36 THE 



existence of the lake Amucu (near the Rio Rtmpunuwim, 

 and regarded as the principal source of the Eio Parima), 

 which have given rise to the fable of the White Sea and the 

 Dorado of Parima. All these circumstances (which have 

 served on this very account to corroborate the general 

 opinion) are found united on a space of ground which is 

 eight or nine leagues broad from north to south, and forty 

 long from east to west. This direction, too, was always 

 assigned to the White Sea, by lengthening it in the direction 

 of the latitude, till the beginning of the sixteenth century. 

 Now this White Sea is nothing but the Eio Parima, which 

 is called the White Eiver (Rio Branco, or Rio del Aquas 

 llancas), and runs through and inundates the whole of this 

 land. The name of Eupunuwini is given to the White Sea 

 on the most ancient maps, which identifies the place of the 

 table, since of all the tributary streams of the Eio Essequibo 

 the Eupunuwini is the nearest to the lake Amucu. Paleigh, 

 in his first voyage (1595), had formed no precise idea of the 

 situation of El Dorado and the lake Parima, which he 

 believed to be salt, and which he calls "another Caspian 

 Sea." It was not till the second voyage (1596), performed 

 equally at the expense of Ealeigh, that Laurence Keymis 

 fixed so well the localities of El Dorado, that he appears to 

 me to have no doubt of the identity ol the Parima de Manao 

 M-ith the lake Amucu, and with the isthmus between the 

 Eupunuwini (a tributary stream of the Essequibo) and the 

 Eio Parima or Eio Branco. " The Indians," says Keymis, 

 " go up the Dessakebe [Essequibo] in twenty days, towards 

 the south. To mark the greatness of this river, they call it 

 * the brother of the Orinoco ' After twenty days' navigating 

 they convey their canoes by a portage of one day, from the 

 river Dessekebe to a lake, which the Jaos call Roponowini, 

 and the Canbbees Parime. This lake is as large as a sea ; 

 it is covered with an infinite number of canoes ; and I sup- 

 pose" [the Indians then had told him nothing of this] " that 

 this lake is no other than that which contains the town of 

 Manoa."* Hondius has given a curious plate of this portage; 

 and, as the mouth of the Carony was then supposed to be 



* Cayley's Life -/ Raleigh, vol. i, p. 159, 236, and 283. Masham, 

 in the third voyage of Raleigh (1596), repeats these accounts of the Lake 

 Rupunuwmi. 



