ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 249 



the southern declivity of the Pacarima chain, he was not 

 acquainted with the Amucu Lake : he says himself, in his 

 printed account, that " from the information he had gained 

 from the Accaouais, who constantly traverse all the country 

 between the shore and the Amazons river, he had become 

 satisfied that there is no lake at all in these districts." This 

 statement occasioned me some surprise, as it was in direct 

 contradiction to the views which I had formed respecting the 

 Lake of Amucu, from which the Cano Pirara flows according 

 to the narratives of Hortsmann, Santos, aud Bodriquez, 

 whose accounts inspired me with the more confidence because 

 they agree entirely with the recent Portuguese manuscript 

 maps. Finally, after five years of expectation, Sir Robert 

 Schomburgk's journey has dispelled all doubts. 



" It is difficult to believe," says Mr. Hillhouse, in his 

 interesting memoir on the Massaruni, " that the report of a 

 great inland water is entirely without foundation. It seems 

 to me possible that the following circumstances may have 

 given occasion to the belief in the existence of the fabulous 

 lake of the Parime. At some distance from the fallen rocks 

 of Teboco the waters of the Massaruni appear to the eye as 

 motionless as the tranquil surface of a lake. If at a more 

 or less remote epoch the horizontal stratum of granite at 

 Teboco had been perfectly compact and unbroken, the waters 

 must have stood at least fifty feet above tfheir present level, 

 and there would thus have been formed an immense lake, 

 ten or twelve English miles broad and 1500 to 2000 English 

 miles long." (Nouvelles Annales des Voyages, 1836, Sept. 

 p. 31 6.) It is not solely the vast extent of this supposed 



