28 EAftLY TRADITIONS. 



small. Almost all the maps of South America which have 

 appeared since the year 1775 are, in what regards the interior 

 of the country, comprised between the steppes of Venezuela 

 and the river of the Amazons, between the eastern back of 

 the Andes and the coast of Cayenne, a simple copy of the 

 great Spanish map of La Cruz Olmedilla. A line, indicating 

 the extent of country which Don Jose Solano boasted of 

 having discovered and pacified by his troops and emissaries, 

 was taken for the road followed by that officer, who never 

 went beyond San Fernando de Atabapo, a village one hun- 

 dred and sixty leagues distant from the pretended lake 

 Parima. The study of the work of Father Caulin, who was 

 the historiographer of the expedition of Solano, and who 

 states very clearly, from the testimony of the Indians, " how 

 the name of the river Parima gave rise to the fable of El 

 Dorado, and of an inland sea," has been neglected. No use 

 either has been made of a map of the Orinoco, three years 

 posterior to that of La Cruz, and traced by Surville from the 

 collection of true or hypothetical materials preserved in the 

 archives of the Despacho universal de Indias. The progress 

 of geography, as manifested on our maps, is much slower 

 than might be supposed from the number of useful results 

 which are found scattered in the works of different nations. 

 Astronomical observations and topographic information accu- 

 mulate during a long lapse of years, without being made use 

 of; and from a principle of stability and preservation, in 

 other respects praiseworthy, those who construct maps 

 often choose rather to add nothing, than to sacrifice a lake, 

 a chain of mountains, or an interbranching of rivers, which 

 have figured there during ages. 



The fabulous traditions of El Dorado and the lake Parima 

 having been diversely modified according to the aspect of the 

 countries to which they were to be adapted, we must distin- 

 guish what they contain that is real from what is merely 

 imaginary. To avoid entering here into minute parti- 

 culars, I shall begin first to call the attention of the reader 

 to those spots which have been, at various periods, the theatre 

 of the expeditions undertaken for the discovery of El Dorado-. 

 When we have learnt to know the aspect of the country, 



our maps of countries the least visited an appearance of exactness, the 

 falsity of which ia discovered when we arrive on the spot. 



