785 



the country, in which geographers have succes- 

 sively placed an inland sea (Mar Blanco ), and 

 the different lakes which are connected with the 

 fable of el Dorado de la Par hue. We find first 

 the Rio Carony, which is formed by the union * 

 of two branches of almost equal magnitude, the 

 Carony, properly so called, and the Rio Paragua. 

 The missionaries of Piritu call the latter river a lake 

 (laguna): it is full of shoals, and little cascades ; 

 but, " passing through a country entirely flat, it 

 is subject at the same time to great inundations, 

 and it's real bed (su verdadera caxaj can scarcely 

 be discovered -J-." The natives have given it the 

 name of Paragua or Parava which means in 

 the Caribbee language sea, or great lake. These 

 local circumstances and this denomination no 

 doubt have given rise to the idea of transform- 

 ing the Rio Paragua, a tributary stream of the 

 Carony, into a lake called Cassipa, on account 

 of the Cassipagotoes who lived in those coun- 



* Near the mission of San Pedro de las Bocas (between 

 San Sebastian de Abaratayme and Santa Magdalena de Cu- 

 rucay), six leagues north-east of the Villa de Barceloneta. 



t Caulin, p. 60. These observations of the author of the 

 Corogrqfia are so much the more remarkable, as he was en- 

 tirely ignorant of the existence of a lake Oassipa on our maps. 

 | Gili, vol. i, p. 3t>3. 



§ Raleigh, p. 64, 69. I always quote, when the contrary 

 is not expressly said, the original edition of 1596. Have 

 these tribes of Cassipagotoes, Epuremei, and Orinoqueponi, 

 so often mentioned by Raleigh, disappeared ? or did some 

 VOL. V. 3 E 



