607 



precision, not only because it was that by which 

 the traffic of native slaves was carried on, but 

 also to call the attention of those men, who at 

 some future day shall govern Guyana, to the 

 high importance of this labyrinth of rivers. 



It is by the four largest tributary streams, 

 which the majestic river of the Oroonoko re- 

 ceives on the right, the Carony, the Caura, the 

 Padamo, and the Ventuari, that European civil- 

 ization will one day penetrate into this country 

 of forests and mountains, which has a surface of 

 10,600 square leagues, and which is surrounded 

 by the Oroonoko on the north, the west, and 

 the south. The Capuchins of Catalonia, and 

 the Observantins of Andalusia and Valentia, have 

 already made settlements in the vallies of the 

 Carony and the Caura. The tributary streams 

 of the Lower Oroonoko, being the nearest to the 

 coast and the cultivated region of Venezuela,, 

 were naturally the first to receive missionaries, 



more or less in the direction of the latitude ; so that, with the 

 exception of a few portages, there is a navigation from east 

 to west, going from Essequibo and Demerary, for a dis- 

 tance of one hundred and forty leagues, in the latitude of 

 6° and 7°. This nayigation is performed in the interior, pa- 

 rallel to the course of the Lower Oroonoko, remaining from 

 thirty to forty leagues distant from this great river to the 

 south. This course may be compared in little to the great 

 line of navigation established in Siberia from west to east, by 

 the uniform direction of the tributary streams of the Obi, the 

 Jenisei, and the Lena. 



