493 



the year 17(37, two or three canoes come an- 

 nually from the fort of San Carlos, by the bi- 

 furcation of the Oroonoko, to Angostura, to 

 fetch salt and the pay of the troops. These 

 voyages, from one basin of a river to another, 

 by the natural canal of the Cassiquiare, excite 

 no more attention in the colonists at present, 

 than the arrival of boats, that descend the Loire 

 by the canal of Orleans, awakens on the banks 

 of the Seine. 



Although since the voyage ot father Roman, in 

 1744, precise notions have been acquired in the 

 Spanish possessions in America, both of the direc- 

 tion of the Upper Oroonoko from east to west, and 

 of the manner of it's communication with the Rio 

 Negro, this knowledge did not reach Europe till 

 a much later period. In 1750, La Condamine 

 and D'Anville* still admitted, that the Oroonoko 



and La Cruz, is no longer found on the new maps of the Rio 

 Negro constructed at the hydrographic depot of Rio Ja- 

 neiro. Mr. Apollinario Diez de la Fuente, in a manuscript 

 journal of which I am in possession, calls it Maribaes, mili- 

 tary head-quarters. It is no doubt, the ancient Barcelus, 

 between the town of Thomar and the great mouth of the 

 Rio Branco. 



* See the classical memoir of this great geographer in the 

 Journal des Savans, March, 1750, p. 184. " One fact," says 

 d'Anville, " which cannot be considered as equivocal, after 

 the proofs with which we have been recently furnished, is 

 the communication of the Rio Negro with the Oroonoko ; 



