336 



which the president of the missions of the Oroo- 

 noko visited, in going up the Guaviare from San 

 Fernando de Atabapo) ; but he crossed no river 

 on his way from Caguan to Aramo. It is there- 

 fore fully proved, that in the longitude of seven- 

 ty-five degrees* at forty leagues distance from 

 the declivity of the Cordilleras, in the midst of 

 the Llanos, there exists neither the Rio Negro 

 (Patavita, Guainia), nor Guapue (Uaupe) nor 

 Inirida, and that these three rivers rise to the east 

 of that meridian. These particulars are extremely 

 valuable ; the geography of the interior of Africa 

 is not more embroiled than that of the country 

 between the Atabapo and the sources of the 

 Meta, the Guaviare, and the Caqueta. " It is 

 difficult to believe," says Mr. Caldas in a scien- 

 tific journal-^ published at Santa-Fe de Bogota, 

 " that we do not possess one map of the plains, 

 which commence at the eastern declivity of these 

 mountains, which we see daily before our eyes, 

 and on which the chapels of Guadaloupe and 

 Monserrat are erected. No person knows the 

 breadth of the Cordilleras, or the course of the 

 rivers which fall into the Oroonoko and the 

 Amazon ; and yet it will be by these tributary 



* I have determined this longitude from the observations 

 of the Portugueze astronomers at the Jupuru and the Apo- 

 poris, and from the difference of the meridians of Popayan, 

 and of San Juan de los Llanos. 



+ Semanario del Nuevo Reino do Granada, vol. i, p. 44. 



