32 THE EIO PARAGTTA. 



this vast extent of forests, savannahs, and mountains, the 

 progress of those who sought the great lake with auriferous 

 banks, and the town of 'the gilded king,' was directed 

 towards two points only, on the north-east and south-west 

 of the Rio Negro; that is, to Parima (or the isthmus 

 between the Carony, the Essequibo, and the Eio Branco), 

 and to the ancient abode of the Manaos, the inhabitants of 

 the banks of the Turubesh. I have just mentioned the 

 situation of the latter spot, which is celebrated in the 

 history of the conquest from 1535 to 1560 ; and it remains 

 for me to speak of the configuration of the country between 

 the Spanish missions of the Bio Carony, and the Portuguese 

 missions of the Rio Branco or Parima. This is the country 

 lying near the Lower Orinoco, the Esmeralda, and French 

 and Dutch Guiana, on which, since the end of the six- 

 teenth century, the enterprises and exaggerated narratives 

 of Raleigh have shed so bright a splendour. 



Erom the general disposition of the course of the Orinoco, 

 directed successively towards the west, the north, and the 

 east, its mouth lies almost in the same meridian as its 

 sources: so that by proceeding from Vieja Guyana to the 

 south the traveller passes through the whole of the country 

 in which geographers have successively placed an inland sea 

 (Mar Blanco), and the different lakes which are connected 

 with the El Dorado de la Parime. We find first the Rio 

 Carony, which is formed by the union of two branches of 

 almost equal magnitude, the Carony properly so called, and 

 the Rio Paragua. The missionaries of Piritu call the latter 

 river a lake (laguna): it is full of shoals, and little cascades; 

 but, "passing through a country entirely flat, it is subject 

 at the same time to great inundations, and its real bed (su 

 verdadera caxa) can scarcely be discovered." The natives 

 have given it the name of Paragua or Parava, which means 

 in the Caribbee language ' sea,' or ' great lake.' These 

 local circumstances and this denomination no doubt have 

 given rise to the idea of transforming the Rio Paragua, a 

 tributary stream of the Carony, into a lake called Cassipa, 

 on account of the Cassipagotos,* who lived in those coun- 



* Raleigh, p. 64, 69. I always quote, when the contrary is not ex. 



