



In D'Anville's manuscripts, which his heirs kindly allowed 

 me to examine, I find that Hortsmann of Hildesheim, who 

 described these districts with great care, saw a second Alpine 

 lake, which he places two day's journey above the con- 

 fluence of the Mahu with the Rio Parime (Tacutu?). It is 

 a black water lake, situated on the summit of a mountain. 

 He explicitly distinguishes it from the lake of Amucu, which 

 he describes as " covered with rushes." The descriptions given 

 by Hortsmann and Santos coincide with the Portuguese manu- 

 script maps of the Marine Bureau at Rio Janeiro, in not 

 indicating the existence of an uninterrupted connection be- 

 tween the Rupunuri and the lake of Amucu. In D'Anville's 

 maps of South America, the rivers are better drawn in the 

 first edition published in 1748, than in the more exten- 

 sively circulated one of 1 760. Schomburgk's travels fully con- 

 firm the independence of the basin of the Rupunuri and 

 Essequibo ; but he draws attention to the fact that, during the 

 rainy season, the Rio Waa-Ekuru, a tributary of the Rupunuri, 

 is in connection with the Cafio Pirara. Such is the condition 

 of these river-channels, which are still but little developed, and 

 almost entirely without separating ridges. 



The Rupunuri and the village of Anai, 3 56' north latitude, 

 58 34' west longitude, are at present recognised as the political 

 boundaries between the British and Brazilian domains in these 

 desert regions. Sir Robert Schomburgk was compelled by 

 severe illness to make a protracted stay at Anai. He bases 

 his chronoinetrical determinations of the position of the lake 

 of Amucu on the mean of many lunar distances, east and 

 west, which he measured during his sojourn at Anai. His 



