476 



serts with simplicity, " that God would scarcely 

 have permitted a tyrant to be successful, and 



* 



make the fine discovery of the mouth of the 

 Maragnon." He supposes, that Aguirre reached 

 the sea by the Rio de Felipe, which " lies some 

 leagues distant from North Cape." 



Raleigh, in different voyages performed by 

 himself, or at his expense* , learned nothing of 

 an hydraulic communication between the Oroo- 

 noko and the Amazon ; but Keymis, his lieuten- 

 ant, who from flattery (and particularly in 

 imitation of the name of Orellana given to the 

 Maragnon) designates the Oroonoko under the 

 name of Raleana, was the first who had a vague 

 idea of the portages between the Essequibo, the 

 Caroni, and the Rio Branco, or Parima^. These 

 portages were by him converted into a great salt 

 lake; and thus they appear in the map con- 

 structed in 1599 from the narratives of Raleigh. 

 A Cordillera is figured between the Oroonoko 

 and the Amazon ; and, omitting the bifurcation 

 which exists, Hondius indicates another alto- 

 gether imaginary; making the Amazon com- 



Jana, and the Meary or Maranhao, as the same river, was 

 founded on an imperfect knowledge of the mouths of these 

 three rivers, and not on hypotheses of interior communica- 

 tions. 



* Cayley's Life of Sir Walter Raleigh, vol. i, p. 152, 227, 

 229, 263, 276 ; and vol. ii, p. 103, 118. 

 f Ibid., vol. t, p. 232, 236, 251, 283. 



