16 2-IRST BRANCHES OF THE ORINOCO. 



been settled for two hundred and fifty years on the banks 

 of the Orinoco ; and during this long period of time, accord- 

 ing to a tradition which has been propagated from genera- 

 tion to generation, the periodical oscillations of the river 

 (the time of the beginning of the rising, and that when it 

 attains its maximum) have never been retarded more than 

 twelve or fifteen days. 



When vessels that draw a good deal of water sail up to- 

 ward Angostura in the months of January and February, by 

 favour of the sea-breeze and the tide, they run the risk of 

 taking the ground. The navigable channel often changes 

 its breadth and direction ; no buoy, however, has yet been 

 laid down, to indicate any deposit of earth formed in the 

 bed of the river, where the waters have lost their original 

 velocity. There exists on the south of Cape Barima, as well 

 by the river of this name as by the Rio Moroca and several 

 estuaries (esteres) a communication with the English co- 

 lony of Essequibo. Small vessels can penetrate into the 

 interior as far as the Rio Poumaron, on which are the ancient 

 settlements of Zealand and Middleburg. Heretofore this 

 communication interested the government of Caracas only 

 on account of the facility it furnished to an illicit trade ; 

 but since Berbice, Demerara, and Essequibo, have fallen into 

 the hands of a more powerful neighbour, it fixes the atten- 

 tion of the Spanish Americans as being connected with the 

 security of their frontiers. Rivers which have a course pa- 

 rallel to the coast, and are nowhere farther distant from it 

 than five or six nautical miles, characterize the whole of the 

 shore between the Orinoco and the Amazon. 



Ten leagues distant from Cape Barima, the great bed of 

 the Orinoco is divided for the first time into two branches 

 of two thousand toises in breadth. They are known by the 

 Indian names of Zacupana and Imataca. The first, which 

 is the northernmost, communicates on the west of the islands 

 Congrejos and del Burro with the bocas chicas of Lauran, 

 Nuina, and Mariusas. As the Isla del Burro disappears in 

 the time of great inundations, it is unhappily not suited to 

 fortifications. The southern bank of the Irazo Imataca is 

 cut by a labyrinth of little channels, into which the Eio 

 Imataca and the Bio Aquire flow. A long series of littlo 

 granitic hills rises in the fertile savannahs between the Iiiia- 



