THE VENEZUELAN UPLANDS. 81 



Every town in Venezuela has perpetuated the memory of the " Liberator " by 

 naming some street or square or erecting some public monument in his honour. 



II. 



The upland regions round which the Orinoco describes a vast semicircle 

 were undoubtedly at some former period connected with the Andes orographic 

 system. But after the waters of the great lakes had been discharged through 

 the mainstream into the Atlantic, the intervening rocks were gradually eaten 

 awav, and the incessant work of erosion, combined with the deposit of the alluvial 

 matter, at last effaced all apparent cohesion, even obliterating the former direction 

 of the connecting ridges. 



The Venezuelan Uplands. 



But in any case these eastern mountains form no well-defined chain in Vene- 

 zuela. The whole land rises bodily in such a way as to form a sort of shield or 

 convex tableland, above which are developed broad anticlinal foldings abutting in 

 all directions on ramparts of unequal size, some sloping gently, some presenting 

 sharp escarpments bristling with peaks and needles, while the whole system is 

 here and there interrupted by upland plains affecting the form of cirques. The 

 whole of this rugged region has received the name of_ Parima, either in memory 

 of the mythical lake of the " Great Water," or from the Parima said to have been 

 formerly inhabited by the Dorado, or " Golden Man," who dwelt in a palace of 

 carbuncles and of the precious metals so long sought for by Walter Raleigh and 

 so many adventurers. 



The sierra, which geographers commonly regard as the backbone of the system, 

 and in which the Orinoco and the main branch of the Rio Branco have their 

 source, is one of its least-known sections. Even the members of the commission 

 appointed to lay down the frontiers between Venezuela and Brazil did not venture 

 to traverse it during their exploring expedition of 1880-3. From the discon- 

 nected reports of a few travellers it may be inferred that the main axis consists of 

 sandstone strata resting on a granitic base. The highest crests probably exceed 

 6,500 feet, although Chaffanjon, who ascended the Orinoco to its source, estimates 

 the altitude of the surrounding mountains at not more than from 4,000 to 4,650 

 feet. 



In Venezuelan Guiana the northern continuation of this water-parting takes 

 various names, such as the Sierra Maigualida, towards the sources of the Ventuari, 

 and the Sierra de Matos, between the Cuchivero and Caura valleys. In this part 

 of the chain, which here already approaches the Orinoco, the Cerro de Mate, 

 measured by Codazzi, attains a height of 6,135 feet. To this system of the Parima^ 

 uplands belong the granite hills of Caicara at the great bend of the Orinoco, near 

 the Apure confluence, as do also the Cabruta cliffs on the opposite side. Here 

 the river forces a passage through the chain instead of sweeping round to the 

 north. 



On the maps of Venezuela the expression Sierra de Parima is also applied to the 

 7 



