58 CHAllTS OF VESPUCCI. 



governor of Santo Thome del Angostura, displayed an ex 

 treme ardour for reaching the imaginary lake of Manoa. 

 Arimuicaipi, an Indian of the nation of the Ipurucotoa, 

 went down the Bio Carony, and by his false narrations 

 inflamed the imagination of the Spanish colonists. He 

 showed them in the southern sky the Clouds of Magellan, 

 the whitish light of which he said was the reflection of the 

 argentiferous rocks situate in the middle of the Laguna 

 Parima. This was describing in a very poetical manner the 

 splendour of the micaceous and talky slates of his country ! 

 Another Indian chief, known among the Caribs of Essequibo 

 by the name El Capitan Jurado, vainly attempted to unde- 

 ceive tie governor Centurion. Fruitless attempts were 

 made by the Caura and the Bio Paragua ; and several hun- 

 dred persons perished miserably in these rash enterprises, 

 from which, however, geography has derived some advan- 

 tages. Nicolas Bodriguez and Antonio Santos (1775 

 1780) were employed by the Spanish governor. Santos, 

 proceeding by the Carony, the Paragua, the Paraguamusi, 

 the Anocapra, and the mountains of Pacaraymo and Quimi- 

 ropaca, reached the Uraricuera and the Bio Branco. I 

 found some valuable information in the journals of these 

 perilous expeditions. 



The maritime charts which the Florentine traveller, Ame- 

 rigo Vespucci,* constructed in the early years of the six- 

 teenth century, as Piloto mayor de la Casa de Contratacion of 

 Seville, and in which he placed, perhaps artfully, the words 

 Tierra de Amerigo, have not reached our times. The most 

 ancient monument we possess of the geography of the New 

 Continent,f is the map of the world by John Buysch, 

 annexed to a Boman edition of Ptolemy in 1508. We there 

 find Yucatan and Honduras (the most southern part of 

 Mexico) { figured as an island, by the name of Culicar. 



* He died in 1512, as Mr. Muftoz has proved by the documents of the 

 archives of Simancas. (Hist, del Nuevo Mundo, vol. i, p. 17.) Tira- 

 bosctd, Storia delta Litteratura. 



t See the learned researches of M. Walckenaer, in the Bibliographic 

 Univ. vol. vi, p. 209, art. " Buckinck." On the maps added to Ptolemy 

 in 1506 we find no trace of the discoveries of Columbus. 



J No doubt the lands between Uucatan, Cape Gracias Dios, and 

 Veragua, discovered by Columbus (1502 and 1503), by Solis, and bj 

 Pinvon (1506). 



