358 



being employed, they must be planted and care- 

 fully cultivated. 



A little above the mission of Davipe, the Rio 

 Negro receives a branch of the Cassiquiare, the 

 existence of which is a very remarkable pheno- 

 menon in the history of the branchings of rivers. 

 This branch issues * from the Cassiquiare, north 

 of Vasiva, bearing the name of the Itinivini; 

 and, after having traversed for the length of 

 twenty-five leagues a flat country, almost en- 

 tirely destitute of inhabitants, falls into the Rio 

 Negro under the name of the Rio Conorichite. 

 It appeared to me to be more than one hundred 

 and twenty toises broad near it's mouth, and it 

 augments the volume of it's black waters by a 

 great mass of white. Although the current of 

 the Conorichite is very rapid, this natural canal 

 abridges three days of the navigation from Da- 

 vipe to Esmeralda. We cannot be surprised 



* I describe the Itinivini (or rather Itiniveni, water, veni, 

 of Itin) according to the ideas given me at the mouth of that 

 river, which is the effect of a second bifurcation, a branch of 

 a branch of the Oroonoko. Father Caulin, much more exact 

 in general than those who constructed the map of his work, 

 asserts, that the communication of the Conorichite with the 

 Cassiquiare is owing to a bifurcation of the Canno Mee, 

 which is a tributary stream of the Conorichite. Our maps, 

 while they arbitrarily suppress the communication between 

 Davipe and Vasiva, place a small fort (fuerto) in the midst 

 of this desert. 



