EASTEEN GROUP OF PARIA1E. 311 



island in the Llanos of Guaviare and Yupura. Father 

 Puguet, Principal of the Franciscan convent at Popayan, 

 assured me, that when he went from the missions settled 

 on the Bio Caguan to Aramo, a village situated on the Bio 

 Guayavero, he found only treeless savannahs, extending as 

 far as the eye could reach. The chain of mountains placed 

 by several modern geographers, between the Meta and the 

 Vichada, and which appears to link the Andes of New 

 Grenada with the Sierra Parime, is altogether imaginary. 



We have now examined the prolongation of the Sierra 

 Parime on the west, towards the source of the Bio Negro : 

 it remains for us to follow the same group in its eastern 

 direction. The mountains of the Upper Orinoco, eastward 

 of the Baudal of the Guaharibos (nor. lat. 1 15' long. 07 38'), 

 join the chain of Pacaraina, which divides the waters of tho 

 Carony and the Bio Branco, and of which the micaceous 

 schist, resplendent with silvery lustre, figures so conspi- 

 cuously in Baleigh's El Dorado. The part of that chain 

 containing the sources of the Orinoco has not yet been 

 explored; but its prolongation more to the east, between the 

 meridian of the military post of Guirior and the Bupunuri, 

 a tributary of the Essequibo, is known to me through 

 the travels of the Spaniards Antonio Santos and Nicolas 

 llodriguez, and also by the geodesic labours of two Portu- 

 guese, Pontes and Almeida. Two portages but little fre- 

 quented* are situated between the Bio Branco and the Bio 

 Essequibo, south of the chain of Pacaraina; they shorten the 

 land-road leading from the Villa del Bio Negro to Dutch 

 Guiana. On the contrary, the portage between the basin of 

 the Bio Branco and that ot the Caroiiy, crosses the summit 

 of the chain of Pacaraina. On the northern slope of this 

 chain rises the Anocapra, a tributary of the Paraguamusi or 

 Paravamusi; and on the southern slope, the Araicuque, 

 which, with the Uroricapara, forms the famous Valley of 

 Inundations, above the destroyed mission of Santa Bosa 

 (lat. 3 46', long. 65 10'). The principal Cordillera, which 

 appears of little breadth, stretches on a length ot 80 leagues, 

 from the portage of Anocapra, (long. 65 35') to the left 

 bank of the B-upunuri (long. 61 50'), following the parallels 



* The portages of Sarauru and the lake Aroucu. 



