343 



from wishing to exaggerate the riches of this 

 soil ; but I do not think myself authorized to 

 deny the existence of precious metals in the 

 primitive mountains of Guyana for the sin- 

 gle reason, that in our journey through that 

 country we saw no metallic veins. It is some- 

 what remarkable, that the natives of the Oroo- 

 noko have a name in their languages for gold 

 {carucuru in Caribbee, caricuri in Tamanac^ 

 cavltta'm Maypure), while the word they use to 

 denote silver, praia, is manifestly borrowed from 

 the Spanish*. The notions collected by Acun- 

 na, father Fritz ; , and La Condamine, on the 

 stream-works of gold south and north of the 

 Rio Uaupes, agree with what I learnt of the 

 auriferous soil of those count ries. However great 

 we may suppose the communications that took 

 place between the nations of the Oroonoko before 

 the arrival of the Europeans, they certainly did 

 not draw their gold from the eastern declivity of 



* The Parecas say, instead ofprata, rata (Gili, vol. ii, p. 

 4). It is the Castillian word plata ill pronounced. Near 

 the Yurubesh there is another inconsiderable tributary stream 

 of the Rio Negro, the Curicur-iari. It is easy to recognize 

 in this name the Caribbee word carucur, gold. The Caribbees 

 pushed their incursions from the mouth of the Oroonoko 

 south-west toward the Rio Negro $ and it was this restless 

 people, who carried the fable of El Dorado, by the same way, 

 hut in an opposite direction (from south-west to north-east), 

 from the Mesopotamia between the Rio Negro and the Ju- 

 pura to the sources of the Rio Branco. 



