220 



form one system. When we would give the 

 name of a large river to one of the two branches 

 by which it is formed, it should be applied to 

 that branch, which furnishes most water. Now 

 at the two seasons of the year when I saw the 

 Guaviare, and the Upper Oroonoko or Rio Para- 

 gua (between the Esmeralda and San Fernan- 

 do), it appeared to me, that the latter was not 

 so large as the Guaviare. Similar doubts have 

 been entertained by geographical travellers on 

 the junction of the Upper Mississipi with the 

 Missouri and the Ohio, on the junction of the 

 Maragnon with the Guailaga and the Ucayale, 

 and on the junction of the Indus with the Chu- 

 nab (Hydaspes of Cashmere) and the Gurra, or 

 Sutledge*. To avoid embroiling farther a no- 

 menclature of rivers so arbitrarily fixed, I will 

 not propose new denominations. I shall con- 

 tinue with father Caulin and the Spanish geo- 

 graphers, to call the river Esmeralda the Oroo- 

 noko, or Upper Oroonoko ; but I must ob- 

 serve, that if the Oroonoko, from San Fernando 

 de Atabapo as far as the Delta which it forms 

 opposite the island of Trinidad, were regarded as 

 the continuation of the Rio Guaviare ; and if 



* The Hydaspes is properly a tributary stream of the 

 Chunab or Acesines. The Sutledge, or Hysudrus forms, 

 together with the Beyah or Hyphases, the river Gurra. 

 These are the beautiful regions of the Pundjab and Douab* 

 celebrated in history from Forus down to Sultan Acbar. 



