60 MAPS OF GUIANA. 



after the first voyage of Raleigh. It was Jodocua Hondius 

 who, as early as the year 1599, fixed the ideas of geogra- 

 phers, and figured the interior of Spanish Guiana as a 

 country well known. He transformed the isthmus between 

 the Rio Branco and the Rio Rupunuwini (one of the tribu- 

 tary streams of the Essequibo) into the lake Rupunuwm^ 

 Parima, or Dorado, two hundred leagues long, and forty 

 broad, and bounded by the latitudes of 1 45' south, and 

 2 north. This inland sea, larger than the Caspian, is some- 

 times traced in the midst of a mountainous country, without 

 communication with any river ;* and sometimes the Rio 

 Oyapok (Waiapago, Japoc, Viapoco) and the Rio de Cayana 

 are made to issue from it.t The first of these rivers, con- 

 founded in the eighth article of the treaty of Utrecht with 

 the Rio de Vicente Pin9on (Rio Calsoene of D'Anville), has 

 been, even down to the late congress of Vienna, the subject 

 of interminable discussions between the French and Portu- 

 guese diplomatists. J The second is an imaginary prolonga- 

 tion either of the Tonnegrande or of the Oyac (Wia?). 

 The inland sea (Laguna Parime) was at first placed in such 

 a manner, that its western- extremity coincided with the 

 meridian of the confluence of the Apure and the Orinoco. 

 By degrees it was advanced toward the east, the western 

 extremity being found to the south of the mouth of the 

 Orinoco. This change produced others in the respective 

 situations of the lakes Parima and Cassipa, as well as in the 

 direction of the course of the Orinoco. This great river is 

 represented as running, from its delta as far as beyond the 



* See, for instance, Hondius, Nieuwe Caerte van het goudrycke landt 

 Guiana, 1599; and Sanson's Map of America, in 1656 and 1669. 



( Brasilia et Caribaua, auct. Hondio et Huelsen, 1599. 



J I have treated this question in a M&moire sur la fixation des limite* 

 de la Guyane Franfaise, written at the desire of the Portuguese govern- 

 ment during the negotiations of Paris in 1817. (See Schoell, Archives 

 polit., or Pieces tneditet, vol. i, p. 48 58.) Ribeyro, in his celebrated 

 map of the world of 1529, places the Rio de Vicente Pincon south of the 

 Amazon, near the Gulf of Maranhao. This navigator landed at this 

 spot, after having been at Cape Saint Augustin, and before he reached 

 the mouth of the Amazon. (Herrera, dec. I, p. 107.) The narrative of 

 Gomara, Hist. Nat., 1553, p. 48, is very confused in a geographical point 

 of view. 



Compare the maps of 1599 with those of Sanson (1656) and o 

 Blasuw (1633). 



