C2 



ERRORS OF THE FIRST VOYAGERS. 



the expense of El Dorado. "While the latter is sometimes 

 suppressed, no one ventures to touch the former,* which is 

 the Rio Paragua (a tributary stream of the Caroni) en- 

 larged by temporary inundations. When D'Anville learned 

 from the expedition of Solano, that the sources of the 

 Orinoco, far from lying to the west, on the back of the 

 Andes of Pasto, came from the east, from the mountains of 

 Parima, he restored in the second edition of his fine map of 

 America (1760) the Laguna Parime, and very arbitrarily 

 made it to communicate with three rivers, the Orinoco, the 

 Rio Branco, and the Essequibo, by the Mazuruni and the 

 Cujuni; assigning to it the latitude from 3 to 4 north, 

 which had till then been given to lake Cassipa. 



I have now stated, as I announced above, the variable 

 forms which geographical errors have assumed at different 

 periods. I have explained what in the configuration of the 

 soil, the course of the rivers, the names of the tributary 

 streams, and the multiplicity of the portages, may have 

 given rise to the hypothesis of an inland sea in the centre of 

 Guiana. However dry discussions of this nature may ap- 

 pear, they ought not to be regarded as sterile and fruitless. 

 They show travellers what remains to be discovered; and 

 make known the degree of certainty which long-repeated 

 assertions may claim. It is with maps, as with those tables 

 of astronomical positions which are contained in our ephe- 

 merides, designed for the use of navigators : the most hete- 

 rogeneous materials have been employed in their construc- 

 tion during a long space of time ; and, without the aid of 

 the history of geography, we could scarcely hope to discover 

 at some future day on what authority every partial state- 

 ment rests. 



Before I resume the thread of my narrative, it remains 

 for me to add a few general reflections on the auriferous 

 lands situate between the Amazon and the Orinoco. "We 

 have just shown that the fable of El Dorado, like the most 

 celebrated fables of the nations of the ancient world, has 

 been applied progressively to different spots. "We have 

 seen it advance from the south-west to the north-east, from 

 the oriental declivity of the Andes towards the plains of 



* Sanson, Coarse of the Amazon, 1680 ; De L'Isle, Amfriyue Merid. 

 1700. D'Aimlle, first edition of his America,' 1 748. 



