780 



crossed by the bed of the JJpper Oroonoko, 

 which flows from east to west. If we follow 

 the course of the Rio Branco, or that stripe of 

 cultivated land, which is dependent on the Capi- 

 tania General of Grand Para, we see lakes, 

 partly imaginary, and partly enlarged by geo- 

 graphers, forming two distinct groups. The 

 first of these groups includes the lakes, which 

 they place between the Esmeralda and the Rio 

 Branco ; and to the second belong those, that 

 are supposed to lie between the Rio Branco and 

 the mountains of Dutch and French Guyana. 

 It results from this sketch, that the question, 

 whether there exists a lake Parima on the east of 

 the Rio Branco, is altogether foreign to the pro- 

 blem of the sources of the Oroonoko. 



Beside the country which we have just noticed 

 (the Dorado de la Parime, traversed by the Rio 

 Branco), another part of America is found, two 

 hundred and sixty leagues toward the west, near 

 the eastern back of the Cordillera of the Andes, 

 equally celebrated in the expeditions to Dorado. 

 This is the Mesopotamia between the Caqueta, 

 the Rio Negro, the Uaupes, and the Jurubesh* 

 of which I have given a particular account 

 above * : it is the Dorado of the Omaguas, 

 which contains the lake Manoa of Father Acunha, 

 the Laguna de Oro of the Guanes, and the auri- 



* In the present vol., p. 311, 319, 340. 



