222 



are very remarkable differences in the nature of 

 the waters, and the distribution of animals ! 

 The Indians do not fail to cite them, when they 

 would prove to travellers, that the Upper Oroo- 

 noko, to the east of San Fernando, is a distinct 

 river that falls into the Oroonoko, and that the 

 real origin of the latter must be sought in the 

 sources of the Guaviare. The geographers of 

 Europe are no doubt in the wrong not to em- 

 brace the way of thinking of the Indians, who 

 are the geographers of their own country ; but 

 in respect to nomenclature and orthography, it is 

 often prudent, to follow an error we have point- 

 ed out. 



The astronomical observations* made in the 

 night of the 25th of April did not give me the 

 latitude with satisfactory precision. The sky 

 was cloudy, and I could obtain only a few 

 heights of a Centauri, and the beautiful star at 

 the foot of the Southern Cross. According to 

 these heights, the latitude of the mission of San 

 Fernando appeared to me to be 4° 2' 48". In 

 father Caulins map, founded on the observa- 

 tions of Solano made in 1756, it is 4° l'f. This 



* See my Rec. d' Obs. Astro., vol. i, p. 230, 253, 275, 

 f In the text of the hook, which, as it happens unfortu- 

 nately for the most part in narratives of travels, is in contra- 

 diction with the map, the latitude of the junction of the Gua- 

 viare and the Atabapo is said to be a little less than three 

 degrees. I)oes not this difference proceed from the falsified 



