EARLY IDEAS OF T1IB ORINOCO. Gl 



Mrta, from south to north, like the river Magdalena. The 

 tributary streams, therefore, which were made to issue from 

 the lake Cassipa, the Carony, the Arui, and the Caura, then 

 took the direction of the latitude, while in nature they follow 

 that of a meridian. Beside the lakes Panma and Cassipa, a 

 third was traced upon the maps, from which the Aprouague 

 (Apurwaca) was made to issue. It was then a general prac- 

 tice among geographers to attach all rivers to great lakes. 

 By this means Ortelius joined the Nile to the Zaire or Rio 

 Congo, and the Vistula to the Wolga and the Dnieper. 

 North of Mexico, in the pretended kingdoms of Quivira 

 and Cibola, rendered celebrated by the falsehoods of the 

 monk Marcos de Niza, a great inland sea was imagined, 

 from which the Rio Colorado of California was made to 

 issue.* A branch of the Rio Magdalena flowed to the 

 Laguua de Maracaybo; and the lake of Xarayes, near 

 which a southern Dorado was placed, communicated with 

 the Amazon, the Miarif (Meary), and the Eio de San Fran- 

 cisco. These hydrographic reveries have for the most part 

 disappeared ; but the lakes Cassipa and Dorado have been 

 long simultaneously preserved on our maps. 



In following the history of geography we see the Cassipa, 

 figured as a rectangular parallelogram, enlarge by degrees at 



* This is the Mexican Dorado, where it was pretended, that vessels 

 had been found on the coasts [of New Albion ?] loaded with the mer- 

 chandise of Catayo and China (Comoro, Hist. Gen., p. 117), and where 

 Fray Marcos (like Huten in the country of the Omaguas) had seen from 

 qfar the gilded roofs of a great town, one of the Siete Ciudade*. The 

 inhabitants have great dogs, " en los quales quando se mudan cargan su 

 menage." (Herrera, dec. VI, p. 157, 206.) Later discoveries, however, 

 leave no doubt that there existed a centre of civilization in those countries. 



f As this river flows into the gulf of Maranhfto (so named because some 

 French colonists, Rifault, De Vaux, and Ravadiere, believed they were 

 opposite the mouth of the Maranon or Amazon), the ancient maps call 

 the Meary Mara/ion, or Maranham. (See the maps of Hondius, and 

 Paulo de Forlani.) Perhaps the idea that Pin9on, to whom the discovery 

 of the real Maraflon is due, had landed in these parts, since become 

 celebrated by the shipwreck of Ayres da Cunha, has also contributed to 

 this confusion. The Meary appears to me identical with the Rio de Vi- 

 cente Pinfon of Diego Ribeyro, which is more than one hundred and 

 forty leagues from that of the modern geographers. At present the name 

 of Maraflon has remained at the same time to the river of the Amazons, 

 and to a province much farther eastward, the capital of which is Maran. 

 h&o, or St. Louis de MaraOon. 



