ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 253 



saw a second Alpine lake, which he places two days' journey 

 above the confluence of the Mahu with the Rio Parime 

 (Tacutu ?) . It is a lake of black water on the top of a 

 mountain. He distinguishes it clearly from the Lake of 

 Amucu, which he describes as " covered with reeds/' The 

 narratives of Hortsmann and Santos are as far as the 

 Portuguese manuscript maps of the Bureau de la Marine at 

 Rio Janeiro from indicating or admitting a constant connec- 

 tion between the Rupunuri and the Lake of Amucu. In 

 D'Anville's maps the rivers are better drawn in the first 

 edition of his South America, published in 1748, than in 

 the more widely circulated edition of 1760. Schomburgk's 

 travels have completely established this general independence 

 of the basins of the Rupunuri arid the Essequibo ; but he 

 remarks that during the rainy season the Rio Waa-Ekuru, 

 a tributary of the Rupunuri, is in connection with the Cano 

 Pirara. Such is the* state of these river basins, wlu'ch 

 are, as it were, still imperfectly developed, and are almost 

 entirely without separating ridges. 



The Rupunuri aud the village of Anai (lat. 3 56', long. 

 58 34'), are at present recognised as the political boundary 

 between the British and the Brazilian territories in these 

 uncultivated regions. Sir Robert Schomburgk makes his 

 chronologically determined longitude of the Lake of Amucu 

 depend on the mean of several lunar distances (East and 

 West) measured by him during his stay at Anai, where he 

 was detained some time by severe illness. His longitudes 

 for these points of the Parime are in general a degree more 

 easterly than the longitudes of my map of Columbia. I am 

 far from throwing any doubt on the observations of lunar 



