ETYMOLOGY OF EL DORADO. 39 



We have now examined a "White Sea,* which the prin- 

 cipal trunk of the Rio Branco is made to traverse; and 

 another,f which is placed on the east of this river, and 

 communicates with it by the Cano Pirara. A third lakej 

 is figured on the west of the Rio Branco, respecting which I 

 found recently some curious details in the manuscript 

 journal of the surgeon Hortsmann. " At the distance of 

 two days' journey below the confluence of the Mahu 

 (Tacutu) with the Rio Farima (Uraricuera) a lake is found 

 on the top of a mountain. This lake is stocked with the 

 same fish as the Rio Parima ; but the waters of the former 

 are black, and those of the latter white." May not Sur- 

 ville, from a vague notion of this basin, have imagined, in 

 his map prefixed to Father Caulin's work, an Alpine lake 

 of ten leagues in length, near which, towards the east, 

 rise at the same time the Orinoco, and the Rio Idapa, a 

 tributary stream of the Rio Negro? However vague may 

 be the account of the surgeon of Hildesheim, it is impos- 

 sible to admit that the mountain, which has a lake at its 

 summit, is to the north of the parallel of 2 30': and 

 this latitude coincides nearly with that of the Cerro Unturan. 

 Hence it follows, that the Alpine lake of Hortsmann, whicli 

 has escaped the attention of D' Anville, and which is perhaps 

 situate amid a group of mountains, lies north-east of the 

 portage from the Idapa to the Mavaca, and south-east of the 

 Orinoco, where it goes up above Esmeralda. 



Most of the historians, who have treated of the first ages 

 of the conquest, seem persuaded, that the name provincias 

 or pais del Dorado denoted originally every region abound- 

 ing in gold. Forgetting the precise etymology of the word 

 El Dorado (the gilded), they have not perceived, that this 

 tradition is a local fable, as were almost all the ancient 

 fables of the Greeks, the Hindoos, and the Persians. The 



Paraguay have long acted the same part in the southern hemisphere, as lake 

 Parima has been made to perform in the northern. Hondius and Sanson 

 have made the Rio de la Plata, the Rio Topajos (a tributary stream of 

 the Amazon), the Rio Tocantines, and the Rio de San Francisco, issue 

 from the Laguna de los Xaryes. 



* That of D' Anville and La Cruz, and of the greater part of the mo 

 dern maps. 



f The lake of Surville, which takes the place of lake Amucu. 



J The lake which Surville calls " Laguna tenida hasta ahora or 

 La una Par i me " 



