340 



The little group of mountains, with whiefi 

 we became acquainted at the sources of the 



says, that this river sends a branch to the north, which 

 branch in it's bifurcation gives birth to the Oroonoko and the 

 Rio Negro. He calls the branch of the Oroonoko Paragua y 

 that of the Rio Negro Casiri. He seems to hint, that the 

 Casiri is not the only source o* the Rio Negro, and that this 

 great river perhaps receives only the waters of the Caqueta 

 by the Casiri. Barrutieta had seen neither the branch of 

 the Caqueta which goes to the north, nor the bifurcation of 

 this branch. He had never been below the mouth of the 

 Caqueta 5 and the priests, who have since inhabited these 

 missions, believe, that father Barrutieta could have derived 

 these ideas only from maps constructed in Europe. Never 

 has any tributary stream of the Oroonoko, coming from the 

 west, borne the name of Paragua (see above, p. 219) j and 

 the hypothesis, that the Caqueta by a bifurcation gives birth 

 to the Oroonoko and the Rio Negro, dates already, as we 

 have seen, from the time of the geographer Sanson, in the 

 year 1656. We know with certainty, by the voyage which 

 I made with M. Bonpland, and by that of father Mancilla, 

 that neither the Oroonoko, nor the Guaviare, which has been 

 asserted to be the real trunk of the Oroonoko, receives a 

 branch of the Caqueta. If the missionaries of the Andaquies 

 (that is to say, the monks of the Rio Mocoa, the Caqueta, the 

 Riodela Fragua, and the Rio Caguan) believe in a southern 

 branch of the Caqueta, which, below the mouth of the Macaya 

 or Picudo, flows toward the Putumayo, the missionaries of the 

 Putumayo on the contrary deny it's existence. They assured 

 me, that they had never heard of any branch of the Caqueta 

 in going up from the lower missions of the Putumayo, (Marive, 

 the Assumption, San Ramon,) or from the mouth of the Rio 

 Yaguas to the upper missions (Mamos, San Diego, San Rafa- 

 el de Amaguajes), or at the mouth of the Rio del Guiuco. 



