583 



fluence of the Gehette. The probability of a 

 fact is powerfully shaken, when it can be proved 

 to be totally unknown on the very spot, where it 

 ought to be known best ; and when those, by 

 whom it is related, contradict each other, not in 

 the least essential circumstances, but in all that 

 are the most important. I will enlarge no 

 longer on a discussion merely geographical ; I 

 shall here show, how the errors of the modern 

 maps have arisen from the habit of constructing 

 them upon the ancient maps ; how portages 

 have been taken for branchings of rivers ; how 

 rivers, called by the Indians great waters, have 

 been transformed into lakes ; how two of these 

 lakes (Cassipa and Parima), have been con- 

 founded and misplaced since the sixteenth cen- 

 tury ; finally, how we find in the names of the 

 tributary streams of the Rio Branco the key of 

 the greater part of these superannuated fictions. 



We were surrounded, when we embarked, by 

 those inhabitants, who call themselves whites 

 and of Spanish race. These poor people con- 

 jured us, to solicit from the governor of Angos- 

 tura their return to the steppes {Llanos), or, if 

 this favour were refused, their removal to the 

 missions of the Rio Negro, as to a cooler climate, 

 more free from insects. a However great may 

 have been our faults," said they, " we have ex- 

 piated them by twenty years of torments amid 

 this swarm of moustiques" I pleaded the cause 



