801 



to father Caulin's work, an Alpine lake of ten 

 leagues in length, near which, towards the eastj 

 rise at the same time the Oroonoko, and the 

 Rio Idapa, a tributary stream of the Rio Negro ? 

 However vague may be the account of the sur- 

 geon of Hildesheim, it is impossible to admit, 

 that the mountain, which has a lake at it's sum- 

 mit, is to the north of the parallel of 2° 30': and 

 this latitude coincides nearly with that of the 

 Cerro Unturan. Hence it follows, that the 

 Alpine lake of Hortsmann, which has escaped 

 the attention of D'Anville, and which is perhaps 

 situate amid a group of mountains, lies north- 

 east of the portage from the Idapa to the Ma- 

 vaca, and south-east of the Oroonoko, where it 

 goes up above Esmeralda*. 



Most of the historians, who have treated of 

 the first ages of the conquest, seem persuaded, 

 that the name provincias or pais del Dorado 

 denoted originally every region abounding in 



* See my itinerary map, PI. 16; and above, p. 375 and 

 556. This reasoning is founded on the latitude of Esmeral- 

 da, which I found to be 3° 11'. A lake situate to the north 

 of the Cerro Unturan, and on the banks of which the Portu- 

 gueze colonists gather the pichurim bean, seems to prove, that 

 there exist Alpine lakes in the unknown land between the 

 Oroonoko and the Idapa. There are probably 4° of longi- 

 tude between the point of the Rio Branco, which Hortsmann 

 had reached on the 24th of June, 1740, and the Raudal des 

 Guaharibos, the last point of the Upper Oroonoko, of which 

 we have at present any certain knowledge. 

 VOL. V. 3 F 



